Kamran Pasha.Hollywood filmmaker, author of "Shadow of the Swords" and "Mother of the Believers"
Anwar Al-Awlaki: The Jim Jones of Islam
As a Muslim and an American, let me say this loudly and clearly --
Anwar al-Awlaki is a servant of evil and a traitor both to Islam and
to America. He is intent on misleading the world by spreading the lie
that Islam permits the killing of civilians. It does not.
Prophet Muhammad forbade the killing of non-combatants and reacted
with horror when he heard of civilian deaths on the battlefield. In
order to expound his own political agenda, Al-Awlaki is defaming the
Prophet and the global Muslim community, which rejects terrorism. And
in the process, he is revealing himself to be a modern Jim Jones -- a
narcissist creating a death cult.
In 1978, Jim Jones led 900 of his devoted followers to mass suicide by
forcing them to drink cyanide mixed in a fruit beverage. The term
"drinking the Kool-Aid" has since become synonymous with people who
blindly follow their leaders to their doom. And it is clear that
al-Awlaki's followers are very much drinking his brand of Kool-Aid.
Indeed, the alleged Fort Hood shooter, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, was
apparently a follower of al-Awlaki before he turned on his fellow
soldiers in an orgy of murder. Like Jim Jones, al-Awlaki has
remarkable charisma and uses it to lead his followers down a very dark
path.
I say all of this with great grief. Al-Awlaki was once a highly
regarded Muslim scholar who taught a message of peace and brotherhood.
But his story is like that of the archetypal villain of the movie Star
Wars -- Anakin Skywalker, a defender of justice, who devolves into
Darth Vader, a monster who cares only for his own twisted quest for
power.
I have never met al-Awlaki, but those who have tell me that in his
early days as a preacher, he espoused a moderate Islam based on
scholarship and appreciation for Muslim history. Yet after the
terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, and the subsequent wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq, al-Alwaki began to change. He began to see the
world in a binary "us versus them" outlook -- the hallmark of
fundamentalism. After being detained by the Yemeni government in 2006
(apparently under American pressure), he appears to have left his
moderate past behind him and embraced a dark vision of Islam at
perpetual war with America -- and became its most passionate scholarly
advocate.
Al-Awlaki's story could be dismissed as the sad tale of a good man who
became lost. And yet his personal moral decline has greater
consequences. For he built up a widespread and devoted following among
Muslims in his heyday and is now in a position to brainwash many of
his followers into following his own descent into darkness.
When I have publicly criticized al-Awlaki, I have received emails from
his devotees saying that he is being "set up" by the US government.
And yet when I ask them what they mean by this, there is always
pin-drop silence. His followers seem to want to believe that the good,
charismatic man that they adore is somehow being falsely portrayed in
the media as a villain as part of some PSY/OPS manipulation game. And
yet when I ask if someone else is posting his increasingly radical and
extremist sermons through his website (a CIA agent posing as
al-Awlaki, let's say), there is more silence. It is as if his
followers want to keep clinging to the man he once was and selectively
ignore his recent calls for the murder of civilians in the name of
Islam.
Like Jim Jones, a personality cult has formed around al-Awlaki. It is
a personality cult that is blinding his followers into a series of
non-sequiturs and conspiracy theories that allow them to overcome the
cognitive dissonance of reconciling the good scholar they once knew
with the deranged and hateful man he has become.
There is a word for that kind of personality cult in Islam: idolatry.
If there are any Muslims out there who believe that a man should be
followed unquestioningly, even when his words violate basic Islamic
teachings, then they have committed shirk, the worst sin in Islam:
ascribing a partner to God. They have given their devotion to a false
god, a fallible human being rather than the infallible Creator, the
Merciful and Compassionate, the Lord of the Worlds, whose moral
commandments cannot be rationalized away by men.
I was sickened and outraged by al-Awlaki's recent video, where he
rationalized terrorist plots to blow up airplanes, saying that the
deaths of civilians are just "a drop of water in the sea." Similar
rationalizations were used by pre-Islamic Arabs who practiced female
infanticide, burying their newborn baby daughters alive. Such innocent
lives were also simply "drops in the sea" for a pagan culture obsessed
with male progeny. But when the Holy Qur'an put an end to this
barbarism, it said that on the Day of Judgment, the innocent girls
will rise from their graves and confront their murderers, and God will
ask: "For what crime was she killed?" (Surah 81:8-9). And then the
murderers' excuses will vanish and they will be flung into Hell.
