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British terror suspect had bomb making manuals, court told

2010-01-27

Mohammed Usman Saddique, 27, was stopped by police after getting out of a silver BMW outside his family home in Walthamstow, East London. Inner London Crown Court was told that Saddique was not alleged to be part of the conspiracy to blow up aircraft over the Atlantic but was arrested as part of the same police operation. When he was cautioned by police he is said to have told them: “You gotta be joking' but among a set of CDs on the desk in his attic bedroom, police found one labelled “mHacker' said to refer to “Master Hacker.' Richard Whittam QC, prosecuting, told the court the CD contained a number of folders including the Terrorist Handbook which contained “detailed instructions and advice on the availability and use of component parts for different types of explosives, including a list of useful household chemicals and availability.' Another, called “bombs and more' contained “step-by-step instructions on mixing and making various types of primary and secondary explosives,' Mr Whittam said. He added: “If the chemicals recommended were difficult to obtain, it included household substitutes that could be obtained through more conventional means.' Other files included a document on detonators and another on “improvised munitions' which was described as “step by step instructions.' Following his arrest in August 2006, Saddique made a statement through his solicitor in which he claimed that the computer equipment found in the house belonged to his brother, an IT analyst for a firm in the City of London. But interviewed by police officers, his brother is alleged to have told them the CD was not his. Police also found a DHL courier receipt in the pocket of a black leather jacket hanging on a door in the hall dated February 2005 for the sending of a two-way radio to Pakistan. They also found a book called “Join the Caravan' by Sheikh Abdullah Azzam, which included a quote from Osama bin Laden and was described as a “source of inspiration to thousands of young Muslims to go and fight jihad [holy war].' Inside a copy of the SAS Personal Survival Handbook, was a printed document that said: “I am appointing you to lead this army to test and try you.' Printed documents from the internet referred to al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban. Saddique is charged with engaging in conduct in preparation of terrorist acts in relation to the mHacker CD and two mobile phones and possessing a document or record containing information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism. The case continues.

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Terror Networks

Counterterriosm Blog: Buried Videos and Documents in Backyard Show HAMAS Links

2007-08-01

The Holy Land Foundation (HLF) trial resumed this Monday with hours of video evidence, some of which had been buried in the backyard of unindicted co-conspirator Fawaz Mushtaha, a former resident of a Northern Virginia suburb of Washington DC. The videos show HLF fundraising festivals (involving singing, lectures and sermons, presumably for charitable purposes), including one in which defendant Muhammad El Mezain is sandwiched between two leaders of HAMAS at that time, Mahmoud al Zahar and Jamil Hamami. Along with Mezain, several other defendants in the trial are clearly visible. Mufid Abdulqader, a member of the musical troupe al-Sakra can be seen performing at these festivals where crowds chanted slogans such as “Khaybar, Khaybar ya yahud. Jaish Muhammed soufa ya’oud.” (“O Jews of Khaybar, the army of Muhammad is returning!”) *** Skits were performed on stage at the festivals, including one that portrayed Israeli soldiers shooting at Palestinian children as well a skit starring defendant Abdulqader as a HAMAS activist who chokes a Jew in one skit and stabs a soldier in another. One such festival in Los Angeles makes reference to Sheikh Abdullah Azzam, the charismatic Palestinian cleric who was close with and greatly influenced Osama Bin-Laden in the 1980s. (Azzam was also a popular speaker at Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP) conferences; IAP is an unindicted co-consopirator in this case). Several of the videos also praise the military wing of HAMAS, the Izz ad-Din al Qassam Brigades, as well as Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. At the end of two of these fundraising videos, a flashing banner rose from the bottom of the screen urging people to donate to The Occupied Land Fund, the name used by HLF until the early 1990s. *** Khaybar, an oasis near Medina inhabited mainly by Jews in the 7th century. In the year 628, Muhammad led the Muslims against it, defeating the Jews in battle and subjugating the survivors, who would later be expelled from Arabia. Chant implies that history will repeat itself.

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Terror Networks

The violent life of Abu Musab Zarqawi

2006-06-09

On a cold and blustery evening in December 1989, Huthaifa Azzam, the teenage son of the legendary Jordanian-Palestinian mujahideen leader Sheikh Abdullah Azzam, went to the airport in Peshawar, Pakistan, to welcome a group of young men. All were new recruits, largely from Jordan, and they had come to fight in a fratricidal civil war in neighboring Afghanistan—an outgrowth of the CIA-financed jihad of the 1980s against the Soviet occupation there. The men were scruffy, Huthaifa mused as he greeted them, and seemed hardly in battle-ready form. Some had just been released from prison; others were professors and sheikhs. None of them would prove worth remembering—except for a relatively short, squat man named Ahmad Fadhil Nazzal al-Khalaylah. He would later rename himself Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Once one of the most wanted men in the world, for whose arrest the United States offered a $25 million reward, al-Zarqawi was a notoriously enigmatic figure—a man who was everywhere yet nowhere. I went to Jordan earlier this year, three months before he was killed by a U.S. airstrike in early June, to find out who he really was, and to try to understand the role he was playing in the anti-American insurgency in Iraq. I also hoped to get a sense of how his generation—the foreign fighters now waging jihad in Iraq—compare with the foreign fighters who twenty years ago waged jihad in Afghanistan.

