*** An excellent piece. MS ***
At an iftar get-together that Muslims working at Canadian International Development Agency arranged I and two other Muslims spoke on Islam and Canadian Muslims.
A CIDA official asked us to comment on an Ottawa Citizen article that he said he found very convincing. Two Muslims had written about “the rising tide of jihadi radicalism that is sweeping like a contagious disease among Muslim youth” and that “there could be as many as 100,000 Muslim Canadians who are hostile to Canada and Western civilization.”
We said the article was inaccurate, as a letter the next day in the Citizen stated, and that most Canadian Muslims were loyal and productive citizens and that, even if the law found those accused in the recent arrests to be guilty, they are only a few of the million or so Muslims in Canada. But the recent arrests of some Muslims in Ontario on terrorism-related charges show the deep divisions within the Muslim community, with some people worrying that Muslim youth are being brainwashed by extremists and goaded into disastrous acts of terrorism in Canada and a few stating that the arrests are just a continuation of harassment of Canadian Muslims.
Nevertheless, I have been thinking. What would happen to the image of Islam, and to the Muslims of Canada, if the Canadian security agencies faltered at some point and a real terrorist incident took place in Canada killing innocent people and causing widespread damage? It is safe to say that such an incident would cause a severe backlash that could threaten all Canadian Muslims and turn Canada into a much tougher and less gentle country.
I’m not saying that the accused in the recent arrests planned terrorism. Of course, they are presumed to be innocent till they are found guilty by due process. But it is equally true that not all those who were presumed innocent in past cases were found to be innocent by the judicial process. Some Muslims accused of plotting terrorism were found to be guilty by our judiciary system, including the majority of the Toronto 18, Momin Khawaja of Ottawa and Said Namouh of Quebec. Some had planned to harm the innocent in Europe, others targeted Canada. And of course terrorists kill innocent people every day in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
IT is disturbing that some Muslims are suggesting that the Canadian security agencies, having bungled in the past in the Maher Arar and other cases, have framed the present accused and that they are targeting innocent Muslims. These Muslims live in a fantasy world of their own, substituting their wishful thinking and illusions for reality. Equally disturbing, some Muslims have become media darlings, less for their expertise and more for their Muslim-bashing.
Canadian security agencies have blundered in the past. No security agency in any country has been error-free. Human beings make mistakes. But Canadian security agencies have a job to do — protect all Canadians. It is not an easy or a clean job, but it has to be done for the protection of all Canadians, including and particularly Canadian Muslims who could be endangered physically and in additional ways if a major terrorist attack took place in Canada. It is the religious and civic duty of all Canadians to help security agencies protect Canada. There is no trustworthy evidence that they are targeting Muslims in particular. On the other hand, I find them sensitive to the traditions and feelings of Muslims.
Canadian imams are emphasizing that Islam promotes peace, justice, compassion and security for everyone. I heard excellent khutbas by Ottawa Muslim Association Imam Khaled Al-Azhary and by Ehab El-Komy, a layman. An excellent khutba by Imam Mohamed Jebara enlightened Muslims on the Islamic emphasis on justice, compassion, loyalty, peace, and human brotherhood. Other imams in Canada are conveying similar messages.
So why would a Muslim violate the teachings of the Holy Qur’an and the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), doom himself to hell by planning to kill himself and innocent people, endanger his own family and all Muslims of Canada and harm a country that provides him food, shelter, security and dignity?
Canada offers all its citizens religious and other freedoms, human rights and enviable social benefits. It accepts not only immigrants but Muslim refugees fleeing persecution from fellow Muslims. Millions of people around the world, including Muslims, would give anything to be able to live in Canada — the world’s best country, according to some. It seems the major reason Canadian Muslims are disturbed by Canada’s involvement in the NATO war in Afghanistan.
Canada refused to join the US attack on Iraq. But it is participating in the NATO war in Afghanistan to fulfill its treaty obligations. Canada is in Afghanistan to help the Afghans fight extremism and build their country, not to exploit or harm them. Many Canadians oppose Canada’s military involvement in Afghanistan. They can voice their opposition democratically and are doing so. Canada is planning to end its combat role in Afghanistan next year but will continue to train and assist the Afghans.
It would be tragic if the harmony and tranquility of Canada were to be disturbed by innocent Muslims manipulated into extremist crimes by people who understand neither the humanitarianism, justice and compassion taught by Islam nor the blessings of living in a country which embraces all its citizens with equal warmth and provides them security, social services, human rights and dignity that are perhaps not matched by any other country. If terrorist acts took place in Canada, the backlash against Muslims would harm innocent Canadian Muslims, damage Canada’s relations with Muslim countries and close Canada’s doors to thousands of Muslims who flee persecution in their own countries from fellow Muslims and seek hope, dignity, safety and a good life in this beautiful country.
Mohammed Azhar Ali Khan is a retired newspaperman, public servant and refugee judge. He has received the Order of Canada, the Order of Ontario and the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal for his work as a journalist, leadership of Muslims and efforts to promote understanding between Canadians of different faiths.
http://www.eurasiareview.com/201009077845/canada-and-terrorism-warning-signals.html
Showing posts with label homegrown radicalization. Show all posts
Showing posts with label homegrown radicalization. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Friday, August 27, 2010
TERRORISM : THEATRE OF THE ABSURD
*** A great article. As usual. MS ***
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/853336--terrorism-s-theatre-of-the-absurd
There is endless fodder for jokes, from the RCMP’s name for the investigation — Project Samosa — to speculation about the doctor-terrorism-suspect moonwalking into court.
The arrests this week of four men police say were involved in a bomb plot — or in the words of one investigator, were hoping to bring the war in Afghanistan here — seem both chilling and ridiculous.
While none of the allegations has been proven in court, even trying to fathom that 28-year-old pathologist and failed Canadian Idol contestant Dr. Khurram Sher could be part of a terrorism conspiracy is difficult.
Soon after Sher’s arrest early Thursday, a YouTube clip of him awkwardly singing and dancing across a Montreal stage for the reality show aired around the world.
But those who study or investigate what police common refer to as “homegrown terrorism” caution against dismissing cases that appear too absurd to be true.
“On the surface, it appears completely counterintuitive. It appears these people have bought into the Canadian or Western dream, or whatever you call it,” said Michael King, a McGill University PhD student researching the psychology of radicalization.
“But for me, as a psychologist anyway researching this, it almost makes sense, because there seems to be a personality characteristic that predisposes people to radicalize — and that is sensation-seeking.”
That certainly was true for some of the young Muslim men who had been romanced by the idea of waging a holy war at home and were recently convicted in the case of the so-called Toronto 18.
A psychiatric report for ringleader Zakaria Amara noted that his spiritual ideal of jihad “stagnated, hardened and sank into self-aggrandizing bravado. The daily drudgery of working in dead-end, low-paying jobs helped create an intellectually stunted environment. Internet jihad videos became more exciting and their causes more urgent.”
It is too early yet to get a clear picture of Sher (friends say he auditioned for Canadian Idol as a joke), or know his alleged level of involvement in the plot, or if there is evidence to support police claims.
But whatever the outcome in this case, terrorism’s theatre of the absurd does not seem that uncommon anymore.
Consider the recent release of the English magazine from a Yemen-based group. Called Inspire, the slick 67-page magazine from Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is like a terrorist’s Cosmopolitan with helpful hints on how to encrypt messages, environmental tips from Osama bin Laden, and from Al Qaeda’s “chef,” a feature entitled, “Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of your Mom.”
Ridiculous, of course, but AQAP is now considered one of the most influential Al Qaeda affiliates and claimed they trained the so-called underwear bomber who nearly brought down a Detroit-bound plane on Christmas Day.
Since AQAP’s membership is largely Yemen-based, Arabic-speaking and with presumably little access to the Internet, the group is likely trying to reach out to a wider circle of Western recruits with their magazine.
Gavin Cameron, a University of Calgary political science professor and past president of the Canadian Association for Security and Intelligence Studies, says the magazine is an example of the “filtration” process for recruitment — something commonly used by terrorist groups.
“It’s basically how you build or sustain a belief community. You draw people in, you have lots of articles to further your perspective in a relatively mainstream way,” he said. (MS: Wow, sounds just like Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck)
“The next stage of the filtration process is maybe now a little more extreme, so you’re winnowing down the group.”
How to stop that process of recruitment or radicalization is what still confounds security officials and community leaders. Some point to the media's coverage of the terrorism cases as part of the problem.
Imam Hamid Slimi, Chair of the Canadian Council of Imams, says he would like to see the end of what he calls the “demonization of Muslims.”
“Unfortunately, when a man is arrested with a machete and chainsaw on the highway in Toronto it’s not called terrorism . . . but when a Muslim person does something it’s Islam, it’s terrorism,” he said.
Two weeks ago the Canadian Council of Imams issued a one-page declaration stating that human life is more sacred than religious law. It’s the first time the Muslim leaders of a country have signed such a declaration and while it garnered much international attention, Slimi said it received little coverage in Canada. (Absolutely right on point. Another example: a 600-page fatwa against terror only get a headline - it should be published and made available widely)
“It’s only the bad news that’s covered,” he said.
King agreed that much of what seems to radicalize is the perception of a war against Islam.
“That’s a hard narrative to fight right now,” he says. “We have boots on the ground in Afghanistan, the West invaded Iraq, we didn’t recognize the elected government in Palestine. How do we fight this narrative?”
King said news reports that glorify or sensationalize terrorist plots only helps to recruit others.
“The media might play a role in helping radicalize others by taking these goofy cases and using words like operatives, ‘covertly trying to do this, or that,’ adding a more serious, sinister, cool, more glamorized image.”