The God of the Qur'an is the God of life, of mercy, of justice, a God
that says "no soul shall bear the burden of another" (53:38) when
confronted with moral relativists who believe in "guilt by
association" and collective punishment.
If Muslims wish to find in their history a true example of a noble
warrior, they should turn away from this false teacher al-Awlaki and
look at the example of Saladin, the great Muslim leader who conquered
Jerusalem in 1187 C.E.
In my new novel, Shadow of the Swords, I show how, despite calls for
collective punishment against the Christians of Jerusalem for the
crimes of the Crusaders, Saladin showed mercy to the populace. He let
the Christian population remain unmolested and gave them freedom of
worship and pilgrimage to their holy sites. When Richard the Lionheart
led the Third Crusade to expel the Muslims, Saladin treated his enemy
with stunning generosity. When Richard fell ill, Saladin sent his
personal doctor to tend to the enemy king. When Richard's horse was
killed in battle, Saladin sent his personal horse to his adversary as
a gift.
Saladin's acts of honor and wisdom single-handedly shattered the
negative image that many Christians held of Muslims. And for this, he
is lauded by both Christian and Muslim historians as a true statesman
and moral leader.
I ask any follower of al-Awlaki: which is the greater example you wish
to be associated with? The example of your "teacher" who calls you to
turn into monsters without empathy? Or Saladin, who reminded the world
that Islam stood for justice and moral restraint, not barbarism and
rationalization of murder? If you have any hesitation about the right
answer here, then you have left your religion and become the very evil
that anti-Muslim bigots have long claimed Islam represents.
The confusion al-Awlaki has created among Muslims is in many ways far
more insidious than that of his fellow madman, Osama Bin Laden. For
Bin Laden does not claim to be -- and is not -- an Islamic scholar.
Bin Laden's calls for attacking the West are steeped not in Islamic
scholarship but in a rather crude "eye for an eye" philosophy that
says that because Americans are killing Muslim civilians, Muslims have
a right do the same in return to American civilians. Bin Laden has
little understanding of, or interest in, Islamic jurisprudence,
primarily because he finds its rules against murdering civilians to be
inconvenient. Therefore Bin Laden's appeal is really based on an
emotional bait-and-switch. Get Muslims riled up about all the
injustices they have experienced so that they follow him and don't ask
too many questions about the justice of his own movement.
But al-Awlaki's brand of evil is far more sinister. As a trained
Muslim scholar, he is an expert in perverting traditional Islamic
teachings with strange analogies that have no historical basis, such
as his self-serving argument that Americans elected and pay taxes to a
government that kills Muslims, so all Americans are complicit and are
lawful targets of revenge. Aside from the fact that this is a
nonsensical leap of logic, it ignores what Prophet Muhammad himself
did when faced with the opportunity for collectively punishing a
population for the crime of its leaders.
In my novel Mother of the Believers, I discuss how, when the Prophet
defeated Mecca, he was in a position to unleash vengeance on the city
that had driven him out and killed his family and friends. And yet the
Prophet, to his enemies' surprise, instituted a general amnesty and
not only forgave the general populace, which under al-Awlaki's
argument was complicit in Mecca's war against Islam, but also its
leadership that organized the war. The lords of Mecca -- including the
villainous queen Hind, who had cannibalized the Prophet's uncle as an
act of terror -- were forgiven and incorporated into the new Muslim
state as leading citizens.
So I ask the followers of al-Awlaki again: what vision of Islam do you
wish to follow? The false Islam of collective punishment claimed by
your "teacher"? Or the magnanimous Islam of mercy and wisdom lived by
Prophet Muhammad?
Al-Awlaki's credentials as a former religious scholar are troubling
and dangerous. But it should be noted clearly that al-Awlaki does not
represent the face of mainstream Muslim scholarship. In fact, in his
own country of Yemen, there is a remarkable Muslim scholar who has
dedicated his life to defeating extremism: Hamoud al-Hitar, a Yemeni
judge who deprograms terrorists by teaching them the truth about
Islam.