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Terror Networks

An Omission of Note

2006-06-02

by Dan Darling, from the Weekly Standard LAST WEEK the Washington Post featured a story on Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, the Spanish-Syrian al Qaeda strategist who wrote the 1,600 page Call for a Global Islamic Resistance. The Post story provided a revealing look at Nasar who, despite his capture, remains the leading ideological architect of al Qaeda's war against the United States. But the Post also missed a number of important points in Nasar's career. The Post describes Nasar as having been "born in Aleppo, Syria, in 1958 and studied engineering. In the early 1980s, he took part in a failed revolt by the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood against Syrian strongman Hafez al-Assad. According to his own written accounts, he fled the country after that, then trained in camps in Jordan and Egypt. Later, he said, he moved to Europe when it became clear that Assad was firmly entrenched in power." But according to Murad al-Shishani's profile of Nasar during this same period for the Jamestown Foundation: Nasar was initiated into al-Tali'a al-Muqatila (Fighting Vanguard), a Jihadist group linked to the Syrian Muslim Brothers, founded by the late Marwan Hadeed. Nasar received training from Egyptian and Iraqi officers and additional training in camps in Jordan and Baghdad during an era when Arab regimes were on a collision course with the Syrian Ba'athists. He was also a member of the higher military command of the Muslim Brotherhood Movement that was established in Baghdad after the Syrian Brothers fled from their country. According to unverified sources Sheikh Saeed Haowa was head of that military command. Following the events in Hama in 1982, when the Syrian army successfully suppressed the Muslim Brotherhood uprising, Nasar left the movement, after declaring his opposition to the Brotherhood's alliance with sectarian movements and the former Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein. He headed for Afghanistan where he met with Abdul-Kader Abdul-Aziz writer of the book entitled The Master of Preparations, which is regarded as a reference point for the jihadis, and also met with Sheikh Abdullah Azzam. This resentment towards the Iraqi regime, which Nasar believed had co-opted the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood for their own purposes and stymied their revolution, is reflected in Lessons Learned from the Armed Jihad Ordeal in Syria, in which Nasar discusses the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood's alliance with Saddam Hussein and warns prospective jihadis to ensure that their own organizations are self-sufficient. Al Qaeda seems to have taken Nasar's advice to heart concerning any dealings with Saddam Hussein, which the CIA assessed (according to p. 322 of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee report on pre-war Iraq intelligence): In contrast to the patron-client pattern between Iraq and its Palestinian surrogates, the relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida appears to more closely resemble that of two independent actors trying to exploit each other--their mutual suspicion suborned by al-Qaida's interest in Iraqi assistance, and Baghdad's interest in al-Qaida's anti-U.S. attacks . . . THIS DYNAMIC appears whenever al Qaeda involves itself with state actors; which may be a result of Nasar's influence. As Dr. Reuven Paz notes in his discussion of Nasar's 1,600 tract (Nasar is using the nom de guerre "Abu Musab al-Suri"): Al-Suri also surprises his readers by sending requests to North Korea and Iran to continue developing their nuclear projects. It is most unlikely for a Jihadi-Salafi scholar to hint at possible cooperation with countries like Shi'ite Iran or Stalinist North Korea, both of which are generally regarded as infidel regimes. However, Al-Suri seems to advise that Jihadi Sunni readers should cooperate with the devil to defeat the "bigger devil." . . . Al-Suri does not see much benefit from the guerrilla warfare waged against the U.S. by al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia. Hence, "the ultimate choice is the destruction of the United States by operations of strategic symmetry through weapons of mass destruction, namely nuclear, chemical, or biological means, if the mujahideen can achieve it with the help of those who possess them or through buying them." One other option, he says, is by "the production of basic nuclear bombs, known as "dirty bombs." There is some debate as to the nature of Nasar's views with regard to Shiites. Paz states elsewhere that Nasar "has no anti-Shia sentiments, and refrains, as much as known, from being involved in the Islamist insurgency in Iraq. His pragmatism might be connected also to his known Sufi family origins." But Lorenzo Vidino notes that: A further glance at [Nasar's] extremist ideology is provided by tapes of his sermons that were seized in the apartment of a member of an Algerian terrorist cell dismantled by Italian authorities in Naples in 2000. The tapes reveal [Nasar's] deep hatred for Shiites, whom he considers deviators from pure Islam . . . In fact, he points at the "negative influence" that Shiite groups have had on the Palestinian struggle, as some groups like Hamas have decided to work with Shiite groups like Hezbollah. This would seem odds with the Post's claim that one of the reasons Nasar left the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood was because its alliance with other sectarian movements. THE FACT THAT NASAR is the leading ideological architect of al Qaeda's strategy (combined with his endorsement of both the Iranian nuclear program and the use of the weapons of mass destruction) takes on an added emphasis when taken in conjunction with his apparent flight to Iran after the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan. A June 2005 story by NBC News quotes Spanish counterterrorism judge Baltasar Garzon as describing Nasar's role in a November 2002 meeting of the al Qaeda leadership to discuss how to operate in the post-9/11 environment: al-Qaida convened a strategic summit in northern Iran in November 2002. Without bin Laden present, but with many of the top leaders, the group's "shura," or consultative council, met secretly to decide how to operate within the new restraints and confinements. Leading the discussion was a Syrian, Mustafa Setmariam Nasar. He looked unlike most Arabs, being fair-skinned and red-haired, and carried a Spanish passport, having married a Spanish woman in 1987. Setmariam Nasar, derisively called a "pen jihadist" by some at the CIA but a "strategist" by Spanish counterterrorism officials, said it was time for al-Qaida to carry out the February 1998 fatwa bin Laden wrote and transmitted widely across the Arab and Muslim world. "He told the shura that al-Qaida could no longer exist as a hierarchy, an organization, but instead would have to become a network and move its operations out over the entire world," said Garzon, the prosecuting judge who investigated the role of Spanish citizens in Sept. 11 as well as the Madrid attacks. "He pointed to the Feb. 23, 1998, fatwa for inspiration." Whether or not the Iranian authorities were aware of this meeting is unknown, but an October 2003 Washington Post article cited a European intelligence official as saying that al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri used his relationship with Ahmad Vahidi (the then-commander of the elite Iranian Qods Force unit) "to negotiate a safe harbor for some of al Qaeda's leaders who were trapped in the mountains of Tora Bora, Afghanistan, in 2001." It helps to know the back story when trying to understand the development of Mustafa Setmariam Nasar's views and how they influenced al Qaeda. Dan Darling is a counterterrorism consultant.

