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Jack Roche	Jack Roche	Jemaah Islamiah	Down Under	Australian	Captured	Tough Guy	20030926
	Jack Roche	al-Qaeda	Southeast Asia	Australian	At Large		20021120
		pleaded guilty in 2004 to planning with Al-Qaeda to attack Israel's mission in Canberra, released from prison in Perth after serving four-and-a-half years behind bars
	Jack Roche	Mantiqi 4	Down Under				20030926

Down Under

Australian terror cell may still be active

2012-10-07

A cell of up to thirty jihadis may remain active in Australia, says the man who indoctrinated them while establishing a local branch of Jemaah Islamiah. Radical Islamic cleric Abdul Rahman Ayub, who was the deputy leader of JI in Australia to his twin brother Abdul Rahim, has said they were sent by Indonesia's Abu Bakar Bashir, in 1997 to train young radicals in their version of Islam. The brothers stayed until 2002, fleeing around the time of the Bali bombing. Ayub said the brothers had taught about 100 people. He said, "When I came back from Australia in 2002, to my knowledge there were about 30 people [who were still radicals in Australia]. I don't know about their recent development, whether they're still active or not, but I believe they are still there. Neither I nor ASIO know the exact figures, nor how active they are." Once one of Australia's most wanted men, Ayub also acknowledged he wanted to make Australia a financial hub for an attempt to overthrow the Indonesian state. Ayub was trained in Afghanistan between 1986 and 1992. He was an expert in unarmed combat, and worked with Bali bombers Hambali (whose wedding he helped pay for) and Mukhlas (whom he sparred with in kung fu). He said at one time he respected Bashir "more than I respected my parents". He denied advance knowledge of the Bali attack and insisted he never wanted an attack on Australian soil. He said, "My mission was to preach Islam ... Bashir told us not to commit any violence in Australia - we treated Australia as a country for taking political asylum. But we did teach jihad against Indonesia, against Suharto at the time. We taught about forming an Islamic state, but in Indonesia, not in Australia." He said Australia was to be "our financial base to financially support our struggle in Indonesia", though that plan had not worked out. They did recruit British immigrant and Muslim convert Jack Roche to JI - who was arrested and imprisoned in 2002 for conspiring to bomb the Israeli embassy in Canberra. After they recruited him, Roche went to Indonesia where he met terrorist mastermind Hambali. Ayub said, "Hambali influenced him with this Osama [bin Laden] doctrine and helped him go to al-Qaeda camp. It happened without our knowledge. When Roche returned [to Australia] he acted differently. He didn't obey me, and we suspected something was wrong." Ayub said September 11, Bali and Roche's plot were mistakes that had changed how Islam was seen in the West and had changed his own faith in violent jihad. Ayub now says, "I was furious. I was very against those attacks because it hurts Muslims themselves. It hurts people in general all over the world. It hurts humanity, and it hurts our principles." He works in the Jakarta area as a freelance theologian. His brother, who left Australia three days after the Bali bombing, runs two schools. Abdul Rahim did not want to be interviewed but, according to Abdul Rahman, has now also given up his belief in violent jihad.

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Europe

Australia's 'Jihad Jack' testifies in French bomb trial

2009-01-23

AN Australian convicted of plotting attacks with al-Qaeda told a Paris court today that a German accused of blowing up a synagogue had been close to Osama bin Laden. Jack Roche, who pleaded guilty in 2004 to planning with al-Qaeda to attack Israel's embassy in Canberra and is now free on parole, testified by video link from Perth. Christian Ganczarski, a German convert to Islam, stands accused of planning a 2002 suicide bombing of a Tunisian synagogue that killed 21 people. He is on trial in Paris, along with an alleged Tunisian accomplice and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-confessed mastermind of al-Qaeda's attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001. Roche told the court that Ganczarski was directly linked to Bin Laden, al-Qaeda's Saudi-born leader, and used the pseudonym "Abu Mohammed". "He obviously had close ties with bin Laden, because he sat next to him and gave him the note Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had given me for him," Roche, a British-born convert to Islam, told the court. Roche, dubbed "Jihad Jack" by the Australian media, confessed during his own 2004 trial to travelling to Afghanistan, where he met Bin Laden and received explosives training with the Islamist extremist group. "He had links too with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed," said Roche. "I met him in his house in Karachi. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed explained to me that Abu Mohamed was going to escort me to Afghanistan." Khalid Seikh Mohammed formerly maintained a hideout in the Pakistani port city of Karachi with links to Al-Qaeda's bases near Kandahar in southern Afghanistan. "Near Kandahar, one of the sons of bin Laden came to pick us up at a Taliban outpost," Roche told the court. "I spent a few days with him. I think he was a go-between between Europe and Afghanistan, and he had computer and radio skills," he said. Ganczarski pleaded innocent when he and Sheikh Mohammed went on trial earlier this month for plotting the synagogue bombing, which killed 14 German tourists, five Tunisians and two French nationals. Sheikh Mohammed is in the US military's Guantanamo Bay prison and will not attend the French hearings, but Ganczarski and his alleged accomplice Nizar Nawar were in court. French prosecutors have charged the trio with "complicity in attempted murder in relation to a terrorist enterprise" and they face a maximum sentence of 20 years in jail if convicted of the April 11, 2002 attack. The Paris trial is scheduled to end on February 6.