The best way to fight it, he suggest, is to satirize it.
“I personally don’t think we can fight this narrative . . . instead, make them look like idiots.” (MS: Notwithstanding their amazing ability to do quite a good job of them all by themselves. Families not laughing. Community is not laughing. )
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/853336--terrorism-s-theatre-of-the-absurd
There is endless fodder for jokes, from the RCMP’s name for the investigation — Project Samosa — to speculation about the doctor-terrorism-suspect moonwalking into court.
The arrests this week of four men police say were involved in a bomb plot — or in the words of one investigator, were hoping to bring the war in Afghanistan here — seem both chilling and ridiculous.
While none of the allegations has been proven in court, even trying to fathom that 28-year-old pathologist and failed Canadian Idol contestant Dr. Khurram Sher could be part of a terrorism conspiracy is difficult.
Soon after Sher’s arrest early Thursday, a YouTube clip of him awkwardly singing and dancing across a Montreal stage for the reality show aired around the world.
But those who study or investigate what police common refer to as “homegrown terrorism” caution against dismissing cases that appear too absurd to be true.
“On the surface, it appears completely counterintuitive. It appears these people have bought into the Canadian or Western dream, or whatever you call it,” said Michael King, a McGill University PhD student researching the psychology of radicalization.
“But for me, as a psychologist anyway researching this, it almost makes sense, because there seems to be a personality characteristic that predisposes people to radicalize — and that is sensation-seeking.”
That certainly was true for some of the young Muslim men who had been romanced by the idea of waging a holy war at home and were recently convicted in the case of the so-called Toronto 18.
A psychiatric report for ringleader Zakaria Amara noted that his spiritual ideal of jihad “stagnated, hardened and sank into self-aggrandizing bravado. The daily drudgery of working in dead-end, low-paying jobs helped create an intellectually stunted environment. Internet jihad videos became more exciting and their causes more urgent.”
It is too early yet to get a clear picture of Sher (friends say he auditioned for Canadian Idol as a joke), or know his alleged level of involvement in the plot, or if there is evidence to support police claims.
But whatever the outcome in this case, terrorism’s theatre of the absurd does not seem that uncommon anymore.
Consider the recent release of the English magazine from a Yemen-based group. Called Inspire, the slick 67-page magazine from Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is like a terrorist’s Cosmopolitan with helpful hints on how to encrypt messages, environmental tips from Osama bin Laden, and from Al Qaeda’s “chef,” a feature entitled, “Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of your Mom.”
Ridiculous, of course, but AQAP is now considered one of the most influential Al Qaeda affiliates and claimed they trained the so-called underwear bomber who nearly brought down a Detroit-bound plane on Christmas Day.
Since AQAP’s membership is largely Yemen-based, Arabic-speaking and with presumably little access to the Internet, the group is likely trying to reach out to a wider circle of Western recruits with their magazine.
Gavin Cameron, a University of Calgary political science professor and past president of the Canadian Association for Security and Intelligence Studies, says the magazine is an example of the “filtration” process for recruitment — something commonly used by terrorist groups.
“It’s basically how you build or sustain a belief community. You draw people in, you have lots of articles to further your perspective in a relatively mainstream way,” he said. (MS: Wow, sounds just like Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck)
“The next stage of the filtration process is maybe now a little more extreme, so you’re winnowing down the group.”
How to stop that process of recruitment or radicalization is what still confounds security officials and community leaders. Some point to the media's coverage of the terrorism cases as part of the problem.
Imam Hamid Slimi, Chair of the Canadian Council of Imams, says he would like to see the end of what he calls the “demonization of Muslims.”
“Unfortunately, when a man is arrested with a machete and chainsaw on the highway in Toronto it’s not called terrorism . . . but when a Muslim person does something it’s Islam, it’s terrorism,” he said.
Two weeks ago the Canadian Council of Imams issued a one-page declaration stating that human life is more sacred than religious law. It’s the first time the Muslim leaders of a country have signed such a declaration and while it garnered much international attention, Slimi said it received little coverage in Canada. (Absolutely right on point. Another example: a 600-page fatwa against terror only get a headline - it should be published and made available widely)
“It’s only the bad news that’s covered,” he said.
King agreed that much of what seems to radicalize is the perception of a war against Islam.
“That’s a hard narrative to fight right now,” he says. “We have boots on the ground in Afghanistan, the West invaded Iraq, we didn’t recognize the elected government in Palestine. How do we fight this narrative?”
King said news reports that glorify or sensationalize terrorist plots only helps to recruit others.
“The media might play a role in helping radicalize others by taking these goofy cases and using words like operatives, ‘covertly trying to do this, or that,’ adding a more serious, sinister, cool, more glamorized image.”
The best way to fight it, he suggest, is to satirize it.
“I personally don’t think we can fight this narrative . . . instead, make them look like idiots.” (MS: Notwithstanding their amazing ability to do quite a good job of them all by themselves. Families not laughing. Community is not laughing. )
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
FIGHTING THE IDEOLOGICAL BATTLE AGAINST ISLAMIST EXTREMISM
*** Scary thing is, the people entrusted with guarding the gate - don't know where to start. MANY from the Muslim community have given their feedback but it falls on deaf ears. There needs to be a serious change in culture otherwise we're in for a some real trouble. MS ***
Fighting the Ideological Battle: The Missing Link in U.S. Strategy to Counter Violent Extremism
By Matthew Levitt
As nonaffiliate terrorist actors begin to take center stage and al-Qaeda's core strength diminishes, it has become clear that America is at war with a larger enemy: the extremist ideology that fuels and supports Islamist violence. Unfortunately, the United States is not well equipped to fight on this ideological battleground, and U.S. efforts to confront the ideology worldwide have not kept pace with more successful military targeting of high-level al-Qaeda leaders.
In a new Washington Institute Strategic Report my co-authors and I argue that rather than avoid any mention of the religious motivation behind the terrorism of al-Qaeda and other like-minded organizations, the Obama administration should sharpen the distinction between the religion of Islam and the political ideology of radical Islamism to successfully defeat Islamist terrorism at its most fundamental source.
Engagement and counterterrorism are key elements of this comprehensive strategy, we argue, but the wide space between them must be addressed. Missing are the policies and programs that should suffuse the space between these two poles on the counterradicalization spectrum, including efforts to contest the extremist narrative of radicalizers, empower and network mainstream voices countering extremism, promote diversity of ideas and means of expression, and challenge extremist voices and ideas in the public domain. Contesting the radical Islamist narrative does not mean arresting or banning despicable but protected speech; rather, it means openly contesting extremist views by offering alternatives and fostering deeper ideological debate. The objective in either case is to strengthen the moderate center against the extremist pole and help Muslim communities become more resilient in confronting the challenge.
This report, Fighting the Ideological Battle: The Missing Link in U.S. Strategy to Counter Violent Extremism, follows on the Institute's 2009 bipartisan Presidential Task Force report Rewriting the Narrative: An Integrated Strategy for Counterradicalization. It is a joint project of The Washington Institute's Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence and Project Fikra: Defeating Extremism through the Power of Ideas.
This new report recognizes the important steps the Obama administration has taken to address violent extremism and suggests ways to address remaining gaps in U.S. homeland security and foreign policy. The report has benefited from a series of interviews with administration officials at numerous cabinet level agencies and the White House and is the product of a small study group including myself, my Washington Institute colleague J Scott Carpenter, and former White House counterterrorism officials Steven Simon and Juan Zarate.
Access the report at: http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC04.php?CID=332
Fighting the Ideological Battle: The Missing Link in U.S. Strategy to Counter Violent Extremism
By Matthew Levitt
As nonaffiliate terrorist actors begin to take center stage and al-Qaeda's core strength diminishes, it has become clear that America is at war with a larger enemy: the extremist ideology that fuels and supports Islamist violence. Unfortunately, the United States is not well equipped to fight on this ideological battleground, and U.S. efforts to confront the ideology worldwide have not kept pace with more successful military targeting of high-level al-Qaeda leaders.
In a new Washington Institute Strategic Report my co-authors and I argue that rather than avoid any mention of the religious motivation behind the terrorism of al-Qaeda and other like-minded organizations, the Obama administration should sharpen the distinction between the religion of Islam and the political ideology of radical Islamism to successfully defeat Islamist terrorism at its most fundamental source.
Engagement and counterterrorism are key elements of this comprehensive strategy, we argue, but the wide space between them must be addressed. Missing are the policies and programs that should suffuse the space between these two poles on the counterradicalization spectrum, including efforts to contest the extremist narrative of radicalizers, empower and network mainstream voices countering extremism, promote diversity of ideas and means of expression, and challenge extremist voices and ideas in the public domain. Contesting the radical Islamist narrative does not mean arresting or banning despicable but protected speech; rather, it means openly contesting extremist views by offering alternatives and fostering deeper ideological debate. The objective in either case is to strengthen the moderate center against the extremist pole and help Muslim communities become more resilient in confronting the challenge.
This report, Fighting the Ideological Battle: The Missing Link in U.S. Strategy to Counter Violent Extremism, follows on the Institute's 2009 bipartisan Presidential Task Force report Rewriting the Narrative: An Integrated Strategy for Counterradicalization. It is a joint project of The Washington Institute's Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence and Project Fikra: Defeating Extremism through the Power of Ideas.
This new report recognizes the important steps the Obama administration has taken to address violent extremism and suggests ways to address remaining gaps in U.S. homeland security and foreign policy. The report has benefited from a series of interviews with administration officials at numerous cabinet level agencies and the White House and is the product of a small study group including myself, my Washington Institute colleague J Scott Carpenter, and former White House counterterrorism officials Steven Simon and Juan Zarate.