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Terror Networks

Interview with Abdullah Azzam's widow

2006-05-01

Known as a central figure to the global Islamist movement, Osama Bin Laden’s spiritual mentor and the spiritual leader of the Afghan Arabs, Dr. Abdullah Azzam joined the fight against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in 1982 and took part in military operations. He traveled across many countries calling on young Arab and Muslim men to join the Mujahideen. Living with other Afghan Arab fighters in Peshawar, Pakistan, he established 'Bait Al Ansar' (House of Helpers), which acted as the first nucleus for Al Qaeda, to provide aid within Afghanistan. His aim was to unite Arab Mujahideen in their different guises. In November 1989, a car bomb killed Abdullah Azzam and two of his sons in Peshawar. Asharq Al Awsat met Umm Mohammed, his lifelong companion and wife who spoke about different stages of his life and how her husband urged Arabs to integrate into Afghan society. Umm Mohammed answered the questions of our colleague Naheel Shahrouri in Jordan. She revealed the reasons behind the disagreement between Abdullah Azzam and his student Osama Bin Laden, leader of Al Qaeda. She indicated that the biggest disgrace was Bin Laden's connection to the assassination of Ahmad Shah Masoud, the Lion of Panjshir, and the leader of Afghan jihad. Q: How did you meet Sheikh Abdullah Azzam? How would you describe him as a husband, father and individual? A: Our families are strongly connected. We are one of the many Palestinian families who became refugees after the 1948 war. Our families have intermarried and sought refuge in Jenin. I was born in the house of Sheikh Abdullah’s sister. He was eight-years-old at the time. We later left for Tulkarem and he happened to have been there studying. He visited us once, and three days later, his father asked for my hand in marriage and we got married. Sheikh Abdullah was religious from an early age, around seven or eight years old. His religious feelings became stronger after he joined the Muslim Brotherhood. He traveled to Tulkaram to study and then to the Sharia college in Damascus. He asked to marry me when I was twelve years old. He was a wonderfully kind husband and a caring father. Perhaps there are other men like him in this world but none share his unique humanity. He insisted on learning and was concerned about teaching me and training me to become a mother that would fill the gap during his absence. He cared a lot about his children, if one of them fell ill, he would not sleep at night. He was very close to his son Ibrahim, who died with him. What distinguished him most was that he put jihad at the forefront of his concerns. Q: How was jihad reflected in the life of Sheikh Abdullah Al Azzam? A: Since getting married and even prior to traveling to Pakistan, he was preparing himself for jihad and a hard life. During the cold winter days, he used to go out and pray the morning prayers and insisted on using cold water to perform his ablution. He would only eat one type of food, and sometimes only have one meal. Sometimes, he would only eat bread. He was getting himself used to life in the mountains and to becoming a Muhajid. Most times, he owned two pairs of trousers: he would wear one and wash the other. Nevertheless, he was always clean and well groomed. Jihad for him was like water for a fish. Q: Did the Sheikh discuss affairs of jihad and the latest developments in this respect with you? A: Arab women played an important role in recognizing and examining the problems of Afghan refugees who had fled the conflict because men and women did not mingle in the refugee camps. At the time, men spent most of their times in trenches on the frontlines fighting the Russians. We would often visit the camps and inform Sheikh Abdullah about the problems the families suffer from and their lack of foodstuff etc. As for matters concerning jihad or killing, Sheikh Abdullah did not discuss them with the family because of the sensitivity of such information. Q: How do you evaluate the period you spent in Pakistan and Afghanistan? A: I have never met a sister who was with us in Pakistan during the jihad that felt any unhappiness about those days. Q: Ayman Al Zawahiri and Al Qaeda are accused of killing Ahmad Shah Masoud allegedly because of his stand against jihad in Afghanistan. What is your opinion on this? A: Sheikh Abdullah was Osama Bin Laden’s spiritual mentor. We cut off all contact with him a long time ago. However, there was a transformation in his character. Sheikh used to love him and described him as a good person. Osama used to live like other Mujahideen, if not in worst circumstances, despite financing most of them. I do not know Ayman Al Zawahiri personally and I do not know why Al Qaeda committed this mistake. The connection between Bin Laden and the assassination of Masoud tarnished his reputation. As for Masoud, he is the symbol of jihad in Afghanistan. Sheikh Abdullah wrote a book about him after living with Masoud for a whole month, during which he had gotten to know him and observed him. He said, "I came to write about you because of the rumors that you are an agent for the French government." Masoud allowed him to sit in his office and examine all his files and videos. His book, entitled 'A Month Amongst Giants,' contains a number of truths about Masoud, his faith and personality. Q: Did Sheikh Abdullah permit Arab Mujahideen fighters to become involved in inter-Afghan fighting? A: He never allowed any Arab fighter to take sides in favor of any Afghan commander. His role was to reconcile fighters, and all the leaders of jihad in Afghanistan loved him and listened to him. Q: Did Sheikh support incorporating civilians into the fight against the Soviet occupiers or did he believe it should be restricted to the trenches? A: The leaders of the jihad in Afghanistan conferred amongst each other and decided to move families away from Afghanistan and to Pakistan when the fighting became fierce. Q: During his presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan, did Sheikh Abdullah establish an independent group baring his name or did he place his life in the service of Afghans? A: He never even accepted to have bodyguards protect him despite the threats he received. He never built anything in his name. Even the charter of jihad in Afghanistan, which he wrote, was not published in his name. He announced it in the name of the then Afghan Prime Minister, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Even in Palestine, when Hamas sought to announce its charter, they contacted him to write the introduction and edit the document. Q: How do you explain the transformation of Bin Laden and Al Zawahiri from symbols of jihad to the worlds most wanted? A: This is to be expected because they declared war on all those fighting Islam. Q: What was your relationship with Bin Laden’s wives and to Umm Mohammed, Al