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Home Front: WoT

Mark Steyn: Looking for love in all the wrong places

2007-09-17

This year I marked the anniversary of Sept. 11 by driving through Massachusetts. It wasn't exactly planned that way, just the way things panned out. So, heading toward Boston, I tuned to Bay State radio talk-show colossus Howie Carr and heard him reading out portions from the official address to the 9/11 commemoration ceremony by Deval Patrick, who is apparently the governor of Massachusetts: 9/11, said Gov. Patrick, "was a mean and nasty and bitter attack on the United States." "Mean and nasty"? He sounds like an oversensitive waiter complaining that John Kerry's sent back the aubergine coulisagain. But evidently that's what passes for tough talk in Massachusetts these days – the shot heard around the world and so forth. Anyway, Gov. Patrick didn't want to leave the crowd with all that macho cowboy rhetoric ringing in their ears, so he moved on to the nub of his speech: 9/11, he continued, "was also a failure of human beings to understand each other, to learn to love each other." I was laughing so much I lost control of the wheel, and the guy in the next lane had to swerve rather dramatically. He flipped me the Universal Symbol of Human Understanding. I certainly understood him, though I'm not sure I could learn to love him. Anyway, I drove on to Boston and pondered the governor's remarks. He had made them, after all, before an audience of 9/11 families: Six years ago, two of the four planes took off from Logan Airport, and so citizens of Massachusetts ranked very high among the toll of victims. Whether any of the family members present Tuesday were offended by Gov. Patrick, no one cried "Shame!" or walked out on the ceremony. Americans are generally respectful of their political eminences, no matter how little they deserve it. We should beware anyone who seeks to explain 9/11 by using the words "each other": They posit a grubby equivalence between the perpetrator and the victim – that the "failure to understand" derives from the culpability of both parties. The 9/11 killers were treated very well in the United States: They were ushered into the country on the high-speed visa express program the State Department felt was appropriate for young Saudi males. They were treated cordially everywhere they went. The lap-dancers at the clubs they frequented in the weeks before the Big Day gave them a good time – or good enough, considering what lousy tippers they were. Sept. 11 didn't happen because we were insufficient in our love to Mohamed Atta. This isn't a theoretical proposition. At some point in the future, some of us will find ourselves on a flight with a chap like Richard Reid, the thwarted shoe-bomber. On that day we'd better hope the guy sitting next to him isn't Gov. Patrick, who sees him bending down to light his sock and responds with a chorus of "All You Need Is Love," but a fellow who "understands" enough to wallop the bejesus out of him before he can strike the match. It was the failure of one group of human beings to understand that the second group of human beings was determined to kill them that led the crew and passengers of those Boston flights to stick with the obsolescent 1970s hijack procedures until it was too late. Unfortunately, the obsolescent 1970s multiculti love-groove inclinations of society at large are harder to dislodge. If you'll forgive such judgmental categorizations, this isn't about "them," it's about "us." The long-term survival of any society depends on what proportion of its citizens thinks as Gov. Patrick does. Islamism is an opportunist enemy but you can't blame them for seeing the opportunity: In that sense, they understand us far more clearly than Gov. Patrick understands them. The other day, you may recall, some larky lads were arrested in Germany. Another terrorist plot. Would have killed more people than Madrid and London combined but it was nipped in the bud so it's just another yawneroo: Nobody cares. Who were the terrorists? Mohammed? Muhammad? Mahmoud? No. Their names were "Fritz" and "Daniel." "Fritz," huh? That's a pretty unusual way to spell Mohammed. Indeed. Fritz Gelowicz is as German as lederhosen. He's from Ulm, Einstein's birthplace, on the blue Danube, which, last time I was in Ulm, was actually a murky shade of green. And, in an excellent jest on Western illusions, Fritz was converted to Islam while attending the Multi-Kultur-Haus– the Multicultural House. It was, in fact, avowedly unicultural – an Islamic center run by a jihadist imam. At least three of its alumni – including another native German convert – have been killed fighting the Russians in Chechnya. Fritz was hoping to kill Americans. But that's one of the benefits of a multicultural world: There are so many fascinating diverse cultures, and most of them look best reduced to rubble strewn with body parts. Fritz and a pal, Atilla Selek, had been arrested in 2004 with a car full of pro-Osama propaganda praising the 9/11 attacks. Which sounds like a pilot for a wacky jihadist sitcom: "Atilla and the Hun." Fritz Gelowicz. Richard Reid. The Australian factory worker Jack Roche. The Toronto jihadists plotting to behead the Canadian prime minister. The son of the British Conservative Party official with the splendidly Wodehousian double-barreled name. All over the world there are young men raised in the "Multi-Kultur Haus" of the West who decide their highest ambition is to convert to Islam, become a jihadist and self-detonate. Why do radical imams seek to convert young Canadian, British and even American men and women in their late teens and twenties? Because they understand that when you raise a generation in the great wobbling blancmange of Deval Patrick-style cultural relativism – nothing is any better or any worse than anything else; if people are "mean and nasty" to us, it's only because we didn't sing enough Barney the Dinosaur songs at them – in such a world a certain percentage of its youth will have a great gaping hole where their sense of identity should be. And into that hole you can pour something fierce and primal and implacable. A while back, I had the honor of a meeting with the president, in the course of which someone raised the unpopularity of the war. He shrugged it off, saying that 25 percent of the population is always against the war – any war. In other words, there's nothing worth fighting for. And I joked afterward that some of that 25 percent might change their mind if Canadian storm troopers were swarming across the 49th Parallel or Bahamian warships were firing off the coast of Florida. But maybe not. Al-Qaida's ad hoc air force left a huge crater of Massachusetts corpses in the middle of Manhattan, and Gov. Patrick goes looking for love in all the wrong places. How many people in any society think like Deval Patrick? That's the calculation to make if you want to figure out its long-term survival prospects.