Judge al-Hitar is living proof of the power of true Islam to defeat
the false Islam of the extremists, of light to overpower darkness.
Al-Hitar works with the Yemeni government to counsel Muslim extremists
who have been brainwashed by men like al-Awlaki. He talks to them
about the Holy Qur'an and traditional Islamic law, and demonstrates to
them -- line by line, point by point -- why terrorism is a violation
of Islam's basic teachings. Remarkably, al-Hitar has deprogrammed over
300 extremists and is said to have even won over high-level Al-Qaeda
agents, who have repented and turned on their leaders.
Al-Hitar served as the basis of a character I wrote for an episode of
the Showtime television series Sleeper Cell. A clip from that episode
has been uploaded onto YouTube and has become a global phenomenon, for
it shows how a Muslim scholar like al-Hitar argues with -- and proves
wrong -- an al-Qaeda extremist.
I ask the followers of al-Awlaki to look at the clip and let the truth
of its arguments -- coming straight from the Holy Qur'an and the
teachings of Prophet Muhammad -- touch their hearts.
If you still prefer the false words of your "teacher" over the truth
of Islam's message of peace and beauty, then there is no more hope for
you than there was for the many misguided souls who followed Jim Jones
to their destruction.
With the forces of evil now cloaking themselves in the garb of
righteousness, there are two paths before the Muslim community. One of
light and one of darkness. And of this moment, the Holy Qur'an says:
"God is the Protector of those who have faith: from the depths of
darkness He will lead them forth into light. But of those who reject
faith, their patrons are the evil ones: from light they will lead them
forth into the depths of darkness. They will be companions of the
Fire, to dwell therein." (2:257)
My fellow Muslims, the choice between light and darkness is yours.
Showing posts with label Yemen terrorism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Yemen terrorism. Show all posts
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
SOMALI REFUGEES TO YEMEN & TERRORISM
*** When people are made to feel they are not welcome in society, they become marginalized and are easy pickings for those who peddle in anger, desperation and rage. We are dismantling human society through our negligence. MS ***
FROM: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/world/Al-Qaeda-reaps-recruits-from-Somali-refugees-in-Yemen-94782249.html
Al Qaeda reaps recruits from Somali refugees in Yemen
By: Sara A. Carter
National Security Correspondent
May 25, 2010
Al Qaeda's robust terror organization in Yemen is recruiting from a pool of hundreds of thousands of Somali refugees who have fled war in their homeland, according to U.S. and Yemeni intelligence officials.
Approximately 700,000 Somali refugees have made Yemen their home, and that population is expected to continue to grow in the face of the collapse of the East African nation, Yemeni and intelligence officials told The Washington Examiner. A significant number of those Somali refugees are believed to be members of Al-Shabaab Mujahideen, an Islamist insurgency group with strong ties to al Qaeda.
Two American tourists were kidnapped by gunmen in Yemen Monday, and local officials said it was likely the group holding them had ties to al Qaeda. The abduction highlighted the growing danger of Islamic extremists in Yemen, experts said.
Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst who was an adviser to President Obama on Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy, said the Somali refugee crisis poses significant national security concerns for the United States, and a golden opportunity for al Qaeda.
Riedel, who visited the Gulf of Aden last winter, said that although Somali refugees hope that Yemen will be their first stop to a wealthier country, "most never get beyond Yemen. Among them are dozens of young extremists who become recruits for [al Qaeda Arabian Penninsula]."
Al Qaeda in Yemen and Saudi Arabia merged into a single organization in early 2009, intelligence officials said. It calls itself al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and is based in Yemen. A number of Somali militants enter Yemen "to train with AQAP," a U.S. counterterrorism official confirmed.
American born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki has emerged as a key player in al Qaeda's efforts to raise important new infrastructures in countries like Yemen which are outside the reach of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, and where lawlessness and poverty prevail.
Al-Awalki, an American of Yemeni decent, is believed to be hiding in Yemen. U.S. intelligence officials say he is the new face of al Qaeda and recruits from the large number of Somali refugees entering that nation.
Al-Awlaki is the only American on the CIA's list of important targets to apprehend or kill. On Monday, in a video released by al Qaeda, al-Awalki, dressed in Yemeni traditional tribal clothing, called on believers to kill American soldiers and civilians.