Zawahiri’s wife? What did you think of them? A: I did not know Al Zawahiri’s wife but I knew Bin Laden’s wives before settling in Pakistan because we were living in Saudi Arabia where we used to meet them. Q: What is your opinion on the rumors that Egyptian Islamic Jihad is responsible for planning to assassinate Sheikh Abdullah Al Azzam? A: This is not true. In reality, there were many disagreements between the Egyptian Jihad and Sheikh Abdullah. However, I do not believe these disputes would have led to their involvement his murder. Q: Is it true that Bin Laden was easily influenced and manipulated by those around him? A: A few incidents took place but I do not like to deride anyone. We owe bin Laden our respect; he took part in jihad with his money, effort and sons. He sacrificed himself and his money. However, in truth, he is not a very educated man. He never studied at university. He holds a high school degree. He enrolled in university but soon left. It is true that he gave lectures to ulema and sheikhs but he was easy to persuade. Nevertheless, he did not oppose Sheikh Abdullah or desert him. Bin Laden became convinced of certain issues that Islamic Jihad in Egypt supported. Q: Did your husband’s departure have an effect on you and your children? A: Sometimes I used to tell him "you leave your children for too long." He would reply, "Why have I trained you [to take care of them]?" Dawaa (preaching) and jihad were his priorities. Q: When did Sheikh Abdullah first embark on jihad? A: He began in 1976 when the [Israelis] invaded the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. He continued to fight until the border was shut. He believed jihad was the best approach for the victory of religion. This is why he searched for jihad until he was sent from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan to teach at the International Islamic University. He obtained a Masters degree and a PhD and returned to Jordan where he taught at university until he was dismissed. He traveled to King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia because of debts he had accumulated. Otherwise, he would not have left his country. In Pakistan, he was entrusted with organizing the curricula at the Islamic University. However, jihad was always more important to him. He believed jihad was the pinnacle of Islam and used to tell me: “Those who live on the summit find it difficult to go down to the slope.” During the years of jihad in Afghanistan, we used to feel as if there was a mini-state of Arabs in Pakistani territory. There were no fights between us and everyone was open to the others. All those I meet look back with fondness to these years. Sheikh Abdullah taught young men in order to prepare them to perform jihad in the name of God. A whole generation of fighters grew up under his wings. Q: Do you believe that Al Qaeda is currently following in the footsteps of Sheikh Abdullah Azzam? A: According to their own admission and to what they broadcast occasionally of video and sound recordings, they are saying, “he is our sheikh and our mentor in jihad.” I saw a few interviews with Osama Bin Laden where he placed on the table in front of him the books of Sheikh Azzam and the cameras focused on that. In his televised speeches, Bin Laden has also repeated word for word the statements of Sheikh Abdullah. Q: In your view, what caused the disagreements between Abdullah Azzam and Bin Laden? Were traitors sowing hatred between them? A: I do not know if there were traitors or not. However, differences emerged concerning the scope of jihad and the distribution of military camps and other issues. They held different opinions and Bin Laden followed his own interpretation. In order to avoid a clash, Bin Laden sought to establish his own military training camps, under his banner, to receive Arabs that want to fight in Afghanistan. This caused the split because Bin Laden preferred camps especially for Arabs while Sheikh Abdullah Azzam believed that it was necessary for Arabs and Afghans to mix and for them to become one because the Arabs came to help the Afghans achieve victory. He also believed that it was wrong for Arabs to plot against Afghans in the latter’s own country. For his part, Bin Laden sought to pamper Arab fighters. Even their food was different from that of Afghan Mujahideen. Bin Laden used to bring them special foodstuff in containers from Saudi Arabia. This was the crux of the disagreement. The split happened as a result. Sheikh Abdullah did not agree with Bin Laden and tried to stop him isolating himself in special training camps. He believed that Arabs should be included in all Afghan groups in order to teach them the Quran and give lectures about the jurisprudence of jihad, including how to deal with prisoners of war according to Islam. The reason for this is that most of the ulema in Afghanistan had been martyred during the fight against the Russians. Afghanistan is a large country with 28 provinces and young men needed to be guided to the true path of Islam. At the time, Arab Mujahideen in Afghanistan included doctors, pilots, teachers and others who had left their jobs and futures in order to help the Afghan people. They were, without exception, living in difficult circumstances in trenches side by side with Afghan fighters. Sheikh Abdullah wanted Arabs to integrate into the fabric of Afghan society while Bin Laden believed the opposite. Q: If Abdullah Azzam were alive today, would he have supported Al Qaeda’s operations and the September 11 attacks? A: I do not believe he would have supported such an attack. In his lifetime, the Mujahideen were better equipped but they never discussed such a matter. It was easier at the time to travel between countries but he supported clear jihadist movements, which would face those hostile to Muslims and permitted their blood to be shed. Sheikh Abdullah preferred jihad with a clear objective and refused sending Arab fighters to Bosnia and Herzegovina because the scope for fighting there was not clear. Q: What are Bin Laden’s most prominent mistakes in your opinion? A: The biggest mistake in Bin Laden’s life had to do with his involvement in the assassination of the Lion of Panshjir, Ahmad Shah Masoud, because I consider Masoud a Muslim jihadist. If it is true [al Qaeda or its supporters killed him], this tarnishes Bin Laden's status. Q: If Abdullah Azzam were alive today, where would he be, in Iraq or with Bin Laden? A: Perhaps in Guantanamo Bay with other Al Qaeda leaders. Q: Do you recall the wives of Arab Mujahideen fighters in Peshawar? What was your relationship with them? Are you still in contact with them? A: Everyone who participated in the jihad in Afghanistan brought his wife with him. They would leave them behind in Peshawar and we all lived as one family. They used to consider me a mother figure. The wives of Mujahideen coordinated amongst themselves. I am still in contact with some families in Jordan.