Access the report at: http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC04.php?CID=332
Saturday, June 5, 2010
TEXAS TERROR STING - A PROFILE
*** Disenfranchisement, feelings of inferiority, no job - the list goes on. This problem will quickly get out of hand if there is no systematic effort to counter the rhetoric of the extremists. MS ***
FROM: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7037645.html
HEMPSTEAD — Barry Bujol Jr., the man accused of trying to aid al-Qaida terrorists, and his wife were a reserved couple, neighbors said, who became devout Muslims about four years ago and who occasionally expressed feelings of disenfranchisement as black Americans.
“They'd talk about white people always wanting to overpower everything,” recalled Cindy Celis, a nearby neighbor in a subsidized apartment complex. “But they prayed three times a day, kept to themselves and never caused any trouble. They have a 6-month-old baby and a 2-year-old, and our children often played together.”
The 29-year-old Bujol is in federal custody, accused of trying to provide terrorists with global positioning instruments, cell phones and a restricted publication on the effects of U.S. military weapons in Afghanistan. Authorities said he had been exchanging e-mails with the charismatic cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, the native-born U.S. citizen who also was in communication with the man accused in the 2009 mass killings at Fort Hood, Army psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan.
Those accusations surprised relatives, including Bujol's aunt, Beverly Bujol. Reached at her home in Kenner, La., she recalled her nephew once toyed with giving himself a Muslim name, but she said she had no idea he was apparently using a dozen other aliases. The last his father heard from his son was a recent letter that included a picture of the new baby, she said.
‘We never dreamed … '
She described her nephew as “bright but moody.”
“We never dreamed he could be a terrorist of any kind,” she said.
None of Barry Bujol's three siblings, who reside in the Dallas area; nor his late mother, Sandra Platt; nor his father, were ever Muslim, she said.
When Bujol Jr. decided to change his faith, she said, “We didn't think much about it. We just thought he saw things different.”
Bujol had once been a student at Prairie View A&M but had not been enrolled for the last year and a half, although investigators allege he once used the computers at the school's library for e-mailing.
The university's police chief, Algray Pettus, issued a statement expressing full cooperation with the FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force, but declined to say what if anything was found on the school's computers. “We take this matter very seriously,” he said.
Watched for past 2 years
Neighbors said Bujol Jr. had his own laptop and also spent hours on computers at WorkSource Solutions on U.S. 290 in Waller. The program, funded through the Texas Workforce Commission, provides computer access and other assistance for job searches.
The FBI, who had Bujol under surveillance for the last two years and had even placed a camera in his apartment, said they never saw any evidence of gainful employment by either Bujol or his wife, Ernestine Johnson.
At their home on Friday, Johnson, dressed in traditional Muslim garb — a long black dress and gray head scarf — shooed bystanders off her front porch when she returned to her apartment. Asked if she would tell her side of the story, she replied “no” before closing and locking her door.
No criminal arrests
Margie McDade, a neighbor, said she saw Bujol using the WorkSource computers many days until the offices closed for more than a year.
“He'd be on Yahoo. I kept wondering if he was cheating on his woman or what,” she said. “You are supposed to stay on sites that are job related.”
Misty Blaylock, a resource room specialist there, said she monitors computer use, but someone checking an e-mail would not draw suspicion.
Bujol had no previous criminal arrests. Twice last year when he was arrested by the Waller County Sheriff's Office for driving with a suspended license, said the chief deputy, John Kremmer.
He also was picked up in New Jersey for a suspended license during one of his three unsuccessful attempts to travel to Yemen and other spots in the Middle East.
Wife charged with fraud
He and his wife were detained at a Houston airport on an outstanding traffic warrant in February 2009. They had booked tickets to travel to Yemen.
Ernestine Johnson's cell phone has been confiscated. She has not been charged with terrorist activity. She is charged, along with her husband, with fraud for allegedly conspiring to obtain housing subsidies.
Investigators say their rent had been reduced from $715 a month to only $6, because the husband claimed to be earning $75 a week from a bogus window washing company.
After his arrest, a dozen mostly unmarked cars swooped down on Bujol's Pine Meadows apartment off U.S. 290 and yellow crime scene tape was stretched across the front door.
“At first, we thought somebody had been murdered, or maybe it was a drug bust,” said Sharon Moore, a resident.
“But the next day everyone was appalled to learn a terrorist could be living next door.”
FROM: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7037645.html
HEMPSTEAD — Barry Bujol Jr., the man accused of trying to aid al-Qaida terrorists, and his wife were a reserved couple, neighbors said, who became devout Muslims about four years ago and who occasionally expressed feelings of disenfranchisement as black Americans.
“They'd talk about white people always wanting to overpower everything,” recalled Cindy Celis, a nearby neighbor in a subsidized apartment complex. “But they prayed three times a day, kept to themselves and never caused any trouble. They have a 6-month-old baby and a 2-year-old, and our children often played together.”
The 29-year-old Bujol is in federal custody, accused of trying to provide terrorists with global positioning instruments, cell phones and a restricted publication on the effects of U.S. military weapons in Afghanistan. Authorities said he had been exchanging e-mails with the charismatic cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, the native-born U.S. citizen who also was in communication with the man accused in the 2009 mass killings at Fort Hood, Army psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan.
Those accusations surprised relatives, including Bujol's aunt, Beverly Bujol. Reached at her home in Kenner, La., she recalled her nephew once toyed with giving himself a Muslim name, but she said she had no idea he was apparently using a dozen other aliases. The last his father heard from his son was a recent letter that included a picture of the new baby, she said.
‘We never dreamed … '
She described her nephew as “bright but moody.”
“We never dreamed he could be a terrorist of any kind,” she said.
None of Barry Bujol's three siblings, who reside in the Dallas area; nor his late mother, Sandra Platt; nor his father, were ever Muslim, she said.
When Bujol Jr. decided to change his faith, she said, “We didn't think much about it. We just thought he saw things different.”
Bujol had once been a student at Prairie View A&M but had not been enrolled for the last year and a half, although investigators allege he once used the computers at the school's library for e-mailing.
The university's police chief, Algray Pettus, issued a statement expressing full cooperation with the FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force, but declined to say what if anything was found on the school's computers. “We take this matter very seriously,” he said.
Watched for past 2 years
Neighbors said Bujol Jr. had his own laptop and also spent hours on computers at WorkSource Solutions on U.S. 290 in Waller. The program, funded through the Texas Workforce Commission, provides computer access and other assistance for job searches.
The FBI, who had Bujol under surveillance for the last two years and had even placed a camera in his apartment, said they never saw any evidence of gainful employment by either Bujol or his wife, Ernestine Johnson.
At their home on Friday, Johnson, dressed in traditional Muslim garb — a long black dress and gray head scarf — shooed bystanders off her front porch when she returned to her apartment. Asked if she would tell her side of the story, she replied “no” before closing and locking her door.
No criminal arrests
Margie McDade, a neighbor, said she saw Bujol using the WorkSource computers many days until the offices closed for more than a year.
“He'd be on Yahoo. I kept wondering if he was cheating on his woman or what,” she said. “You are supposed to stay on sites that are job related.”
Misty Blaylock, a resource room specialist there, said she monitors computer use, but someone checking an e-mail would not draw suspicion.
Bujol had no previous criminal arrests. Twice last year when he was arrested by the Waller County Sheriff's Office for driving with a suspended license, said the chief deputy, John Kremmer.
He also was picked up in New Jersey for a suspended license during one of his three unsuccessful attempts to travel to Yemen and other spots in the Middle East.
Wife charged with fraud
He and his wife were detained at a Houston airport on an outstanding traffic warrant in February 2009. They had booked tickets to travel to Yemen.
Ernestine Johnson's cell phone has been confiscated. She has not been charged with terrorist activity. She is charged, along with her husband, with fraud for allegedly conspiring to obtain housing subsidies.
Investigators say their rent had been reduced from $715 a month to only $6, because the husband claimed to be earning $75 a week from a bogus window washing company.
After his arrest, a dozen mostly unmarked cars swooped down on Bujol's Pine Meadows apartment off U.S. 290 and yellow crime scene tape was stretched across the front door.
“At first, we thought somebody had been murdered, or maybe it was a drug bust,” said Sharon Moore, a resident.
“But the next day everyone was appalled to learn a terrorist could be living next door.”
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
IMAM KILLED IN SHOOTOUT HAD DOG BITES ON FACE
*** The so-called Imam believed in stealing and defrauding the non Muslims - any and all of them. He violently engaged federal law enforcement - who had sent in a police dog - and died as a result. End of story. MS ***
FROM: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/100602/world/us_michigan_imam_killed
OUTHFIELD, Mich. - A Detroit mosque leader killed last fall in a shootout with the FBI had dog bites on his face and hands, according to an independent review of the autopsy released Wednesday by a Muslim advocacy group.
The head of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said the bites raise the possibility that Luqman Ameen Abdullah fired a gun trying to defend himself against an FBI dog before he was shot 20 times by agents.
But executive director Dawud Walid also acknowledged that Abdullah may have simply engaged the FBI in gunfire.
"Both scenarios are plausible," Walid said at a news conference.
The FBI says it killed Abdullah after he fired a gun and resisted arrest in a stolen-goods sting operation at a Dearborn warehouse in October. An FBI dog died in the shootout.
Walid's group, known as CAIR, hired Pittsburgh forensic pathologist Dr. Cyril Wecht to look at more than 70 autopsy photos and the autopsy report by the Wayne County medical examiner's office.