Christopher Boucek, a Yemen specialist with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote in a recently published report, "There are increasing indications that al Qaeda is regrouping in Yemen and preparing to strike at Western and other targets."
A retired senior military official with direct knowledge of al Qaeda in Yemen said that as al Qaeda's recruiting pool grows, Western targets will become more vulnerable.
He said Somali refugees are just one group of potential recruits.
"With the Somali crisis in Yemen growing we have to be mindful of how these various groups, like Somalia's Al-Shabaab, are connecting, recruiting and developing ties to one another," the official said.
Another military official warned that the global links between the groups in Yemen pose a "significant danger to our own national security because the next attack in the U.S. may not come from someone we suspect but from a recruit born right here or someone else, like a Somali refugee," he said.
In April, The Examiner reported that 23 Somalis who entered Mexico illegally earlier in the year were believed headed for the U.S. after being released by Mexican authorities. Of the 23 Somalis, several were directly connected to Al-Shabaab, according to the law enforcement documents.
Intelligence suggested some were attempting to cross the southern border into the U.S. Intelligence officials say they have not been located.
Al Qaeda's ties with Somali refugees also have implications for the oil-rich Middle East.
Riedel warned that as al Qaeda solidifies its safe havens in Yemen and Somalia, it will become a growing danger to the shipping lanes in the world's most important waterways.
"Al Qaeda's leadership in Yemen has very ambitious plans to develop cooperation [with] the Shabab in Somalia so that al Qaeda can influence the control of the shipping lanes in the Bab al Mandab strait that separates Asia from Africa and which is the world's energy choke point," he said.
FROM: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/world/Al-Qaeda-reaps-recruits-from-Somali-refugees-in-Yemen-94782249.html
Al Qaeda reaps recruits from Somali refugees in Yemen
By: Sara A. Carter
National Security Correspondent
May 25, 2010
Al Qaeda's robust terror organization in Yemen is recruiting from a pool of hundreds of thousands of Somali refugees who have fled war in their homeland, according to U.S. and Yemeni intelligence officials.
Approximately 700,000 Somali refugees have made Yemen their home, and that population is expected to continue to grow in the face of the collapse of the East African nation, Yemeni and intelligence officials told The Washington Examiner. A significant number of those Somali refugees are believed to be members of Al-Shabaab Mujahideen, an Islamist insurgency group with strong ties to al Qaeda.
Two American tourists were kidnapped by gunmen in Yemen Monday, and local officials said it was likely the group holding them had ties to al Qaeda. The abduction highlighted the growing danger of Islamic extremists in Yemen, experts said.
Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst who was an adviser to President Obama on Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy, said the Somali refugee crisis poses significant national security concerns for the United States, and a golden opportunity for al Qaeda.
Riedel, who visited the Gulf of Aden last winter, said that although Somali refugees hope that Yemen will be their first stop to a wealthier country, "most never get beyond Yemen. Among them are dozens of young extremists who become recruits for [al Qaeda Arabian Penninsula]."
Al Qaeda in Yemen and Saudi Arabia merged into a single organization in early 2009, intelligence officials said. It calls itself al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and is based in Yemen. A number of Somali militants enter Yemen "to train with AQAP," a U.S. counterterrorism official confirmed.
American born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki has emerged as a key player in al Qaeda's efforts to raise important new infrastructures in countries like Yemen which are outside the reach of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, and where lawlessness and poverty prevail.
Al-Awalki, an American of Yemeni decent, is believed to be hiding in Yemen. U.S. intelligence officials say he is the new face of al Qaeda and recruits from the large number of Somali refugees entering that nation.
Al-Awlaki is the only American on the CIA's list of important targets to apprehend or kill. On Monday, in a video released by al Qaeda, al-Awalki, dressed in Yemeni traditional tribal clothing, called on believers to kill American soldiers and civilians.
Christopher Boucek, a Yemen specialist with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote in a recently published report, "There are increasing indications that al Qaeda is regrouping in Yemen and preparing to strike at Western and other targets."
A retired senior military official with direct knowledge of al Qaeda in Yemen said that as al Qaeda's recruiting pool grows, Western targets will become more vulnerable.