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Down Under

Australia frees Israeli embassy bomb plotter

2007-05-17

A British-born Muslim trained by Al-Qaeda and convicted of plotting to blow up Israel's embassy in Australia was freed Thursday after serving half of his nine-year jail term. Jack Roche, 53, who pleaded guilty in 2004 to planning with Al-Qaeda to attack Israel's mission in Canberra, walked free from a prison in the western city of Perth after serving four-and-a-half years behind bars, media reported. ... He confessed to travelling to Afghanistan, where he met Osama bin Laden before receiving explosives training with Al-Qaeda. He later returned to Australia where he carried out surveillance and planning for an attack on the embassy.

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Home Front: WoT

Fortress America's Gate is Open (Steyn)

2007-05-13

Most terrorists seem like bumbling losers if they're caught before the act: That's certainly true of the Fort Dix jihadists who took their terrorist training DVD to the local audio store to be copied. It was also true of the Islamists arrested in Toronto last year for plotting to behead the prime minister, one of whose cell members had a bride who wanted him to sign a prenup committing him to jihad. The Heathrow plotters arrested while planning to blow up U.S.-bound airliners included a Muslim convert who'd started out as the son of a British Conservative Party official with a P. G. Wodehouse double-barreled name and a sister who was a Victoria's Secret model and ex-wife of tennis champ Yanick Noah. But then Mohammed Atta and the 9/11 gang would have seemed pretty funny if you'd run into them in that lap-dance club they went to before the big day where the girls remembered them only as very small tippers. Most terrorists are jokes until the bomb goes off. So, when we're fortunate enough to catch them in advance, it's worth pausing to consider what they tell us about the broader threat we face. According to genius New York Times headline writers, "Religion Guided Three Held In Fort Dix Plot." You don't say. Any religion in particular? Well, the trio were Muslims, but Albanian Muslims -- i.e., they weren't Arabs and didn't have names like Mohammed and Abdullah (though their accomplices did). Even if America were minded to profile, it's harder to profile against chaps with names like "Shain Duka" (Fort Dix) or "Richard Reid" (the shoebomber) or "Jermaine Lindsay" (a July 7 Tube bomber) or "Muriel Degauque" (a Belgian lady who self-detonated in a suicide attack on U.S. forces in Iraq) or "Jack Roche" (an Australian arrested for plotting to blow up the Israeli Embassy in Canberra). Second, the young Duka brothers are "radical Muslim" sons in a family of otherwise "moderate Muslim" oldsters. That, too, fits a pattern of de-assimilation, of young Western Muslims far more implacable and hostile than their parents and grandparents. The London bombers were British subjects born and bred, radicalized in the vacuum of contemporary multiculturalism. One of the Toronto plotters had a father-in-law who was the pharmacist at the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry base. The Princess Pats have done sterling work in Afghanistan, and pop supports their mission. But his daughter doesn't, and she named his grandchild after a Chechen terrorist killed by the Russians. Third, what then radicalized so many Western Muslims? Answer: in many cases, the Balkans. When Yugoslavia collapsed 15 years ago, Jacques Poos told the Americans to butt out: "The hour of Europe has come!" he declared confidently. Poos was the foreign minister of Luxembourg, a country as big as your hot tub, but he chanced to be holding the European Union's rotating "presidency" at the time and, as it happened, the Americans were very happy to butt out. "We don't have a dog in this fight," said then-secretary of state, James Baker. Well, the hour of Europe came and went, and a couple of hundred thousand corpses later the EU was only too happy for Americans to butt back in again. So NATO bombed Christian Serbs in defense of Albanian Muslims, and a fat lot of good it did if the Duka brothers are any indication. In theory, Baker was right. But out there in the Balkans, if you're one of the dogs in the fight, great-power evenhandedness can seem pretty one-handed by the time you hear about it. Don't take my word for it. Here's Osama bin Laden: "The British are responsible for destroying the Caliphate system. They are the ones who created the Palestinian problem. They are the ones who created the Kashmiri problem. They are the ones who put the arms embargo on the Muslims of Bosnia so that 2 million Muslims were killed." Whoa, hold up there: How come a list of imperial interventions wound up with a bit of non-imperial non-intervention? Because, for serious nations, even not taking sides is seen as, in effect, taking sides. What was the single biggest factor in the radicalization of British Muslims? Omar Sheikh, convicted in Karachi for the kidnapping and beheading of Daniel Pearl, is British -- a Westernized non-observant chess-playing pop-listening beer-drinking London School of Economics student, until he was fired up by the massacres of Bosnian Muslims. And, while Europe dithered as the mountain of corpses piled up, Saudi money poured in, transforming the relatively mild Balkan Islam into something far more virulent. Look at the change in Muslim architecture in the region over the last 15 years: They build Wahhabist mosques now. Unlike the State Department complaceniks, the Islamists understand there is no stability. Tough, you say. So what? Washington still has no dog in these fights. It's time to hunker down in Fortress America. Which brings me to the fourth lesson: What fortress? The three Duka brothers were (if you'll forgive the expression) illegal immigrants. They're not meant to be here. Yet they graduated from a New Jersey high school and they operated two roofing companies and a pizzeria. Think of how often you have to produce your driver's license or Social Security number. But, five years after 9/11, this is still one of the easiest countries in the world in which to establish a functioning but fraudulent identity. Consider, for example, the post-9/11 ritual of airline security. You have to produce government-issued picture ID to the TSA official. Does that make you feel safer? On that Tuesday morning in September, four of the killers got on board by using picture ID they'd acquired through the "undocumented worker" network in Falls Church, Va. Half the jurisdictions in the United States issue picture ID to people who shouldn't even be in the country, and they issue it as a matter of policy. That's interesting. The Fort Dix boys were pulled over for 19 traffic violations, but because they were in "sanctuary cities," any cop who suspected they were illegals was unable to report them to immigration authorities. Again, as a matter of policy. Can we have a list of "Sanctuary Cities, please? On one hand, America creates a vast federal security bureaucracy to prevent another 9/11. On the other hand, American politicians and bureaucrats create a parallel system of education and welfare and health care entitlements, main- taining and expanding a vast network of fraudulent identity that corrupts the integrity of almost all state databases. And though it played a part in the killing of 3,000 Americans, leaders of both parties insist nothing can be done to stop it. All we can do is give the Duka brothers "a fast track to citizenship." The Iranians already are operating in South America's Tri-Border area. Is it the nothing-can-be-done crowd's assumption that the fellows who run armies of the "undocumented" from Mexico into America are just kindhearted human smugglers who'd have nothing to do with jihad even if the price was right? If you don't have borders, you won't have a nation -- and you may find "the jobs Americans won't do" covers a multitude of sins.