Some leaders in the local Muslim community have raised questions about excessive force by the FBI. The Michigan attorney general's office recently received the investigation by Dearborn police and is trying to determine if laws were broken.
Wecht said dog bites broke Abdullah's jaw and caused lacerations on his face and hands.
"If they shot him 20 times because he shot their dog that's unacceptable," Wecht said by phone Wednesday.
But he emphasized that he doesn't "have an axe to grind here."
"I haven't expressed any opinions about the overall scenario — was it necessary, what was the provocation, et cetera," Wecht said of the shooting. "I don't know these guys."
An FBI spokeswoman, Detroit agent Sandra Berchtold, declined to comment.
In February, Wayne County's chief medical examiner, Dr. Carl Schmidt, said there was no distinct pattern to Abdullah's facial wounds. He said he didn't know if they were dog bites.
The FBI says Abdullah was a leader of a radical Sunni group that wants to create an Islamic state within the U.S. His family has denied allegations that he was anti-government.
Eleven allies were indicted in November, with most charged with conspiring to possess and sell stolen goods.
FROM: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/100602/world/us_michigan_imam_killed
OUTHFIELD, Mich. - A Detroit mosque leader killed last fall in a shootout with the FBI had dog bites on his face and hands, according to an independent review of the autopsy released Wednesday by a Muslim advocacy group.
The head of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said the bites raise the possibility that Luqman Ameen Abdullah fired a gun trying to defend himself against an FBI dog before he was shot 20 times by agents.
But executive director Dawud Walid also acknowledged that Abdullah may have simply engaged the FBI in gunfire.
"Both scenarios are plausible," Walid said at a news conference.
The FBI says it killed Abdullah after he fired a gun and resisted arrest in a stolen-goods sting operation at a Dearborn warehouse in October. An FBI dog died in the shootout.
Walid's group, known as CAIR, hired Pittsburgh forensic pathologist Dr. Cyril Wecht to look at more than 70 autopsy photos and the autopsy report by the Wayne County medical examiner's office.
Some leaders in the local Muslim community have raised questions about excessive force by the FBI. The Michigan attorney general's office recently received the investigation by Dearborn police and is trying to determine if laws were broken.
Wecht said dog bites broke Abdullah's jaw and caused lacerations on his face and hands.
"If they shot him 20 times because he shot their dog that's unacceptable," Wecht said by phone Wednesday.
But he emphasized that he doesn't "have an axe to grind here."
"I haven't expressed any opinions about the overall scenario — was it necessary, what was the provocation, et cetera," Wecht said of the shooting. "I don't know these guys."
An FBI spokeswoman, Detroit agent Sandra Berchtold, declined to comment.
In February, Wayne County's chief medical examiner, Dr. Carl Schmidt, said there was no distinct pattern to Abdullah's facial wounds. He said he didn't know if they were dog bites.
The FBI says Abdullah was a leader of a radical Sunni group that wants to create an Islamic state within the U.S. His family has denied allegations that he was anti-government.
Eleven allies were indicted in November, with most charged with conspiring to possess and sell stolen goods.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
TORONTO 18 SCARED OF WEAPONS
FROM: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/story.html?id=3070749
The Crown launched a multi-pronged assault yesterday on the credibility of Asad Ansari, one of the final two accused in the "Toronto 18" terrorism case.
Mr. Ansari, who has denied any role in the 2006 bomb plot and professed to be "scared of weapons," could not explain why police found a cache of files on a CD in his bedroom containing images of violent jihad.
"I can't answer the why," Mr. Ansari said during his cross-examination. "I can only say that I have these images."
The files include photographs of Osama bin Laden and masked militants hoisting AK-47s. In a number of shots, bearded men pose with rocket launchers; others feature a variety of guns and swords.
Mr. Ansari agreed the images glorified the concept of armed mujahideen, but said his aversion to firearms only applied "in real life."
Mr. Ansari, 25, is on trial for participating in a terrorist group that allegedly operated between 2005 and 2006. He admits to attending a winter camping trip organized by "Toronto 18" ringleader Fahim Ahmad, but denies he had any knowledge at the time that the camp was intended as a terrorist training ground.
Ahmad pleaded guilty to terrorism charges this month.
In general, Crown attorney Jason Wakely contended, "[Ahmad] was very open about his plans to attack."
"I guess, sure," Mr. Ansari replied. Yet he maintained Ahmad concealed those plans from him specifically, with discussions on topics such as jihad occurring only in the "theoretical" realm.
The jury has seen a video of the winter camp in Washago, Ont., filmed by Zakaria Amara, who was also charged in the terror plot. In the footage, masked men are seen running through the forest, hoisting a black flag and shooting guns, with Arabic chanting overlaid as a sound-track. Mr. Ansari says he was not present during the filming of any of the violent scenes. "Everything seemed benign and innocuous," he said of the camp.
Mr. Ansari has testified that Amara brought him the camp footage after the event had ended and asked for assistance in converting it to a digital format. This was incriminating evidence, Mr. Wakely pointed out, and "Amara trusted you with that."
"That's correct," the accused testified. Yet he says he never watched any of the footage while he was converting it, simply setting up the conversion process and then leaving the room to do other tasks. The Crown suggested this was false.
"The natural thing to do is to watch it," Mr. Wakely said, noting Mr. Ansari, who was out of school and not working, had little else to focus on at the time.
"I did not [watch]," Mr. Ansari asserted. While he agreed in retrospect it would have
made sense to view the camp video, "it was only happenstance" that he failed to do so.
The Crown also pointed to an intercepted telephone call in which Mr. Ansari speaks to Ahmad about malicious software found on Ahmad's computer.
"You were deliberately cryptic and guarded in this conversation," Mr. Wakely said, alleging Mr. Ansari was aware all the while that Ahmad was the subject of police surveillance, including a wiretap.
"No I did not," Mr. Ansari said. He says he was non-specific in discussing the malicious software because Ahmad "is an idiot when it comes to computers."
At one point in the conversation, Mr. Ansari alerts Ahmad to a program that is sending information out of his computer. "I can guess [where]," Ahmad says. Mr. Ansari, however, fails to follow up with the "obvious question" of where, Mr. Wakely noted.
Mr. Ansari, a self-described computer whiz, said he was not particularly interested in the "amateurish" program, adding it never occurred to him that it was installed by a law-enforcement agency.
The trial resumes today.
The Crown launched a multi-pronged assault yesterday on the credibility of Asad Ansari, one of the final two accused in the "Toronto 18" terrorism case.
Mr. Ansari, who has denied any role in the 2006 bomb plot and professed to be "scared of weapons," could not explain why police found a cache of files on a CD in his bedroom containing images of violent jihad.
"I can't answer the why," Mr. Ansari said during his cross-examination. "I can only say that I have these images."
The files include photographs of Osama bin Laden and masked militants hoisting AK-47s. In a number of shots, bearded men pose with rocket launchers; others feature a variety of guns and swords.
Mr. Ansari agreed the images glorified the concept of armed mujahideen, but said his aversion to firearms only applied "in real life."
Mr. Ansari, 25, is on trial for participating in a terrorist group that allegedly operated between 2005 and 2006. He admits to attending a winter camping trip organized by "Toronto 18" ringleader Fahim Ahmad, but denies he had any knowledge at the time that the camp was intended as a terrorist training ground.
Ahmad pleaded guilty to terrorism charges this month.
In general, Crown attorney Jason Wakely contended, "[Ahmad] was very open about his plans to attack."
"I guess, sure," Mr. Ansari replied. Yet he maintained Ahmad concealed those plans from him specifically, with discussions on topics such as jihad occurring only in the "theoretical" realm.
The jury has seen a video of the winter camp in Washago, Ont., filmed by Zakaria Amara, who was also charged in the terror plot. In the footage, masked men are seen running through the forest, hoisting a black flag and shooting guns, with Arabic chanting overlaid as a sound-track. Mr. Ansari says he was not present during the filming of any of the violent scenes. "Everything seemed benign and innocuous," he said of the camp.
Mr. Ansari has testified that Amara brought him the camp footage after the event had ended and asked for assistance in converting it to a digital format. This was incriminating evidence, Mr. Wakely pointed out, and "Amara trusted you with that."
"That's correct," the accused testified. Yet he says he never watched any of the footage while he was converting it, simply setting up the conversion process and then leaving the room to do other tasks. The Crown suggested this was false.
"The natural thing to do is to watch it," Mr. Wakely said, noting Mr. Ansari, who was out of school and not working, had little else to focus on at the time.
"I did not [watch]," Mr. Ansari asserted. While he agreed in retrospect it would have
made sense to view the camp video, "it was only happenstance" that he failed to do so.
The Crown also pointed to an intercepted telephone call in which Mr. Ansari speaks to Ahmad about malicious software found on Ahmad's computer.
"You were deliberately cryptic and guarded in this conversation," Mr. Wakely said, alleging Mr. Ansari was aware all the while that Ahmad was the subject of police surveillance, including a wiretap.
"No I did not," Mr. Ansari said. He says he was non-specific in discussing the malicious software because Ahmad "is an idiot when it comes to computers."
At one point in the conversation, Mr. Ansari alerts Ahmad to a program that is sending information out of his computer. "I can guess [where]," Ahmad says. Mr. Ansari, however, fails to follow up with the "obvious question" of where, Mr. Wakely noted.
Mr. Ansari, a self-described computer whiz, said he was not particularly interested in the "amateurish" program, adding it never occurred to him that it was installed by a law-enforcement agency.