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Terror Networks & Islam

Abu Musab al-Suri and Third Generation Jihadis

2005-08-28

The decimation of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood in 1982 had many long-term implications, the most pernicious of which was the emergence of a particularly extreme form of Syrian Salafism. At the center of this is Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, better known as Abu Musab al-Suri (the Syrian), who is widely believed to be the most prolific al-Qaeda ideologue and trainer alive. Currently working closely with the Zarqawi network, and probably based in Iraq, Nasar also allegedly exercises operational control over several al-Qaeda linked networks in the West. Despite his strenuous denials, Nasar is widely believed to have masterminded the Madrid attacks in March 2004 and probably had an important role in the recent London attacks. Notorious for his online teaching courses, in which he expertly equips the new generation of jihadis and al-Qaeda loyalists with knowledge, insights and useful practical training, Nasar is the most important live link between the old al-Qaeda and the emerging new al-Qaeda. Understanding Mustafa Setmariam Nasar is key to gaining a better insight into the evolving universe of Salafi-jihadism. Abu Mus’ab al-Suri is the nom de guerre of Mustafa Abdul-Qadir Mustafa Hussein al-Sheikh Ahmed al-Mazeek al-Jakiri al-Rifa’ei whose family is known as “al-Set Mariam” after their grandmother. [1] He was born in Aleppo in 1958, where he studied mechanical engineering and is also known by the name of Omar Abdul-Hakeem. Nasar was initiated into al-Tali’a al-Muqatila (Fighting Vanguard), a Jihadist group linked to the Syrian Muslim Brothers, founded by the late Marwan Hadeed. Nasar received training from Egyptian and Iraqi officers and additional training in camps in Jordan and Baghdad during an era when Arab regimes were on a collision course with the Syrian Ba’athists. He was also a member of the higher military command of the Muslim Brotherhood Movement that was established in Baghdad after the Syrian Brothers fled from their country. According to unverified sources Sheikh Saeed Haowa was head of that military command. Following the events in Hama in 1982, when the Syrian army successfully suppressed the Muslim Brotherhood uprising, Nasar left the movement, after declaring his opposition to the Brotherhood’s alliance with sectarian movements and the former Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein. He headed for Afghanistan where he met with Abdul-Kader Abdul-Aziz writer of the book entitled The Master of Preparations, which is regarded as a reference point for the jihadis, and also met with Sheikh Abdullah Azzam. After taking part in the war against the Soviet occupation forces in Afghanistan, Nasar traveled to Spain and subsequently joined the embryonic al-Qaeda organization in 1992. [2] In due course Nasar left Spain for Britain and began associating with Algerian Islamic militants. According to some reports, Nasar attended the initial meetings which led to the creation of the Algerian al-Jama’a al Islamiyah al-Musaliha (Armed Islamic Group). Also in London, Nasar established a center called Conflicts of the Islamic World and it was reported that he had arranged – through that center – two interviews for CNN and the BBC with Osama Bin Laden. In 1998, he moved back to Afghanistan and pledged allegiance to Mullah Omar. He worked at the Arabic section of Kabul radio. After the ouster of the Taliban regime, Nasar took time to research and write on the Jihadist experiment. According to Nasar, he was not active in any movements during this period and he describes the U.S. State Department’s reward of $5 million leading to his capture as simply “ridiculous”. In the State Department warrant, Nasar was accused of running the Derunta and al-Ghoraba camps located in Kabul and Jalalabad. The camps allegedly specialized in imparting training and expertise on toxic materials and chemical substances. The State Department voiced concern over Nasar’s association with WMDs, and he was also accused of being a close ally of Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi. Moreover, he was associated with the Madrid explosions on March 11, 2004 and was alleged to have had close association with Abu al-Dahdah (Muhi-deen Barakat Yarkas). Nasar wrote a long reply in response to the State Department’s accusations denying any role in the September 11th attacks, claiming that he had not heard of the attacks until news of them was broadcast by the media. However, he voiced strong support for the attacks. He also claimed that he had not visited Spain since 1995, and that he has no connection to the Madrid explosions whatsoever. Furthermore, Nasar denied any association with Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi, with the qualification that he would consider any such association an honor. Nasar urged the European governments to distance themselves from the aggressive policies