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Down Under

Rabiyah and daughter married terror twins

2006-12-11

AUSTRALIA'S most watched woman, Rabiyah Hutchinson, and her eldest daughter were once at the apex of Jemaah Islamiah's first known attempt at setting up a terror cell in Australia. An investigation by The Australian has revealed that Ms Hutchinson, who married JI leader Abdul Rahim Ayub, also married off her eldest daughter to her husband's twin brother, the Afghani-trained jihadist Abdul Rahman Ayub. The Australian has been told the daughter was about 16 at the time of the marriage to her uncle, who had been sent to Australia with his brother to set up the JI cell known as Mantiqi4. When approached by The Australian last week, Abdul Rahman Ayub refused to comment on the marriage. It is understood the marriage was shortlived and that the couple had no children. "So why'd you get a divorce, Abdul?" "I hated her guts." It has also been discovered that Ms Hutchinson, now 53, has been married eight times -- twice to suspected terror leaders. When she married in 1984, Abdul Rahim Ayub was her third husband. The one before that was the guy with the hat. After they broke up in 1996 she remarried several times. In 2000 she married an al-Qa'ida member and confidant of Osama bin Laden, the Egyptian-born Mustafa Hamid, or Abu al Walid al-Masri. At the time, Hamid was a senior member of al-Qa'ida and worked closely with bin Laden, but later split with him over ideological differences. "Binny! Are you tryin' to get us all killed?" "If y'don't like it, get the hell out!" "Well, I don't like it!" "Throw him out, boyz!" The blonde Ms Hutchinson's marriages, her good looks and startling blue eyes have prompted some to refer to her as the Elizabeth Taylor of JI. But a member of the Islamic community in which she lived in Sydney said Ms Hutchinson was widely disliked and her views were considered archaic. "She was very anti-Western," he told The Australian. He said there was also an oft-recounted story about her days in Afghanistan in the 1980s during the war against Soviet forces. "She was considered such a troublemaker the mujaheddin wanted to kill her," he said. "Mahmoud! Let me borrow your rocket launcher! I'm going to kill that woman!" "But why, Ahmed?" "I hate her guts!" The story went that it was her brother-in-law, Abdul Rahman Ayub, who saved her. On another trip to Afghanistan at the time, Ms Hutchinson was accompanied by her then husband, Abdul Rahim Ayub. Ms Hutchinson, through her lawyer Peter Erman, has declined to comment on the revelations but she has previously denied any involvement in terrorism. "No, no! Certainly not!" "She does not wish to assist you in publishing more lies about her by giving you a detailed response," Mr Erman said in an email. "I got nuttin' to say to youse! Nuttin'" Inquiries by The Australian have revealed that Ms Hutchinson was born Robyn Mary Hutchinson in Mudgee, central-western NSW, in August 1953. The Australian has been told that her parents have died and that her siblings have spread across Australia but she is no longer in touch with them. "They don't like her, either!" After what friends described as an unhappy life she headed to Bali on a holiday in about 1970. She loved Bali, married a Buddhist and stayed on the island. Despite the birth of a daughter, the marriage did not last. The Buddhists couldn't stand her, either, huh? I think we can see a pattern emerging... She moved to Jakarta and then married another Indonesian man, named Bambang Wisudo, and they had two daughters together. The oldest, Suniyah, is living quietly on Sydney's northern beaches, but she does not attend the local mosque or mix with the Islamic community as her mother and stepfather once did. "They remind me too much of me Mum." Suniyah's younger sister, Rahma, was born in 1982 at Manly hospital on Sydney's northern beaches. Rahma was married in 1999 at the age of 16 to Khaled Cheikho, one of the 22 men arrested in Sydney and Melbourne last year during the counter-terrorism Operation Pendennis. Ms Hutchinson married Abdul Rahim Ayub in 1984 and she lived in the Jakarta areas of Tanah Abang and Depok. It is understood Ms Hutchinson speaks Indonesian as well as Arabic and spent much of her time in Indonesia undertaking dawa, or Islamic missionary work. "It's her again, Bambang!" "Close the windows! Pretend we ain't home!" "Gawd, I hate that woman!" Nasir Abas, a former JI member who has turned informer, said he was aware of Rabiyah but knew little about her. "It is the JI culture -- you never know the background of others' wives," he said. "Every once in awhile, of course, you had to ask yourself: 'Where do they get these people?'" Ms Hutchinson and Abdul Rahim Ayub had four children: Mohammed, 21, and Abdullah, 19, Mustafa, 16, and their sister, Aminah. They live together in Yemen with stepsister Rahma. Mohammed and Abdullah and their friend Marek Samulski were released from a Yemeni jail last week seven weeks after they were arrested on suspicion of involvement in terrorist activities. No charges were laid against them. "Yez got nuttin' on us, coppers! Da witnesses is all dead!" Mohammed and Abdullah were born in Darwin after Ms Hutchinson and Ayub had returned to Australia in 1985. The family moved to Melbourne, staying in Footscray and West Sunshine until 1990. They moved to Sydney, where she met Jack Roche, the Islamic convert from Perth who became the first person jailed in Australia for terrorism-related offences. After the couple separated, Abdul Rahim Ayub moved to Perth before fleeing the country in the days after the 2002 Bali bombing. Abdul Rahman Ayub was deported to Indonesia on immigration visa offences. "AND STAY OUT, DAMMIT!" Ms Hutchinson then travelled extensively overseas with her children, including visits to Egypt, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Where'd the money come from? Air travel isn't free. She spent several years in Afghanistan, working as a midwife, until the attacks on the US on September 11, 2001. During her time there, she was a conduit for Australians arriving in Afghanistan, and she met "Jihad" Jack Thomas and his wife, Maryati. Since returning to Australia, she has been under constant surveillance by ASIO and has moved at least five times in the past few years. At one of those addresses, in Wiley Park, southwest Sydney, the tenants complained they were still receiving letters addressed to her from Centrelink two years later.