The trial resumes today.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
YOUNG AMERICAN MUSLIMS ON TRIAL IN PAKISTAN
*** The first casualty of war is not the truth, it is humanity itself. MS ***
FROM: http://napavalleyregister.com/news/world/article_6e2e3567-90c9-5535-ab20-0e51f6c74981.html
The prosecution concluded its case Saturday against five Americans on trial in a Pakistani court facing life sentences after being charged with planning terrorist attacks in the South Asian country.
The men _ all Muslims in their late teens or early 20s from the Washington suburb of Alexandria, Virginia _ have pleaded not guilty to five charges.
The accused were given a last chance to respond to the prosecution before the defense presents its side on June 9, prosecutor Nadeem Akram said.
In a written statement, the men said the charges against them were trumped up and police planted discriminating evidence. "We just wanted to go to Afghanistan to help our Muslim brother on humanitarian grounds," they said.
The prosecution presented 19 witnesses and evidence including e-mail contacts allegedly with the Pakistani Taliban, and receipts of money they allegedly donated to banned militant groups in Pakistan, Akram said. There was a "strong case" for conviction in the trial being heard by one judge, he said.
The case is among several of foreigners allegedly signing up to join insurgents.
U.S. and Pakistan are continuing to investigate the Pakistani-American suspect in the botched Times Square bombing on May 1. Family members have said Faisal Shahzad never exhibited signs of extremism, raising questions as to why men who spent much of their lives in the West would seemingly be drawn to militant Islam.
The five men were arrested in Pakistan in December after being reported missing by their families. One had left behind a farewell video showing scenes of war and casualties and saying Muslims must be defended.
Pakistani police have publicly made several accusations against the young men, claiming the suspects contacted Pakistani-based jihadi groups. They accused the five of using the social networking site Facebook and video-sharing site YouTube while they were in the U.S. to try to connect with extremist groups in Pakistan.
Their lawyer has said they were heading to Afghanistan and had no plans to stage attacks inside Pakistan.
The trial is taking place inside a high-security prison in the eastern city of Sargodha and media have not been allowed to cover the proceedings.
The men have been identified as Ramy Zamzam of Egyptian descent, Waqar Khan and Umar Farooq of Pakistani descent, and Aman Hassan Yemer and Ahmed Minni of Ethiopian descent.
FROM: http://napavalleyregister.com/news/world/article_6e2e3567-90c9-5535-ab20-0e51f6c74981.html
The prosecution concluded its case Saturday against five Americans on trial in a Pakistani court facing life sentences after being charged with planning terrorist attacks in the South Asian country.
The men _ all Muslims in their late teens or early 20s from the Washington suburb of Alexandria, Virginia _ have pleaded not guilty to five charges.
The accused were given a last chance to respond to the prosecution before the defense presents its side on June 9, prosecutor Nadeem Akram said.
In a written statement, the men said the charges against them were trumped up and police planted discriminating evidence. "We just wanted to go to Afghanistan to help our Muslim brother on humanitarian grounds," they said.
The prosecution presented 19 witnesses and evidence including e-mail contacts allegedly with the Pakistani Taliban, and receipts of money they allegedly donated to banned militant groups in Pakistan, Akram said. There was a "strong case" for conviction in the trial being heard by one judge, he said.
The case is among several of foreigners allegedly signing up to join insurgents.
U.S. and Pakistan are continuing to investigate the Pakistani-American suspect in the botched Times Square bombing on May 1. Family members have said Faisal Shahzad never exhibited signs of extremism, raising questions as to why men who spent much of their lives in the West would seemingly be drawn to militant Islam.
The five men were arrested in Pakistan in December after being reported missing by their families. One had left behind a farewell video showing scenes of war and casualties and saying Muslims must be defended.
Pakistani police have publicly made several accusations against the young men, claiming the suspects contacted Pakistani-based jihadi groups. They accused the five of using the social networking site Facebook and video-sharing site YouTube while they were in the U.S. to try to connect with extremist groups in Pakistan.
Their lawyer has said they were heading to Afghanistan and had no plans to stage attacks inside Pakistan.
The trial is taking place inside a high-security prison in the eastern city of Sargodha and media have not been allowed to cover the proceedings.
The men have been identified as Ramy Zamzam of Egyptian descent, Waqar Khan and Umar Farooq of Pakistani descent, and Aman Hassan Yemer and Ahmed Minni of Ethiopian descent.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
DECENTRALIZED JIHAD - A MOVING TARGET
*** The Conservative government is not interested in helping to provide a counter narrative and frankly, that makes us less safe. This should not be a partisan issue driven by political ideology but a Canadian issue driven by common sense. MS ***
FROM: http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/809560--decentralized-jihad-a-moving-target-in-wake-of-terror-attempts
When a young African man was caught trying to blow up an airliner last December with underwear-borne explosives, the official response was swift, far-reaching and not altogether coherent.
Knee-jerk airport security measures forced Toronto passengers to rub their hands in their pockets, then extend palms up for an explosives test before boarding.
Washington probed why Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab did not appear on no-fly lists when his own father had alerted authorities.
And focus turned sharply to Yemen, where the suspect allegedly trained.
Soon after, the Obama administration authorized the first sanctioned killing of an American citizen hiding there — online radical orator Anwar al-Awlaki.
Reaction to this month’s failed bombing attempt in New York’s Times Square has been more nuanced — but may pose more troubling questions.
Pakistan, where suspect Faisal Shahzad allegedly received rudimentary explosives training, was already at the centre of Washington’s counter-terrorism efforts and a vital partner in the war in neighbouring Afghanistan.
The U.S. administration has sent mixed messages — first criticizing and then praising Pakistan’s ability to root out what Obama called Wednesday the “cancer in their midst.”
It is still uncertain what ties Shahzad to the Pakistani wing of the Taliban, the Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP), but on Tuesday, U.S. drones rained down on the group’s stronghold in North Waziristan, killing 14.
More troubling is that Shahzad himself was unremarkable in many ways — no obvious warnings were missed.
U.S. Gen. David Petraeus suggested last weekend that Shahzad was a “lone wolf” with questionable ties to Pakistan.
The lone wolf scenario is what worries intelligence agencies, because individuals are difficult to detect. Another concern is the prevalence of what have been dubbed “homegrown groups,” such as the so-called case of the Toronto 18 who plotted to bomb Canadian targets in 2006.
Canadian Security Intelligence Service Director Richard Fadden told Parliament this week that the spy service is tracking more than 200 Canadians for possible terrorist links.
“They are usually second- or third-generation Canadians who are in some ways relatively well-integrated into Canada, economically and socially,” Fadden said.
But the problem with Shahzad’s case is that he doesn’t neatly fit into one category, and looking for clues to combat future threats provides scant material.
Born into privilege in Pakistan, he came to the U.S. a decade ago and attended school both in Washington and Connecticut. Married, with two kids, he liked Red Lobster and Wal-Mart, was on Facebook, and had financial problems.
He does not appear to be tied to any one mosque or extremist imam, which has sometimes been a factor in past cases. Reports say he was inspired by Awlaki’s online lectures, but that there was no direct contact.
His travels to Pakistan may prove important if reports that he had direct support, training and financing from Pakistan’s Taliban are true. This would counter Petraeus’s description of Shahzad as the lone wolf — akin to Nidal Malik Hasan, the U.S. army major who killed 13 in a November shooting rampage at his Fort Hood base.
But even if ties to Pakistan become an important part of the equation, they cannot be the sole focus, argues Sahebzada Khan, Toronto’s Consul General of Pakistan in Toronto.
“We will not be forced to accept collective guilt,” Khan said in an interview this week.
“Whether he was a lone wolf or linked to some Taliban organization, this was the work of a twisted mind, motivated by the Al Qaeda narrative.”
A belief in that narrative — that the West has launched a war on Islam — may be the only commonality among Shahzad and other terrorism suspects.
And combating that belief cannot be accomplished with drone attacks or making people take off their shoes at the airport. In fact, security experts fear that misguided drone attacks that kill civilians and the profiling of innocent Muslims only feed the narrative.
Since 9/11, analysts have tried to compile the portrait of a local terrorist or, at the very least, detect a pattern among those who target the West in the name of Al Qaeda or its affiliates.
Al Qaeda before 9/11 was in many ways easier to define and track. The organization was based in Afghanistan, and it had a hierarchy, structure and members who pledged allegiance, or declared a bayat, to leader Osama bin Laden.
Today, what’s left of bin Laden’s group is commonly referred to as Al Qaeda Central. Al Qaeda’s ideology, however, has spread to local groups in Yemen, Somalia, North Africa, Iraq and Pakistan, who have expanded their regional wars to adopt bin Laden’s global fight.
In the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and other Western nations, there’s a counterculture protest movement in which, for lack of a better term, jihad becomes cool and Internet chat groups provide fuel for the fire.
Marc Sageman, a forensic psychiatrist and former CIA case officer in Pakistan in the late 1980s, during the Soviet’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, coined this movement the “blob.”
The author of Leaderless Jihad argues that members come and go and make loose connections, united by the perception that Muslims are being persecuted.
“This is a legal set of activities in a liberal democracy — words are protected by freedom of expression,” Sageman said in an interview this week.
“What keeps it alive usually is government action.”
But when the “blob” is discounted as ineffective and members turn to violence, then comes the dangerous transformation from protestor to terrorist, says Sageman.
Mubin Shaikh, an RCMP police agent who testified as one of the government’s star witnesses against the ring leaders of the Toronto 18 group, says he often hears Muslim youths rage against a war on Islam.
Shaikh knew one of the young Toronto men who travelled to Somalia to fight for the local Al Qaeda-affiliated group and was reportedly killed. He said he was not surprised when a video surfaced that praised Mohammed Elmi Ibrahim, known as “Canlish,” as a martyr and encouraged others to “follow his footsteps.”