He said Somali refugees are just one group of potential recruits.
"With the Somali crisis in Yemen growing we have to be mindful of how these various groups, like Somalia's Al-Shabaab, are connecting, recruiting and developing ties to one another," the official said.
Another military official warned that the global links between the groups in Yemen pose a "significant danger to our own national security because the next attack in the U.S. may not come from someone we suspect but from a recruit born right here or someone else, like a Somali refugee," he said.
In April, The Examiner reported that 23 Somalis who entered Mexico illegally earlier in the year were believed headed for the U.S. after being released by Mexican authorities. Of the 23 Somalis, several were directly connected to Al-Shabaab, according to the law enforcement documents.
Intelligence suggested some were attempting to cross the southern border into the U.S. Intelligence officials say they have not been located.
Al Qaeda's ties with Somali refugees also have implications for the oil-rich Middle East.
Riedel warned that as al Qaeda solidifies its safe havens in Yemen and Somalia, it will become a growing danger to the shipping lanes in the world's most important waterways.
"Al Qaeda's leadership in Yemen has very ambitious plans to develop cooperation [with] the Shabab in Somalia so that al Qaeda can influence the control of the shipping lanes in the Bab al Mandab strait that separates Asia from Africa and which is the world's energy choke point," he said.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
RADICALIZATION & DERADICALIZATION IN YEMEN
*** The problem with this program was that the "graduates" were all persuaded not to commit acts of terrorism inside Yemen. That left the door open for these guys to go elsewhere instead of Yemen being accused of becoming a terrorist haven: oops, too late!
Don't dismiss deradicalization; it saved me from going down the wrong path and it is a very important tool - one among of a number of tools we should have in the toolbox. MS ***
FROM: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126299677407522423.html?mod=rss_whats_news_us
SAN'A, Yemen -- As Yemeni security forces mobilize against al Qaeda, Hamoud Al Hitar, minister of Islamic Endowment, is advocating what he says is a better way of curing the country of its Islamist militants: rehab.
Mr. Hitar ran a government-sponsored militant-rehabilitation program from 2002 to 2005, with mixed results. He says he successfully pacified hundreds of militant Islamist detainees by using the Quran to teach the fallacies of extremist ideology.
U.S. officials, however, criticized the program's effectiveness after American forces in Iraq started detaining some Yemeni graduates.
Nasser al Bahri, a management consultant who was once a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden and spent more than a decade in the ranks of al Qaeda, was a graduate of Mr. Hitar's program. He says a beefed-up program could do good, but the version Mr. Hitar ran was ineffective -- in part because many fellow prisoners pretended to have changed their ways simply to be let out of jail.
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has recently asked for more international assistance in its military fight against terrorism, as well as financing to build a secure facility for terrorist suspects and a rehab program for those willing to join.
Washington this month said it will double aid to Yemen to combat terrorism, in the wake of the alleged attempt to down a Detroit-bound flight on Christmas Day. The alleged attempt has been linked to the Yemen-based branch of al Qaeda.
For now, President Saleh is relying heavily on his military options. Yemeni forces launched two major military attacks against multiple, suspected al Qaeda strongholds across the country on Dec. 17 and Dec. 24. Government officials say those operations were based on intelligence showing that al Qaeda had prepared eight suicide attacks against foreign and Yemeni targets in San'a, the capital.
Yemeni officials have said at least 30 al Qaeda members died and scores more were arrested in the two December attacks.
This week, Yemeni forces launched what U.S. officials called a successful antiterrorism operation that allowed Washington to reopen its embassy, which had closed for two days because of an al Qaeda threat.
Mr. Hitar says the military operations, no matter how successful, won't accomplish much unless they are backed by a program to change the ideology al Qaeda operatives and sympathizers in the country.
"Force alone is not enough to defeat al Qaeda," says Mr. Hitar. He says his program rehabilitated approximately 340 former militant Islamists. "We must have a program of religious dialog. This must be a top priority, as it is the best way to cure the wrong ideas."
U.S. and Yemeni officials agree that some sort of rehabilitation program could be attractive. A credible program here could make it easier to eventually transfer the 100 or so Yemeni detainees still at Guantanamo Bay.