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Down Under

Arrests force brothers to defend JI past

2006-11-04

ABDUL Rahman Ayub is a worried man, but he is adamant he has left his terrorist past behind. The Indonesian preacher, who along with twin brother Abdul Rahim Ayub headed the Australian chapter of regional terror network Jemaah Islamiah, says he has long renounced the radical teachings of former mentor Abu Bakar Bashir. The pair have also washed their hands of Abdul Rahim's sons, Mohammad and Abdullah Ayub, who were arrested in Yemen last month on terrorism charges. They accuse Abdul Rahim's former wife, Australian woman Rabiyah Hutchison, of turning two "sweet, cute boys" into hardliners eager to create a Muslim caliphate by any means. And they accuse Abdul Rahim's former wife, Australian woman Rabiyah Hutchison, of turning two "sweet, cute boys" into hardliners eager to create a Muslim caliphate by any means. However, for the past four years, after long sojourns in Australia marshalling the faithful, they have kept their heads down in Jakarta, anxious to evade the scrutiny of authorities and, they claim, former religious compatriots who would like to see them come to a rough end. They even believe that Indonesia's National Intelligence Bureau, or BIN, could cause problems for them if they speak out. Abdul Rahman, a genial, bearded character with a quick smile, arrived at a Jakarta Pizza Hut restaurant yesterday to explain why he and his identical twin had avoided the eye of Australian and Indonesian investigators keen to probe their involvement in terror atrocities such as the 2002 Bali bombing. Abdul Rahman was deported from Australia months before the JI attack, after having his bid for refugee status rejected, and Abdul Rahim fled just days after it, attending a JI planning meeting in Indonesia at which the Bali planners were also present. Abdul Rahman was deported from Australia months before the JI attack, after having his bid for refugee status rejected, and Abdul Rahim fled just days after it, attending a JI planning meeting in Indonesia at which the Bali planners were also present. The men had spent several years living and preaching in Sydney and Perth, and raising money from the local Muslim community to send to community leaders including Bashir. Abdul Rahman denied any knowledge of this fundraising activity yesterday, insisting that "any money I collected was only for the poor. For myself, I know of nothing else". They have also been accused of being a link to al-Qa'ida after Abdul Rahman spent several years in Afghanistan in the 1990s fighting the Soviet occupation alongside Osama bin Laden -- then "a mere foot soldier" in the resistance movement. He was also friends with terror mastermind Hambali, alias Riduan Isamuddin. "But should we be responsible for people we once used to be friends with?" Abdul Rahman said. Just because I knew Hambali means nothing. People think that all the veterans from Afghanistan are the same, but it's just not true. In Afghanistan I organised taking care of orphans and giving them food, but on my return I'm somehow a terrorist. "Just because I knew Hambali means nothing. People think that all the veterans from Afghanistan are the same, but it's just not true. In Afghanistan I organised taking care of orphans and giving them food, but on my return I'm somehow a terrorist." Abdul Rahman said his brother had a message for his ex-wife: please call. "He wants to know how his sons are," he said. Abdul Rahim, who has survived by running a general store then by teaching English, has disowned his sons because of their hardline ways, but is sorry for the breakdown in communication and wants his former wife to make an effort to get in touch. Ms Hutchison has a daughter, Rahma, from her first marriage to a Balinese man, which foundered before she moved into the circle of JI founder Abdullah Sungkar in the early 1980s. Abdul Rahman says he and his brother met her when the study group she was part of went to hear him preach in Jakarta. He knew she was a "hardliner" even then, but thought that her radical views would mellow. That turned out to be a false hope, but not before the union between her and his brother had produced Mohammad and Abdullah and a daughter, Aminah. After years of silence, Ms Hutchison called Abdul Rahim after their sons' arrests in Yemen, on October 17, but received a curt "I don't know, and I don't want to know" from the man who feels that his boys -- now 19 and 21 -- were kept from him after the marriage ended in 1996. It is a response he regrets, according to Abdul Rahman, who says providing for family -- both men have six children, Abdul Rahim with a second wife -- is more important than any effort they might have previously engaged in to spread Islam. Abdul Rahman earns money preaching at mosques and small gatherings -- including for employees of state airline Garuda -- after previous low-paid stints selling donuts from the back of a motorbike and hawking his own paintings of flowers and wildlife. He denies he has been in The Philippines in recent months training terrorists allied with JI and the Abu Sayyaf organisation. He also insists the men have been slandered by association with JI and al-Qa'ida, and fear their income will be diminished as students stay away because of the latest revelations. Abdul Rahman earns money preaching at mosques and small gatherings -- including for employees of state airline Garuda -- after previous low-paid stints selling donuts from the back of a motorbike and hawking his own paintings of flowers and wildlife. He denies he has been in The Philippines in recent months training terrorists allied with JI and the Abu Sayyaf organisation. "Our former friends in Australia don't contact us any more, because they're frightened given what they hear about us in the news," Abdul Rahman said. "All these accusations, there is no actual proof, only assumptions." Abdul Rahman remains angry at claims by jailed Australian terrorist Jack Roche that the brothers were involved in a plot to bomb targets including the Israeli embassy in Canberra, saying: "If he comes here (to Jakarta), I will fight him over this." "Australia should know that it was us who forbade him from carrying out terrorist actions," he declares. "We said that if you do this thing, we will destroy your house. This action would also have been in opposition to the preaching of Abu Bakar Bashir, who declared that violence was forbidden in Australia." He says he abandoned Bashir's teachings because they were too extreme. Even so, he pleads for understanding: "You have to look at it case by case. Not everyone in JI is a terrorist. For now, we just have to find ways to live, to provide for our children."