“There’s a confluence of factors in these cases,” said Shaikh. “But the feeling that Islam is under attack is how they justify their actions.
“You need to have a counter-narrative.”
FROM: http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/809560--decentralized-jihad-a-moving-target-in-wake-of-terror-attempts
When a young African man was caught trying to blow up an airliner last December with underwear-borne explosives, the official response was swift, far-reaching and not altogether coherent.
Knee-jerk airport security measures forced Toronto passengers to rub their hands in their pockets, then extend palms up for an explosives test before boarding.
Washington probed why Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab did not appear on no-fly lists when his own father had alerted authorities.
And focus turned sharply to Yemen, where the suspect allegedly trained.
Soon after, the Obama administration authorized the first sanctioned killing of an American citizen hiding there — online radical orator Anwar al-Awlaki.
Reaction to this month’s failed bombing attempt in New York’s Times Square has been more nuanced — but may pose more troubling questions.
Pakistan, where suspect Faisal Shahzad allegedly received rudimentary explosives training, was already at the centre of Washington’s counter-terrorism efforts and a vital partner in the war in neighbouring Afghanistan.
The U.S. administration has sent mixed messages — first criticizing and then praising Pakistan’s ability to root out what Obama called Wednesday the “cancer in their midst.”
It is still uncertain what ties Shahzad to the Pakistani wing of the Taliban, the Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP), but on Tuesday, U.S. drones rained down on the group’s stronghold in North Waziristan, killing 14.
More troubling is that Shahzad himself was unremarkable in many ways — no obvious warnings were missed.
U.S. Gen. David Petraeus suggested last weekend that Shahzad was a “lone wolf” with questionable ties to Pakistan.
The lone wolf scenario is what worries intelligence agencies, because individuals are difficult to detect. Another concern is the prevalence of what have been dubbed “homegrown groups,” such as the so-called case of the Toronto 18 who plotted to bomb Canadian targets in 2006.
Canadian Security Intelligence Service Director Richard Fadden told Parliament this week that the spy service is tracking more than 200 Canadians for possible terrorist links.
“They are usually second- or third-generation Canadians who are in some ways relatively well-integrated into Canada, economically and socially,” Fadden said.
But the problem with Shahzad’s case is that he doesn’t neatly fit into one category, and looking for clues to combat future threats provides scant material.
Born into privilege in Pakistan, he came to the U.S. a decade ago and attended school both in Washington and Connecticut. Married, with two kids, he liked Red Lobster and Wal-Mart, was on Facebook, and had financial problems.
He does not appear to be tied to any one mosque or extremist imam, which has sometimes been a factor in past cases. Reports say he was inspired by Awlaki’s online lectures, but that there was no direct contact.
His travels to Pakistan may prove important if reports that he had direct support, training and financing from Pakistan’s Taliban are true. This would counter Petraeus’s description of Shahzad as the lone wolf — akin to Nidal Malik Hasan, the U.S. army major who killed 13 in a November shooting rampage at his Fort Hood base.
But even if ties to Pakistan become an important part of the equation, they cannot be the sole focus, argues Sahebzada Khan, Toronto’s Consul General of Pakistan in Toronto.
“We will not be forced to accept collective guilt,” Khan said in an interview this week.
“Whether he was a lone wolf or linked to some Taliban organization, this was the work of a twisted mind, motivated by the Al Qaeda narrative.”
A belief in that narrative — that the West has launched a war on Islam — may be the only commonality among Shahzad and other terrorism suspects.
And combating that belief cannot be accomplished with drone attacks or making people take off their shoes at the airport. In fact, security experts fear that misguided drone attacks that kill civilians and the profiling of innocent Muslims only feed the narrative.
Since 9/11, analysts have tried to compile the portrait of a local terrorist or, at the very least, detect a pattern among those who target the West in the name of Al Qaeda or its affiliates.
Al Qaeda before 9/11 was in many ways easier to define and track. The organization was based in Afghanistan, and it had a hierarchy, structure and members who pledged allegiance, or declared a bayat, to leader Osama bin Laden.
Today, what’s left of bin Laden’s group is commonly referred to as Al Qaeda Central. Al Qaeda’s ideology, however, has spread to local groups in Yemen, Somalia, North Africa, Iraq and Pakistan, who have expanded their regional wars to adopt bin Laden’s global fight.
In the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and other Western nations, there’s a counterculture protest movement in which, for lack of a better term, jihad becomes cool and Internet chat groups provide fuel for the fire.
Marc Sageman, a forensic psychiatrist and former CIA case officer in Pakistan in the late 1980s, during the Soviet’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, coined this movement the “blob.”
The author of Leaderless Jihad argues that members come and go and make loose connections, united by the perception that Muslims are being persecuted.
“This is a legal set of activities in a liberal democracy — words are protected by freedom of expression,” Sageman said in an interview this week.
“What keeps it alive usually is government action.”
But when the “blob” is discounted as ineffective and members turn to violence, then comes the dangerous transformation from protestor to terrorist, says Sageman.
Mubin Shaikh, an RCMP police agent who testified as one of the government’s star witnesses against the ring leaders of the Toronto 18 group, says he often hears Muslim youths rage against a war on Islam.
Shaikh knew one of the young Toronto men who travelled to Somalia to fight for the local Al Qaeda-affiliated group and was reportedly killed. He said he was not surprised when a video surfaced that praised Mohammed Elmi Ibrahim, known as “Canlish,” as a martyr and encouraged others to “follow his footsteps.”
“There’s a confluence of factors in these cases,” said Shaikh. “But the feeling that Islam is under attack is how they justify their actions.
“You need to have a counter-narrative.”
Friday, May 14, 2010
DEMOS REPORT ON RADICALIZATION - THE EDGE OF VIOLENCE
*** An excellent report. A specific kudos to researcher, Michael King who is a Canadian. *** MS
FROM: http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/theedgeofviolence <<-- report can be downloaded at the link.
The path into terrorism in the name of Islam is often described as a process of radicalisation. But to be radical is not necessarily to be violent. Violent radicals are clearly enemies of liberal democracies, but non-violent radicals might sometimes be powerful allies.
This report is a summary of two years of research examining the difference between violent and non-violent radicals in Europe and Canada. It represents a step towards a more nuanced understanding of behaviour across radicalised individuals, the appeal of the al-Qaeda narrative, and the role of governments and communities in responding.
FROM: http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/theedgeofviolence <<-- report can be downloaded at the link.
The path into terrorism in the name of Islam is often described as a process of radicalisation. But to be radical is not necessarily to be violent. Violent radicals are clearly enemies of liberal democracies, but non-violent radicals might sometimes be powerful allies.
This report is a summary of two years of research examining the difference between violent and non-violent radicals in Europe and Canada. It represents a step towards a more nuanced understanding of behaviour across radicalised individuals, the appeal of the al-Qaeda narrative, and the role of governments and communities in responding.
TIMES SQUARE BOMBER FAMILY IN SHOCK
*** Wannabe Jihadi's should ask themselves how they will answer Allah when He asks why you put your family through this - your mother, under whose feet heaven lies - your father, your siblings, the greater community. This is a shameful way that brings no honour, only heartache. MS ***
FROM: http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/809182--times-square-bomb-suspect-s-family-in-shock-disbelief
On a bright spring day in 1976, a Pakistani flight instructor watched approvingly as his Royal Air Force trainees, flying in formation over the English countryside, wrote out “Five-O” in perfect trailer smoke. It was Queen Elizabeth II’s 50th birthday, and one of the proudest moments of Bahar ul-Haq’s life.
Today Haq, 70, a retired vice air marshal in Pakistan’s air force, is hiding in humiliation and shock, secluded somewhere in the northwestern city of Peshawar. His younger son, Faisal Shahzad, whom friends say he sent to the United States to study and to escape Pakistan’s problems, stands accused of attempting to explode a bomb in New York’s Times Square with help from Islamist militants.
Pakistani investigators are poring through family files and quizzing neighbours. Television crews have mobbed the lanes of this northwestern village where Haq grew up and have camped outside his home in Peshawar. International news programs have shown his son’s bearded face over and over, next to shots of the sport-utility vehicle in Manhattan that held the homemade bomb.
Haq “is very, very depressed. He is an honourable, patriotic man who worked hard to rise in the air force and raise his children cleanly. Now his family’s reputation has been destroyed,” said Hajji Sherzada, a retired importer who is a lifelong friend of Haq and said he has spoken to him by phone several times since the son’s arrest last week. “Every time his wife gets on the phone, she just cries.”
Haq has not made any statements and has not been seen in the past week. Provincial authorities said Sunday he was in “protective custody,” but relatives said he and his wife are in seclusion to avoid publicity.
Friends, relations and air force colleagues of Haq, interviewed in several northwestern communities and Islamabad this week, said they could make no sense of his son’s alleged actions or possible conversion to radical Islam.
Shahzad, 30, grew up in a stable community where most people were educated and many were part of Pakistan’s close-knit military world. His father, an accomplished pilot, rose from humble village roots to the top ranks of the air force, serving stints in Britain and Saudi Arabia. Several other family members were air force officers, including Shahzad’s maternal grandfather.
Over the years, Haq gained a reputation as an exceptional flight instructor and enjoyed training young pilots, especially in loops and other aerobatic stunts. He was invited to teach at an air academy in England for several years. Described by friends as a strict and protective father, he raised his children to become civilian professionals: Faisal’s older brother is an engineer in Canada, and one sister is a physician.