of Americans and Israelis as much as possible. He also called upon jihadist fighters to differentiate between an aggressor country and others, and to listen to the more experienced elder Jihadists. Strangely enough, Nasar paid tribute to the innocent victims of the Madrid explosions, but at the same time voiced his sorrow for the absence of WMDs in the 9/11 attacks. Moreover, despite the fact that he expresses reservations about striking mainland European countries, Nasar excludes Britain from such calculations. On the contrary, Nasar places Britain firmly within the American-Israeli alliance. An important feature of Nasar’s work revolves around what he terms the “third generation” of Salafi-Jihadists: “I believe that a new generation of Jihadists is born today in the post 9/11 climate, where Iraq is occupied and the Palestinian uprising has reached a climax, thus leaving it at a crossroads. We are at a juncture where the believers have exhausted all their resources, and the nation stands by as a spectator in relation to their sacrifices because of the compelling silence of the ulama, the oppression of its rulers, and the inability to retaliate.” [3] Through his writing, Nasar is clearly trying to use his position as a “second generation” militant to connect the emerging “third generation” to the accumulated experiences and expertise of the “first generation” as represented by the senior leaders of al-Qaeda, who today are either dead, captured or dispersed around the world. Nasar describes his objective eloquently: “In this book, in my capacity as one of the survivors of the second generation, I have tried to hand down part of this mission to whoever walks in our path. This work is a systematic intellectual summary, and a historic insight that aims to assist those who are prepared to continue the mission, to continue in the path of light without forgetting the great lessons of a noble path that is paved with the blood of thousands of martyrs, and the suffering of a whole generation that strived against tyrants and withstood the most severe repressions.” [4] This generation is most probably represented by those who carried out the post 9/11 attacks in Bali, Istanbul, Madrid and London. Most importantly are the foreign Arab fighters in Iraq who exemplify the third generation as they mostly lack any military experience whether in Afghanistan or anywhere else. They are the vanguard of the emerging Salafi-Jihadist networks, gaining useful experience in American occupied Iraq, and will in due course be recognized as the “Arab Iraqis” in the same vein as the “Arab Afghans”. This radicalized third generation will in due course create security problems in their own countries. And as the Syrians allegedly form the second highest group amongst the Arab volunteers, Nasar’s analysis on the situation in Syria, which he published on the Internet in two volumes, may grow increasingly popular. In his book Ahl as-Sunna fil-Sham fi Muwajihat al-Nusairia wal-Salibeen wal-Yahoud, which he wrote following the death of the late Syrian president Hafez al-Asad, Nasar focuses on two fundamental issues: the Nusairi (Alawi) sect and its unjust dominion in Syria and the Syrian state apparatus in its entirety, which according to Nasar, is supported by the West to establish peace with Israel. From a strategic perspective, Nasar offers interesting insights into the failure of what he calls the “Jihadist experience in Syria”. In short, the failure is attributed to a lack of strategy and planning, unified ideology, jihadist theory and weaknesses in informational and media groundwork. While Nasar does not offer any ready-made solutions to the jihadis in Syria and the wider Islamic movement in that country, it is clear that the inspiration he exercises over Iraq returnees, coupled with wider dynamics, could pose serious problems for the Syrian Ba’ath regime. Meanwhile, Mustafa Setmariam Nasar continues to educate, train and inspire jihadis the world over. Notes: 1. His biography has been crafted together from three different sources: Jihad and Tawheed Forum (Abu Mohammed al-Maqdisi’s Website), al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper 20/11/2004 – Page 9 and his reply entitled “A letter to Bush and his nation” – December 2004, which was published on the Middle East Transparent website. 2. “A letter to Bush and his nation” – December 2004, published on www.metransperant.com. 3. Abu Mus’ab al-Suri, Da’wat al-Moqawma al-Islamiyah” ‘Global Islamic Resistance Call’ – a book that is over 1,500 pages long, thus constituting his largest and most important product. In it he discusses the ‘Afghan Jihad’ and the Islamic movements which it inspired. Nasar also reviews military methods, propaganda, and fund raising. Moreover, the author reviews an important book on Central Asia and presents his perspective on the region as a suitable platform to center global Salafi-Jihadist activities and consequently “liberate” the Middle East, thus imperiling American interests in the region and beyond. 4. Ibid.