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Arabia

Yemen-arrested brothers' mum also a suspect

2006-11-02

THE Australian mother whose two sons are in a Yemeni jail on terrorist charges was suspected of being involved in a Jemaah Islamiah plot to attack the Sydney Olympics. The Daily Telegraph understands Rabiah Hutchison, reportedly a former Mudgee dope-smoking hippie and now a radical Muslim who wears a burqa, was married to Indonesian Abdul Rahim Ayub. Rabiah Hutchison, reportedly a former Mudgee dope-smoking hippie and now a radical Muslim who wears a burqa, was married to Indonesian Abdul Rahim Ayub. Ayub and his twin brother, Abdul Rahman Ayub, set up the first JI cell in Sydney, called Mantiqi4. In the lead up to the 2000 Olympics, intelligence sources had reports of an al-Qaeda terrorist plan which had been discussed among members of Mantiqi4. Ms Hutchison was well known to security organisations in the region. Her lawyer, Adam Houda, said yesterday she was concerned about the health and welfare of her sons, Mohammed Ayub and Abdullah Ayub, whom she was with in Yemen. Mr Houda said he was briefing lawyers in the Gulf state because he had not been able to contact the young men, aged 18 and 20, in prison in the capital Sanaa. The mother-in-law of one of the young men yesterday took stress leave from her teaching job at a private Sydney Islamic school, concerned for the future of her daughter and grandchildren, also in Yemen. The mother-in-law of one of the young men yesterday took stress leave from her teaching job at a private Sydney Islamic school, concerned for the future of her daughter and grandchildren, also in Yemen. A spokeswoman for the Rissalah College in Lakemba said the teacher had told staff her son-in-law was innocent. The two young men from Canterbury were arrested in a sting operation three weeks ago, along with a third Sydney man of Polish background - Marat Sumolsky - who is now living overseas. Their father Abdul Rahim and his twin brother moved throughout suburban Sydney, Melbourne and Perth in the late 1990s, drawing together radical Muslims. Abdul Rahman joined his brother in Australia in December 1997 and applied for refugee status, which was refused. When their plan to take control of the mosque at Dee Why was defeated by moderate Muslims, they moved to Sydney and Perth, mixing with Jihad Jack Thomas and Jack Roche. Thomas told the ABC's Four Corners program he attended a bush camp organised by the brothers for "jihad training". Abdul Rahman was deported from Perth in 1999. In February 2000, Abdul Rahim sent Jack Roche, Australia's only convicted terrorist, to visit JI mastermind Hambali, said to be behind the deadly 2002 Bali bombings. Abdul Rahim fled Australia three days after the bombings, which he is suspected of being involved in.

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Down Under

Muslims not the enemy: AFP chief

2006-09-15

Mick Keelty is the top cop in Australia. Is it me, or does it seem like he has gone over to the other side? FEDERAL police commissioner Mick Keelty has urged people to back off Muslims, insisting Islamic Australia is not to blame for terrorism. In a revealing interview with The Weekend Australian, Mr Keelty said racial profiling was self-defeating because it risked alienating mainstream Muslims while ignoring the real danger of homegrown non-Muslim terror. "I remind people that the firstperson who was convicted of a terrorist offence in Australia was a person with the unlikely name of Jack Roche," the police chief said. And Mr Keelty said he did not like the phrase "the war on terror", because it did not apply in Australia. "Unless people understand what is happening here, we risk alienating the Islamic community, we risk branding the Islamic community," he said. Mr Keelty made no criticism, direct or implied, of how politicians were conducting the debates on immigration and terror. But his message of inclusion is in contrast to the thrust of federal politics in the past few weeks.