“Faisal’s father was liberal, not religious. We are all Muslims here, but there are no extremists in our community,” said Badal Khan, a cousin and finance officer for a telephone company, who spent Tuesday showing a team of federal police investigators around Mohib Banda.
Khan said Haq had “land and military connections, and he could have gotten his sons good jobs here, but he was worried about the environment in Pakistan and sent them both abroad to keep them away from trouble. We can’t understand what happened to Faisal over there.”
Shirzada Bacha, a maternal uncle of Shahzad, said that if Haq had suspected his son was involved in extremist activities, he would have “killed him in the house.”
Other family friends said they had seen little of Shahzad since he moved to the United States at age 18. Over the next decade, he earned a degree in business administration, married, got a job as a financial analyst, bought a house in Connecticut and became a U.S. citizen. About a year ago, when he returned home for a visit, friends and relatives noticed he was wearing a beard for the first time. But it occurred to no one that this might signify anything sinister.
“When I saw him with the beard, I saw nothing wrong with it. I was happy that even though he was living in America, he was staying close to Almighty God and to our traditions,” said Iftikhar Ahmed, a retired air force officer and nephew of Haq who lives in Islamabad.
Ahmed, 54, said he followed Shahzad’s upbringing closely, and he described the father as an “enlightened, upright” man who raised his son to be “balanced” in his views. “We sent a clean and innocent boy to America,” Ahmed said with bitterness. “If he went bad in America, why don’t you blame America instead of his family and his country?”
Sherzada and others close to the family scoffed at allegations by U.S. prosecutors that Shahzad had developed ties with Pakistani Taliban militants and had found his way to the rugged tribal area of North Waziristan for terrorist training. One relative said the young man did not know his way around after so many years abroad and always travelled with his father to family weddings and funerals.
“If Faisal ever got to Waziristan, and they got to know he was the son of an air marshal, they would kidnap him and ask for millions in ransom for his release,” Sherzada said, half-joking.
Ahmed and others from the military who know Haq took pains to point out that the Pakistani armed forces — and the small air force in particular — are a close-knit and highly professional meritocracy. They expressed solidarity with Haq and described his son’s arrest as a personal tragedy rather than as an incident that would damage the country’s military institutions as a whole.
In Utmanzai, the home of Shahzad’s mother, relatives recited prayers this week for his safe release. The village is known as a centre of Sufi mysticism, a moderate and freewheeling form of Islam that is ideologically poles apart from the severe, Saudi-inspired Wahhabi school of Islam that produced the Taliban and other extremist groups.
Bacha, the maternal uncle, said Shahzad was “never inclined to any fanaticism. I remember him dancing with his cousins, both girls and boys, at his own wedding” five years ago. At various wedding parties, the uncle said, “he danced to not only traditional Pashto music but fast music, and he wasn’t shy. Now when I think of him in custody for alleged radicalization, I am not ready to believe it.”
FROM: http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/809182--times-square-bomb-suspect-s-family-in-shock-disbelief
On a bright spring day in 1976, a Pakistani flight instructor watched approvingly as his Royal Air Force trainees, flying in formation over the English countryside, wrote out “Five-O” in perfect trailer smoke. It was Queen Elizabeth II’s 50th birthday, and one of the proudest moments of Bahar ul-Haq’s life.
Today Haq, 70, a retired vice air marshal in Pakistan’s air force, is hiding in humiliation and shock, secluded somewhere in the northwestern city of Peshawar. His younger son, Faisal Shahzad, whom friends say he sent to the United States to study and to escape Pakistan’s problems, stands accused of attempting to explode a bomb in New York’s Times Square with help from Islamist militants.
Pakistani investigators are poring through family files and quizzing neighbours. Television crews have mobbed the lanes of this northwestern village where Haq grew up and have camped outside his home in Peshawar. International news programs have shown his son’s bearded face over and over, next to shots of the sport-utility vehicle in Manhattan that held the homemade bomb.
Haq “is very, very depressed. He is an honourable, patriotic man who worked hard to rise in the air force and raise his children cleanly. Now his family’s reputation has been destroyed,” said Hajji Sherzada, a retired importer who is a lifelong friend of Haq and said he has spoken to him by phone several times since the son’s arrest last week. “Every time his wife gets on the phone, she just cries.”
Haq has not made any statements and has not been seen in the past week. Provincial authorities said Sunday he was in “protective custody,” but relatives said he and his wife are in seclusion to avoid publicity.
Friends, relations and air force colleagues of Haq, interviewed in several northwestern communities and Islamabad this week, said they could make no sense of his son’s alleged actions or possible conversion to radical Islam.
Shahzad, 30, grew up in a stable community where most people were educated and many were part of Pakistan’s close-knit military world. His father, an accomplished pilot, rose from humble village roots to the top ranks of the air force, serving stints in Britain and Saudi Arabia. Several other family members were air force officers, including Shahzad’s maternal grandfather.
Over the years, Haq gained a reputation as an exceptional flight instructor and enjoyed training young pilots, especially in loops and other aerobatic stunts. He was invited to teach at an air academy in England for several years. Described by friends as a strict and protective father, he raised his children to become civilian professionals: Faisal’s older brother is an engineer in Canada, and one sister is a physician.
“Faisal’s father was liberal, not religious. We are all Muslims here, but there are no extremists in our community,” said Badal Khan, a cousin and finance officer for a telephone company, who spent Tuesday showing a team of federal police investigators around Mohib Banda.
Khan said Haq had “land and military connections, and he could have gotten his sons good jobs here, but he was worried about the environment in Pakistan and sent them both abroad to keep them away from trouble. We can’t understand what happened to Faisal over there.”
Shirzada Bacha, a maternal uncle of Shahzad, said that if Haq had suspected his son was involved in extremist activities, he would have “killed him in the house.”
Other family friends said they had seen little of Shahzad since he moved to the United States at age 18. Over the next decade, he earned a degree in business administration, married, got a job as a financial analyst, bought a house in Connecticut and became a U.S. citizen. About a year ago, when he returned home for a visit, friends and relatives noticed he was wearing a beard for the first time. But it occurred to no one that this might signify anything sinister.
“When I saw him with the beard, I saw nothing wrong with it. I was happy that even though he was living in America, he was staying close to Almighty God and to our traditions,” said Iftikhar Ahmed, a retired air force officer and nephew of Haq who lives in Islamabad.
Ahmed, 54, said he followed Shahzad’s upbringing closely, and he described the father as an “enlightened, upright” man who raised his son to be “balanced” in his views. “We sent a clean and innocent boy to America,” Ahmed said with bitterness. “If he went bad in America, why don’t you blame America instead of his family and his country?”
Sherzada and others close to the family scoffed at allegations by U.S. prosecutors that Shahzad had developed ties with Pakistani Taliban militants and had found his way to the rugged tribal area of North Waziristan for terrorist training. One relative said the young man did not know his way around after so many years abroad and always travelled with his father to family weddings and funerals.
“If Faisal ever got to Waziristan, and they got to know he was the son of an air marshal, they would kidnap him and ask for millions in ransom for his release,” Sherzada said, half-joking.
Ahmed and others from the military who know Haq took pains to point out that the Pakistani armed forces — and the small air force in particular — are a close-knit and highly professional meritocracy. They expressed solidarity with Haq and described his son’s arrest as a personal tragedy rather than as an incident that would damage the country’s military institutions as a whole.
In Utmanzai, the home of Shahzad’s mother, relatives recited prayers this week for his safe release. The village is known as a centre of Sufi mysticism, a moderate and freewheeling form of Islam that is ideologically poles apart from the severe, Saudi-inspired Wahhabi school of Islam that produced the Taliban and other extremist groups.
Bacha, the maternal uncle, said Shahzad was “never inclined to any fanaticism. I remember him dancing with his cousins, both girls and boys, at his own wedding” five years ago. At various wedding parties, the uncle said, “he danced to not only traditional Pashto music but fast music, and he wasn’t shy. Now when I think of him in custody for alleged radicalization, I am not ready to believe it.”
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
CANADA SPIES TRACKING OVER 200 TERROR SUSPECTS
*** I fear that lack of political will and wilful ignorance by the public is directly responsible for our current state of affairs. MS ***
FROM: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/100511/canada/international_us_security_canada_spies
Canada is tracking more than 200 people linked to al Qaeda and other organizations considered to be terrorist, the head of the nation's spy service said in a rare public appearance on Tuesday.
Richard Fadden, head of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), also said he was particularly concerned by radicalized youths, whose families may have been in Canada for several generations, but who have become disenchanted with Canadian society.
"Confronting the threat from al Qaeda, its affiliates and its adherents remains our number one priority," he told a parliamentary committee.
"As of this month CSIS is investigating over 200 individuals in this country whose activities meet the (official) definition of terrorism."
As an indication of the potential threat to Canada, Fadden also mentioned the so-called Toronto 18, a group of mainly young men who were accused of plotting al Qaeda-inspired attacks on Canadian landmarks.
He said the Toronto 18 were an example of "second or third generation Canadians, who in some ways are relatively well integrated" but who had become "appallingly disenchanted with the way we want to structure our society."
He added: "There are a number of such groups that we are investigating."
CSIS and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have been involved in a string of high-profile anti-terror cases in recent years, sometimes coming under strong criticism.
In the most infamous case, an inquiry found the RCMP falsely told their U.S. counterparts that software engineer Maher Arar had extremist links. The United States deported him to Syria in 2002, where he says he was tortured.
CSIS is also under fire over the separate case of three Canadians of Middle Eastern descent who say they were arrested in Syria and asked questions that could only have come from officials in Ottawa.
Fadden defended the links CSIS had with around 275 different agencies in 150 nations, saying such ties were crucial in the war on terror.