One solution being discussed by U.S., Saudi and Yemeni officials is the construction of a high-security facility in Yemen to receive repatriated Guantanamo detainees, according to U.S. and Saudi officials.
Both Washington and Saudi Arabia, Yemen's largest donor, have balked at paying for such a facility in Yemen. That is mainly because of fear of political fallout if such a facility were to become seen as a new Guantanamo Bay in the Middle East, according to U.S. and Saudi officials.
Such a facility, if realized, could incorporate a rehab program modeled off a similar program Saudi Arabia has run for years.
The Saudi program also uses the Quran to argue against extremism. But it has a trump card: Riyadh gives participants substantial financial assistance to help them readjust into society.
The economic issue is key to Yemen's challenge in shutting down al Qaeda -- not just in re-educating militants, but in preventing militancy. Yemen's weak central government, with its limited financial resources, has embittered many residents of the country's impoverished, rugged tribal regions, and al Qaeda has leveraged this resentment to expand its thriving network of militants.
Mr. Bahri, the former bin Laden bodyguard, says he joined Mr. Hitar's program in 2002 to escape a jail swollen with militants.
He says the theological discussions that the program used to dissuade participants from extremism were "weak."
Mr. Bahri says he had a genuine change of heart about condoning violence -- a philosophical evolution that he says happened independently from Mr. Hitar's program.
He says he waited four years before he received a government stipend promised to him upon leaving jail, after he agreed not take up arms again. He says that he never received promised government assistance in dealing with the psychological problems of adjusting to normal Yemeni life.
Don't dismiss deradicalization; it saved me from going down the wrong path and it is a very important tool - one among of a number of tools we should have in the toolbox. MS ***
FROM: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126299677407522423.html?mod=rss_whats_news_us
SAN'A, Yemen -- As Yemeni security forces mobilize against al Qaeda, Hamoud Al Hitar, minister of Islamic Endowment, is advocating what he says is a better way of curing the country of its Islamist militants: rehab.
Mr. Hitar ran a government-sponsored militant-rehabilitation program from 2002 to 2005, with mixed results. He says he successfully pacified hundreds of militant Islamist detainees by using the Quran to teach the fallacies of extremist ideology.
U.S. officials, however, criticized the program's effectiveness after American forces in Iraq started detaining some Yemeni graduates.
Nasser al Bahri, a management consultant who was once a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden and spent more than a decade in the ranks of al Qaeda, was a graduate of Mr. Hitar's program. He says a beefed-up program could do good, but the version Mr. Hitar ran was ineffective -- in part because many fellow prisoners pretended to have changed their ways simply to be let out of jail.
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has recently asked for more international assistance in its military fight against terrorism, as well as financing to build a secure facility for terrorist suspects and a rehab program for those willing to join.
Washington this month said it will double aid to Yemen to combat terrorism, in the wake of the alleged attempt to down a Detroit-bound flight on Christmas Day. The alleged attempt has been linked to the Yemen-based branch of al Qaeda.
For now, President Saleh is relying heavily on his military options. Yemeni forces launched two major military attacks against multiple, suspected al Qaeda strongholds across the country on Dec. 17 and Dec. 24. Government officials say those operations were based on intelligence showing that al Qaeda had prepared eight suicide attacks against foreign and Yemeni targets in San'a, the capital.
Yemeni officials have said at least 30 al Qaeda members died and scores more were arrested in the two December attacks.
This week, Yemeni forces launched what U.S. officials called a successful antiterrorism operation that allowed Washington to reopen its embassy, which had closed for two days because of an al Qaeda threat.
Mr. Hitar says the military operations, no matter how successful, won't accomplish much unless they are backed by a program to change the ideology al Qaeda operatives and sympathizers in the country.
"Force alone is not enough to defeat al Qaeda," says Mr. Hitar. He says his program rehabilitated approximately 340 former militant Islamists. "We must have a program of religious dialog. This must be a top priority, as it is the best way to cure the wrong ideas."
U.S. and Yemeni officials agree that some sort of rehabilitation program could be attractive. A credible program here could make it easier to eventually transfer the 100 or so Yemeni detainees still at Guantanamo Bay.
One solution being discussed by U.S., Saudi and Yemeni officials is the construction of a high-security facility in Yemen to receive repatriated Guantanamo detainees, according to U.S. and Saudi officials.