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Down Under

Convicted Australian tells of 'martrydom plan'

2006-08-21

CONVICTED terrorist Jack Roche has told a court a letter seized from the home of one of 13 Victorian terror suspects indicated its holder wanted to perform jihad "to the point of martyrdom". Takes one to know one, eh? Roche, who was convicted under 2002 federal anti-terror laws, appeared at the Melbourne Magistrates' Court by video-link from an undisclosed location today. He was giving evidence in the committal hearing for the 13 men who are charged with being members of a terrorist group. The British-born Australian, who lived in Perth, was asked by Australian Federal Police for his opinion about a letter written in Arabic and translated to English that was seized from the Yarraville home of one of the accused, Amer Haddara, 26. The letter, whose writer was not identified, states its holder is a “known friend to us and has a desire to go out in Allah the Almighty's cause”. It asks: “Please receive him and organise a suitable suite for him.” The holder of the letter had a desire to perform jihad and possibly martyrdom, Roche said in a statement tendered to the court. “The phrasing of the letter lends itself to somebody intending to commit jihad in the way of Allah,” Roche said in the police statement. He said the most concerning aspect of the letter was the phrase: “Go out in Allah, the Almighty's cause.” Interesting way to make a living as a consultant, from behind bars, but I suspect he's right about this. “That to me suggests a quite serious and specific, rather than general, desire of the holder of the letter to perform jihad possibly to the point of martyrdom for Allah's cause,” Roche said in the police statement. Roche was jailed for nine years, with a minimum of four-and-a-half years, in June 2004 for conspiring to blow up the Israeli embassy in Canberra. He said he needed a letter of introduction when he attended an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan in 2000 and suggested this letter may have been for a similar purpose. “It is definitely a possibility that this letter may be intended for use by a person who wishes to do some kind of training,” he said. When questioned by Haddara's lawyer, Tony Trood, Roche agreed he had not read the contents of his own “letter of introduction”, also in Arabic, which he cannot understand. Roche attended an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan and met its leader Osama bin Laden in 2000. While in Afghanistan, Roche agreed to conduct surveillance at the Israeli Embassy in Canberra, he told the court. He was also asked to monitor the movements of Melbourne Jewish business man Joe Gutnick and establish a cell in Australia comprising caucasian Muslims interested in jihad. The other 12 men charged with being members of a terrorist group are Abdul Nacer Benbrika, 46, of Dallas, Aimen Joud, 21, of Hoppers Crossing, Fadal Sayadi, 26, of Coburg, Majed Raad, 22, of Coburg, Ahmed Raad, 23, of Fawkner, Abdullah Merhi, 21, of Fawkner, Hany Taha, 31, of Hadfield, Shoue Hammoud, 26, of Hadfield, Izzydeen Atik, 26, of Williamstown, Bassam Raad, 24, of Brunswick, Ezzit Raad, 24 of Preston and Shane Kent, 29, of Meadow Heights. The committal hearing before Magistrate Paul Smith continues tomorrow.