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Iraq-Jordan

The Rise of Ansar al-Islam

2005-07-28

IN A LETTER WRITTEN to the al Qaeda leadership in early 2004, Abu Musab Zarqawi described the Iraqi Kurds in less than favorable terms. As far as Zarqawi was concerned, they were "a Trojan horse" who had opened their land to the Jews and established a society that served as the antithesis to his extremist conception of Islam. There are many reasons, however, to suspect that bin Laden differed with the man he would later name as his representative in Iraqi Kurdistan in this view. While the puritanical strains of Islam favored by bin Laden and Zarqawi hold little popular appeal to most Iraqi Kurds, al Qaeda's interest in exploiting the region runs deep. According to a former Ansar al-Islam commander who was interviewed by the Christian Science Monitor under the pseudonym Rebwar Kadr Said, the links between Kurdistan's Islamist minority and what would later become al Qaeda run all the way back to the 1980s in Afghanistan, when bin Laden's mentor, Sheikh Abdullah Azzam, took aside two men (a Kurdish Islamist named Faraj Ahmad Najmuddin and a Palestinian) and told his followers to look after the two groups that both men represented, effectively placing the fate of the Kurds on par with that of Palestinians in the eyes of Azzam's followers. Like far too many other groups of foreign veterans of Afghan War, the Kurdish Islamists returned home radicalized and--believing that Saddam secular Baathism could be overthrown just as easily as the Soviet communism--rallied for jihad against Baghdad during the late 1980s and early 1990s. During the uprising following the 1991 Gulf War, the Kurdish Islamists appear to have caught bin Laden's eye. The 9/11 Commission Report noted the al Qaeda leader's past sponsorship of Kurdish Islamists in the hopes of convincing them to join the nascent terrorist coalition that he was assembling in Sudan. Rohan Gunaratna, one of the world's leading experts on al Qaeda, identified two propaganda tapes, amidst the dozens of al Qaeda videos found in Afghanistan by CNN, as having been produced by the Kurdish Islamists. These tapes, among other things, identify Saddam Hussein as an enemy of Islam and call for jihad against the infidel Baath party. WHILE MANY OBSERVERS and analysts have cited bin Laden's early support for the Kurdish Islamists--such as his early attempt to dissuade the Saudi leadership from accepting Western support following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait by offering to lead an army of mujahedeen against Saddam Hussein--as evidence of the ultimate incompatibility between the two men, they forget that as early as 1992 an internal Iraqi intelligence document lists bin Laden as an intelligence asset, suggesting that his prior willingness to field an army against the Baathists had given way to more pragmatic thinking. Similarly, while bin Laden was more than willing to sponsor Kurdish Islamism against Saddam Hussein in the aftermath of the Gulf War, any eagerness to aid in the overthrow of Baathism in Iraq appears to have paled in comparison to his desire to accommodate Hassan Turabi, who was al Qaeda's primary host while the organization operated in Sudan. As noted in the 9/11 Commission Report, Turabi (who had previously backed Saddam during the Gulf War) brokered an agreement under which bin Laden would cease supporting anti-Saddam activities. And while the 9/11 Commission Report noted that bin Laden continued to support Kurdish Islamism even after this agreement, it failed to note that by 1993 the group had, by and large, ended its anti-Saddam activities and instead was focusing on creating a parallel Islamist Kurdish administration in contrast to the more secular authority of the leading Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). This move culminated in armed clashes with the PUK in December 1993. From an Islamist perspective, this should be seen not only as a challenge against the major Kurdish authorities but also as a challenge to the establishment of anything resembling secular democratic society in the Middle East. As with their previous jihads against Saddam, the Kurdish Islamists were defeated and eventually splintered into a number of factions along the northern Iraqi border with Iran. At the time, most observers believed that the threat posed by Iraqi Islamism was at an end. YET ONCE AGAIN, al Qaeda disagreed. In April 2003 the New York Times reported that in 2000 and 2001 bin Laden hosted the several Kurdish Islamist leaders in Afghanistan, urging them to put aside past differences and form a single organization in the region. Collin Powell's presentation before the U.N. Security Council added yet another detail to this picture, claiming that in 2000 an Iraqi intelligence agent had offered al Qaeda Saddam's blessing to establish a safehaven in northern Iraq, a view that appears to be supported by a comment in the 9/11 Commission Report: "There are indications that by then [2001] the Iraqi regime tolerated and may even have helped Ansar al-Islam against the common Kurdish enemy." Yet with or without Iraqi assistance, one by one the Kurdish Islamist groups heeded bin Laden's call to unite. In July 2001, the Kurdish Hamas united with al-Tawhid, forming the Tawhid Islamic Front and sending several members to Afghanistan for training. Then in September 2001, Tawhid Islamic Front merged with the Second Soran Unit to become Jund al-Islam, after which time the new organization launched a bloody campaign against the ruling Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. Despite its small size, Jund al-Islam soon proved its worth in battle against the PUK, quickly gaining the support of another group of Kurdish Islamists led by Faraj Ahmad Najmuddin, now known as Mullah Krekar. By December 10, 2001 the two groups had merged together and Ansar al-Islam was born. Dan Darling is a counter-terrorism consultant for the Manhattan Institute's Center for Policing Terrorism.