Both Washington and Saudi Arabia, Yemen's largest donor, have balked at paying for such a facility in Yemen. That is mainly because of fear of political fallout if such a facility were to become seen as a new Guantanamo Bay in the Middle East, according to U.S. and Saudi officials.
Such a facility, if realized, could incorporate a rehab program modeled off a similar program Saudi Arabia has run for years.
The Saudi program also uses the Quran to argue against extremism. But it has a trump card: Riyadh gives participants substantial financial assistance to help them readjust into society.
The economic issue is key to Yemen's challenge in shutting down al Qaeda -- not just in re-educating militants, but in preventing militancy. Yemen's weak central government, with its limited financial resources, has embittered many residents of the country's impoverished, rugged tribal regions, and al Qaeda has leveraged this resentment to expand its thriving network of militants.
Mr. Bahri, the former bin Laden bodyguard, says he joined Mr. Hitar's program in 2002 to escape a jail swollen with militants.
He says the theological discussions that the program used to dissuade participants from extremism were "weak."
Mr. Bahri says he had a genuine change of heart about condoning violence -- a philosophical evolution that he says happened independently from Mr. Hitar's program.
He says he waited four years before he received a government stipend promised to him upon leaving jail, after he agreed not take up arms again. He says that he never received promised government assistance in dealing with the psychological problems of adjusting to normal Yemeni life.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
TERROR SUSPECT NEVER CAME ACROSS AS FANATIC
*** They seldom do. MS ***
FROM: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/100107/world/terrorism_suspect
TORONTO - The man accused of trying to bring down a packed Northwest Airlines flight Christmas Day may have gone from a highly-observant practitioner of Islam to a fundamentalist zealot in less than three months, a former housemate said Wednesday.
Canadian-born Matthew Salmon lived next door to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab for about a month in September when they shared a floor at a student housing complex in the Yemeni capital of Sana'a.
During their few in-depth conversations - which invariably turned to religion - the Nigerian national never expressed beliefs consistent with Muslim fundamentalism and raised no red flags through his behaviour, Salmon said.
"I got the feeling that he was very very passionate and happy with his faith, but never did I have any feeling that he was angry or frustrated or willing to do anything of that nature," Salmon, 27, said in a telephone interview from Yemen.
Religion was the most frequent topic of conversation for the two young men, who approached the study of Islam from opposite perspectives. Salmon -a practicing Christian who was born in Ontario but grew up in British Columbia, - is studying the religion out of intellectual curiosity, while Abdulmutallab was focused on rigidly following the tenets of the faith.
Salmon said his housemate practiced a more conservative brand of Islam, but said their dialogs on the subject were both amicable and instructive.
"There was never any sense that one person was wrong and one person was right, it was just two different ways to go at the same topic," he said. "It was really similar to experiences I've had with Christians back home."
Abdulmutallab never revealed how long he had been in Yemen, but told Salmon he had come to the middle-eastern nation to improve his Arabic and immerse himself in a culture where faith plays a central role. In early October, he indicated he planned to remain in the country for another month or two before going to visit his family.
But the next day, Salmon said Abdulmutallab's room was vacant and the 23-year-old was gone without a word of farewell to his fellow residents.
Salmon suspects his former housemate underwent intensive indoctrination between the time he left the student residence and the day he boarded the Detroit-bound flight with explosives concealed in his underwear.
Salmon said such rapid conversions are not uncommon in Yemen, where people often come for exposure to the Islamic faith.
"I've met people that in a very short time have been converted to religions that are completely separate from their own traditions," he said.
Abdulmutallab's existing religious preferences might have made him easy to lead further down the road of extremism, he added.
But foreigners are being presented with a distorted picture of Yemen, Salmon said, adding the country should not be defined solely by reports of rampant terrorist activity.
His experiences with the friendly and open-minded Yemeni locals have made Salmon wish to extend his proposed year-long stay into a long-term stint with an aid organization where he hopes to help people cope with the grinding poverty and political unrest gripping the country, he said.
When news of the failed Christmas day attack reached Yemen, Salmon said his emotional reaction ran the gamit from fear to fury.