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Terror Networks

Clear case of misplaced sympathy

2006-07-03

David Hicks's supporters are in denial about the nature of his actions, writes Gerard Henderson. IT'S all but official. The United States, on George Bush's watch, is not a fascist state, despite what some Bush critics allege. The decision of the US Supreme Court in Hamdan v Rumsfeld, handed down last week, shows that the rule of law still prevails in the US democracy. In Hamdan's case, by a majority of five to three, the court found against the Bush Administration's attempted use of military commissions to try detainees held at Guantanamo Bay who have been charged with crimes. The majority comprised Justices John Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Ginsburg, Stephen Breyerand Anthony Kennedy. Stevens, Souter and Kennedy were appointed by Republican administrations. Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito delivered dissenting opinions. All three were also appointed by Republican administrations. This is not the first time the Supreme Court has found against the Bush Administration. Bush is an authoritative President, but even at a time of war he is limited by the US constitution. Salim Hamdan's case has uncertain implications for South Australian-born David Hicks, who has been held at Guantanamo Bay for more than four years. As is often the case in the US legal system, this matter has dragged on for far too long, partly due to delays caused by legal actions taken by defendants and partly due to a slow prosecution process. Unfortunately, an unintended result of Hamdan's case may be to further delay legal action against Hicks and others. As the Labor frontbencher Nicola Roxon warned on Friday, "the last thing we want to do is to turn someone like David Hicks into a martyr". Already there is considerable support for Hicks in Australia from those who maintain he has been denied due process. This is an informal group which includes many lawyers and journalists and a few academics along with some politicians. Among the latter group, Hicks's cause is most frequently annunciated by the minor parties (Democrats, Greens) and independents, but some Labor MPs are also vocal on the issue. In his chapter in Coming to the Party (MUP, 2006), Barry Jones argues that the ALP should embrace the Hicks cause (among others), lest it appear to be "safe, simple, bland". It is not clear how such a position is consistent with the point made by Jones on television on Sunday that Labor's essential task is to win more seats in such states as Queensland, Western Australia, NSW and South Australia - especially since the first two states are more sensitive than most to national security issues, in view of their relative isolation. There are not many votes in proclaiming the rights of someone who is alleged to have trained with al-Qaeda. Certainly, Hicks is entitled to a fair hearing in the US in accordance with legal process. What's more, there is evidence his incarceration is unduly harsh. But this is no reason to go into denial about Hicks's actions, which have directly led to his predicament. Interviewed on ABC TV's Lateline on Friday, Major Michael Mori - Hicks's US military lawyer - said his client "hasn't injured anyone" and "is not a killer". How does he know this? Ironically, the case against Hicks is spelt out in The President Versus David Hicks, which aired on SBS TV in 2004. The film's directors, Curtis Levy and Bentley Dean, went out of their way to present the case for Hicks, but the tactic backfired due to the decision to quote some of Hicks's letters to his father, Terry Hicks. In August 2000 Hicks told his father of his time training with the Islamist terrorist group Lashkar-e-Toiba on the Pakistan side of the Kashmir line of control: "Every night there is an exchange of fire. I got to fire hundreds of rounds There are not many countries in the world where a tourist can go and stay with the army and shoot across the border at its enemy, legally." Hicks was not firing at bats. If he did not kill or injure anyone, it can only be because he missed his targets. Elsewhere Hicks said he was "officially a Taliban member", advocated the implementation of "strict Islamic law" including the "death sentence" and "all Islamic punishments", proclaimed the need for "an Islamic revolution", railed against "the Western-Jewish domination" and celebrated beheadings in poetry: "Muhammad's food you shall be fed/To disagree, so off with your head." There is a tendency among some Western commentators not to take self-proclaimed revolutionaries seriously. In a sense, revolutionaries, including those of the Islamic genre, deserve more respect. The events in the US of September 11, 2001, and in Britain on July 7 last year indicate that Islamist revolutionaries - whether on tourist visas or citizens - are intent on destroying Western and Muslim societies. The details are set out in The 9/11 Commission Report and the Report of the Official Account of the Bombings in London on 7th July 2005. Since then there have been serious allegations of planned terrorist attacks on Canada and New Zealand. In recent times, juries in Australia have found Faheem Khalid Lodhiand Joseph "Jihad Jack" Thomas guilty of terrorist offences under the new legislation introduced after the events of September 11. Jack Roche pleaded guilty to terrorist offences under the previous legislation. Others have been charged and are awaiting trial. Lex Lasry, QC, maintained that Thomas was the victim of a "trophy trial". After the jury had found the accused guilty of accepting funds from a terrorist organisation, Justice Philip Cummins dismissed Lasry's assertion. The judge said "al-Qaeda was not a charitable organisation; it was not a travel agency". In a recent plea for Thomas on ABC Radio National's Perspectives program, Anna Sande said her friend "was a young man in the wrong place at the wrong time, but not for the wrong reasons". A jury thought otherwise. Sande raised concern about Thomas's mental health and the costs that his parents have endured in supporting his legal defence. The former is a matter of real concern. Yet the latter could be resolved by well-off lawyers and other professionals taking the hat around to assist the Thomas family. As with Hicks, the supporters of Thomas would have more credibility if they openly acknowledged that training or associating with al-Qaeda is a serious matter. Gerard Henderson is executive director of the Sydney Institute.

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Down Under

Australia urged to establish Judge-only terrorism court

2006-06-19

AUSTRALIA has been urged to establish an exclusive terrorism court similar to the Northern Ireland judicial system to avoid disclosing potentially sensitive security information to juries. As Sydney architect Faheem Lodhi yesterday became the first person to be convicted by a jury of planning a terrorist attack in Australia, one of the world's foremost counter-terrorism experts, John Stevens, called for terrorism cases to be heard by a judge alone. Terror trial: Lodhi set for life sentence The former head of the London Metropolitan police has joined Australia's top policeman, Mick Keelty, in arguing for a change to the justice system. Lord Stevens and Mr Keelty discussed the issue in Sydney last week while the jury was deliberating on the terrorism charges against Lodhi. Lord Stevens, who is considered one of London's most successful police commissioners, said a successful precedent had been set in Northern Ireland where judge-only courts were used to run cases against accused IRA terrorists. Lord Stevens said one of the major issues in conducting terrorism trials was the question of how much information should and could be disclosed to a jury. "There is some information that should never see the light of day," he said. "They (the judges) are going to be guarding the information and ensuring that it remains confidential." A jury took more than a week to find Faheem Lodhi guilty of three terrorism-related offences under Australia's national terrorism laws. His conviction is the most serious so far under Australia's federal anti-terror laws. It follows a series of terrorism trials around the country that have delivered mixed results. In 2004, Jack Roche, 50, a Muslim convert, became the first person to be convicted of an offence under counter-terrorism laws introduced in 2002. The Perth man was sentenced to nine years' jail after pleading guilty to conspiring to blow up the Israeli embassy in Canberra. But a New South Wales Supreme Court jury acquitted Zeky Mallah, 21, of terrorism charges after he was accused of preparing to launch a suicide attack on the Sydney office of either ASIO or the Department of Foreign Affairs. Mallah pleaded guilty to a charge of threatening to kill a commonwealth officer. He became the first person to be acquitted under Australia's anti-terror legislation. "Jihad" Jack Thomas, the Melbourne man whom Osama bin Laden is said to have wanted as an al-Qa'ida sleeper agent in Australia, was also acquitted by a jury of terrorism charges. But he was sentenced to five years' jail for receiving funds from a terrorist organisation. The push for exclusive terrorist trials could bring Australia closer to the French legal system, where cases are determined through judicial interrogation. Greg Pemberton from the Centre for Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism at Macquarie University, said terrorism charges should be dealt with in the normal way "so they are not under the influence of the politics of the time".

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