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India-Pakistan

Bad Guys admit it's Ramzi...

2002-09-18

Our sources have confirmed the arrest of the Mujahid Ramzi Bin Al-Sheebah in Karachi. Pakistan authorities announced his arrest a few days ago, but the Jehad Online web-site later refuted the claim due to some discrepancy in the incoming news reports. Pakistani's Interior Minister, Moinudeen Haider, announced that Ramzi is currently undergoing interrogation by Pakistani and American officials and then he would swiftly be handed over to the United States. Strangely, Haider said that the reason for the handing over was that Ramzi had not committed any crimes in Pakistan so he would be handed over to whoever asked for him. If Ramzi has not committed any crimes in Pakistan, it begs the question, why then did Pakistani forces fight so vigorously and endure injuries in a four-hour gun battle, whilst attempting to arrest him? Probably because he's a terrorist. I'm kinda surprised. I thought this little bit of denial would go on for months and months... As for the circumstances that led to his arrest, it is clear that America cannot lay a finger on any Muslim in any Muslim country without the support, assistance and help from 'Muslim' hypocrites in that country. In this case, there would have been some so-called 'Muslims' who would have tipped off the authorities of the presence of Arabs in their neighbourhoods. Well, that's understandable. They're always fighting with each other, cops there every other night, and their kids are absolutely undisciplined. As soon as they show up, the property values start to drop... Some other so-called 'Muslims' would have carried out the surveillance and then others would have raided the premises, fighting for their lives as if they were fighting for the Lord. The Martyred Sheikh Abdullah Azzam said, "We Muslims can never be defeated by others. Instead, we are defeated only by our ownselves." Oh, sure you can be defeated by others. Wanna see? As for the status of those so-called 'Muslims' who knowingly assist the disbelievers against the believers, it is very clear according to all the divine texts and opinions of both classical and contemporary scholars, that all such individuals are outside the fold of Islam and have apostasised from the religion, regardless of their excuses or reasonings for assisting the disbelievers against the believers and regardless of their amount of prayers and acts of worship. Every so-called 'Muslim' who assists the disbelievers against the believers, even with a silent hand-gesture or signal, is an apostate whose Muslim wife is no longer lawful for him, there is no inheritance for his children (as Muslim children cannot inherit from an apostate parent) and he cannot be prayed over by the Muslims or buried with them if he dies in that state. "Screw with us, by Gawd, and y'r goin' to hell, and yer family with ya!" The whole nation of Pakistan is guilty before the Lord of the Worlds, for betraying these Mujahideen. It is incorrect to blame only the leaders and government, for the armed forces, Police, intelligence and media all comprise ordinary Pakistanis from ordinary walks of life. Those who tipped off the Pakistani authorities were not Pakistani leaders or ministers or military officers, but ordinary Pakistanis. When a nation allows its leaders to fight Islam, it is only a matter of time before Allah's punishment comes to that nation, either in the form of natural disasters, or worse, by Allah taking away Islam from that country as He did with Turkey after the people of Turkey supported Kamal Ataturk in destroying Islam in Turkey. Guess Pakland's toast, then. Never liked them, anyway... Two other companions of Ramzi Bin Al-Sheebah, from Hamburg, are still at large, as is the Kuwaiti, Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, who was not killed in the shootouts last week as was claimed by the Pakistani officials. We'll have to wait and see on that one. This is the same bunch who was saying earlier that it wasn't Ramzi they had in custody...

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