He struggled to reconcile the smiling student with the would-be killer of nearly 300 people and has often thought about the fact that he used to sleep with his door open while Abdulmutallab worked or prayed in the adjoining room.
He also experienced an irrational sense of guilt, asking himself if he missed any early indicators or whether he could have done anything to intervene.
But now that the crisis has passed and Abdulmutallab's case is moving through the U.S. judicial system, Salmon is most struck by the irony of his actions, which have left another blemish on the face of the faith he took so seriously.
"We talked a lot about . . . brotherhood and peace and love. These are the sort of ideas we'd discussed and we both agreed were good concepts, and he really turned his back on those in an extreme way."
*** Turned his back on his Islamic faith - wannabe Jihadi's listen to what you are doing - listen to someone who is not Muslim but has respect for Islam and here is the message you leave with them. MS ***
FROM: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/100107/world/terrorism_suspect
TORONTO - The man accused of trying to bring down a packed Northwest Airlines flight Christmas Day may have gone from a highly-observant practitioner of Islam to a fundamentalist zealot in less than three months, a former housemate said Wednesday.
Canadian-born Matthew Salmon lived next door to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab for about a month in September when they shared a floor at a student housing complex in the Yemeni capital of Sana'a.
During their few in-depth conversations - which invariably turned to religion - the Nigerian national never expressed beliefs consistent with Muslim fundamentalism and raised no red flags through his behaviour, Salmon said.
"I got the feeling that he was very very passionate and happy with his faith, but never did I have any feeling that he was angry or frustrated or willing to do anything of that nature," Salmon, 27, said in a telephone interview from Yemen.
Religion was the most frequent topic of conversation for the two young men, who approached the study of Islam from opposite perspectives. Salmon -a practicing Christian who was born in Ontario but grew up in British Columbia, - is studying the religion out of intellectual curiosity, while Abdulmutallab was focused on rigidly following the tenets of the faith.
Salmon said his housemate practiced a more conservative brand of Islam, but said their dialogs on the subject were both amicable and instructive.
"There was never any sense that one person was wrong and one person was right, it was just two different ways to go at the same topic," he said. "It was really similar to experiences I've had with Christians back home."
Abdulmutallab never revealed how long he had been in Yemen, but told Salmon he had come to the middle-eastern nation to improve his Arabic and immerse himself in a culture where faith plays a central role. In early October, he indicated he planned to remain in the country for another month or two before going to visit his family.
But the next day, Salmon said Abdulmutallab's room was vacant and the 23-year-old was gone without a word of farewell to his fellow residents.
Salmon suspects his former housemate underwent intensive indoctrination between the time he left the student residence and the day he boarded the Detroit-bound flight with explosives concealed in his underwear.
Salmon said such rapid conversions are not uncommon in Yemen, where people often come for exposure to the Islamic faith.
"I've met people that in a very short time have been converted to religions that are completely separate from their own traditions," he said.
Abdulmutallab's existing religious preferences might have made him easy to lead further down the road of extremism, he added.
But foreigners are being presented with a distorted picture of Yemen, Salmon said, adding the country should not be defined solely by reports of rampant terrorist activity.
His experiences with the friendly and open-minded Yemeni locals have made Salmon wish to extend his proposed year-long stay into a long-term stint with an aid organization where he hopes to help people cope with the grinding poverty and political unrest gripping the country, he said.
When news of the failed Christmas day attack reached Yemen, Salmon said his emotional reaction ran the gamit from fear to fury.
He struggled to reconcile the smiling student with the would-be killer of nearly 300 people and has often thought about the fact that he used to sleep with his door open while Abdulmutallab worked or prayed in the adjoining room.
He also experienced an irrational sense of guilt, asking himself if he missed any early indicators or whether he could have done anything to intervene.
But now that the crisis has passed and Abdulmutallab's case is moving through the U.S. judicial system, Salmon is most struck by the irony of his actions, which have left another blemish on the face of the faith he took so seriously.
"We talked a lot about . . . brotherhood and peace and love. These are the sort of ideas we'd discussed and we both agreed were good concepts, and he really turned his back on those in an extreme way."
*** Turned his back on his Islamic faith - wannabe Jihadi's listen to what you are doing - listen to someone who is not Muslim but has respect for Islam and here is the message you leave with them. MS ***
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