"To shy away from such engagement would in my view a form of unilateral disarmament in a dangerous world," he said.
FROM: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/100511/canada/international_us_security_canada_spies
Canada is tracking more than 200 people linked to al Qaeda and other organizations considered to be terrorist, the head of the nation's spy service said in a rare public appearance on Tuesday.
Richard Fadden, head of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), also said he was particularly concerned by radicalized youths, whose families may have been in Canada for several generations, but who have become disenchanted with Canadian society.
"Confronting the threat from al Qaeda, its affiliates and its adherents remains our number one priority," he told a parliamentary committee.
"As of this month CSIS is investigating over 200 individuals in this country whose activities meet the (official) definition of terrorism."
As an indication of the potential threat to Canada, Fadden also mentioned the so-called Toronto 18, a group of mainly young men who were accused of plotting al Qaeda-inspired attacks on Canadian landmarks.
He said the Toronto 18 were an example of "second or third generation Canadians, who in some ways are relatively well integrated" but who had become "appallingly disenchanted with the way we want to structure our society."
He added: "There are a number of such groups that we are investigating."
CSIS and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have been involved in a string of high-profile anti-terror cases in recent years, sometimes coming under strong criticism.
In the most infamous case, an inquiry found the RCMP falsely told their U.S. counterparts that software engineer Maher Arar had extremist links. The United States deported him to Syria in 2002, where he says he was tortured.
CSIS is also under fire over the separate case of three Canadians of Middle Eastern descent who say they were arrested in Syria and asked questions that could only have come from officials in Ottawa.
Fadden defended the links CSIS had with around 275 different agencies in 150 nations, saying such ties were crucial in the war on terror.
"To shy away from such engagement would in my view a form of unilateral disarmament in a dangerous world," he said.
Friday, February 12, 2010
JIHAD AND JIHADISM IN THE MALDIVE ISLANDS
*** Have these groups even asked themselves what they would do for the country's income? Or is rampant poverty and absence of basic services the way forward? Empty, this thinking is empty. MS ***
http://www.jamestown.org/programs/gta/single/?tx_ttnews[tt_news]=36036&tx_ttnews[backPid]=26&cHash=11cf84a0f2
Jihad and Islamism in the Maldive Islands
By: Animesh Roul
Maldivian President Mohammed Nasheed admitted in October, 2009 that hundreds of Maldivian Muslims had been recruited by Pakistan-based terrorist groups and are presently fighting against government forces in Pakistan. [1] The revelation by Nasheed was substantiated by video footage circulated by al-Qaeda’s media wing in November 2009, which not only proved Maldivians’ participation in the global jihad movement, but also demonstrated the impact of radical Islam on the psyche of Maldivian youth. Ali Jaleel (a.k.a. Musab Sayyid), a Maldivian national who had been fighting alongside pro-Taliban forces in Pakistan, was featured in that video. [2] Ali Jaleel died during the suicide attack on the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) headquarters in Lahore on May 27, 2009 (Haeveeru Online, November 8, 2009).
Soon after, another video aimed at jihadi recruitment featured a previously unknown al-Qaeda cell operating in the Maldives. The short video flashed the message, "Your brothers in the Maldives are calling you." This brief internet footage was perhaps a declaration of sorts for the establishment of the first al-Qaeda cell in the Maldives. The image in the video shows three men sitting together on a beach while another man is standing in the foreground near a coconut tree (Adnkronos International, November 20, 2009). Later it was confirmed that the video teaser was posted by the media wing of the lesser-known Ansar al-Mujahideen. [3]
In an earlier incident, Maldivian national Ibrahim Fauzee was arrested in Karachi, Pakistan, in May 2002 while living in a suspected al-Qaeda safe house. Fauzee, an Islamic cleric, was held in extrajudicial detention in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp until his release and repatriation to the Maldives in March 2005 (al-Jazeera, October 7, 2009). These and other incidents have sparked concerns about the spread of radical Islam in the Indian Ocean archipelago.
A Paradise for Radicalism
The Maldives, a Sunni Muslim majority island nation, is sometimes described as a paradise for Islamic radicalism. The country witnessed a terrorist strike for the first time in September, 2007, when a bomb explosion in the capital Male wounded 12 foreigners, including British, Japanese and Chinese tourists (The Guardian, September 30, 2007). The blast in Sultan Park was targeted at the thriving tourism industry, which is by and large the economic lifeline of the Maldives. Despite the economic benefits, many radical Islamic groups active in the Maldives have denounced tourism’s influence on the local Islamic culture.
Following the Sultan Park bombing, security agencies rounded up over 50 suspects, including a couple of Bangladeshi nationals. Many more fled to Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Two suspects wanted in the investigation, Abdul Latheef Ibrahim and Ali Shameem, had left the Maldives prior to the blast incident with the help of a sympathetic immigration official. Both suspects are believed to have traveled to Karachi via Sri Lanka.
Three terrorists in their early 20s, Mohamed Sobah, Moosa Inaz, and Ahmed Naseer, were sentenced to 15 years in jail in connection with the Sultan Park bombing after confessing to their role in the attack during the trial. [4] They have reportedly admitted their goal was to "target, attack and injure non-Muslims to fulfill jihad."
The bombing prompted the authorities to crack down on extremist elements holed up in the illegal Dhar-ul-Khair mosque on Himendu (or Himandhoo) Island in October 2007. The situation spiraled into a violent confrontation between the members of Dhar-ul-Khair mosque and security forces when the latter attempted to carry out a search and sweep operation. The Maldivian police and the Maldives National Defense Force (MNDF) successfully put down the radical rising and ended the hostage crisis in Dhar-ul-Khair in a scenario similar to the Lal Masjid standoff in Islamabad in July, 2007. Sixteen people were sentenced for the violent confrontation with police at Dhar-ul-Khair (Miadhu online, October 8, 2007; The Guardian, October 9, 2007).
The Pakistan Factor
There is growing evidence of Maldivian youths frequenting Pakistan for reasons unknown or suspicious in nature, though enrollment in various madrassas (Islamic seminaries) was usually cited as the prime reason for their travel. Intelligence agencies of the United States and India have noted this development with concern and believe that the growing religious extremism in Maldives is a Pakistani import.
In the early weeks of February 2010, nine alleged Maldivian terrorists who were arrested in Pakistan’s troubled South Waziristan tribal agency in March, 2009 were brought back to the Maldives. According to Maldivian police, these nine people have ties to the 2007 Sultan Park bombing and may have left the country for Pakistan via Sri Lanka for further training and indoctrination. The nine suspects, who were repatriated in two phases, included Yoosuf Izaadhy, Ahmed Ashraf, Abdullah Sameer, Ali Faiz, Moosa Yoosuf, Yoosuf Mohammed, Ali Shafeeq, Mohamed Zuhrey, and Ahmed Ali. (Haveruu Online, April 2, 2009; Minivan News, April 1, 2009; Miadhu Daily, February 8).
The infiltration of Pakistani militants in the Malidives goes back to the post-tsunami period. The Pakistan-based Idara Khidmat-e-Khalq (IKK), a charitable front of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), reached the Maldives in the wake of the December, 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami under the guise of providing humanitarian services. The JuD is the political face of the Kashmir-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist group. According to intelligence sources, the IKK spearheaded LeT’s activities in the Maldives, which focused on drawing youths into its fold (rediff.com, September 10, 2009). The IKK reported spending $282,000 in the Maldives, although the Maldivian government says the organization was never registered as a charitable group providing post-Tsunami relief (The Hindu, November 14, 2007).
Worried India
Neighboring India fears that the Maldives’ territory will be used as a breeding ground for Islamist terrorists or as a launching pad for attacks against India. The Maldives are undoubtedly a fertile ground for jihadist recruitment, due to an already radicalized youth (the effect of schools and madrassas being taken over by Mullahs), the influence of the Islamist organization Jamiat Ahl e-Hadith and the persuasive power of Islamist propaganda urging Maldivians to fight to relieve the plight of fellow Muslims abroad. As such, the Maldives offer excellent prospects for global jihadi groups like the LeT and al-Qaeda. Even Maldivian President Mohammed Naseed believes that there is a Maldivian connection to LeT’s November 2008 attack on Mumbai (Rediff.com, October 26, 2009). With increasing concern for the growing radicalization of Maldivian society, and as reports surfaced about the LeT’s foray into the archipelago, the government announced in January that it would not allow its territory to be used for terrorist activities against its neighbors, especially India (Press Trust of India, February 4).
The LeT has been trying to set up bases in uninhabited islands in the Indian Ocean since early 2005 under the guise of carrying out charitable operations. In mid-2009, India’s Intelligence Bureau (IB) issued a warning that the next big attack on Indian soil would be launched from the Maldives and that this threat necessitated the establishment of a robust coastal security apparatus (Rediff.com, July 7, 2009). The IB has also cautioned that terrorist groups like LeT were trying to infiltrate India’s porous coastline (Economic Times, June 30, 2009). Though this alert seemed routine, the actual threat emanating from places like Maldives is not totally unfounded. Again this year, the IB issued intelligence reports about LeT’s aggressive strategy, which has seen the movement deploy nearly 1,000 operatives in the Maldives (Rediff.com, February 4; Minivan News, February 4).
In April 2005, Kerala police arrested Maldivian national Asif Ibrahim, who had reportedly frequented the Indian state to procure arms and ammunition for the LeT's Maldives operations. Ibrahim confessed to having planned to blow up a government-run mosque and to assassinate then-Maldivian President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. Sabahuddin Ahmed, one the prime suspects in the Mumbai carnage, has disclosed details of the LeT's Maldives chapter and the organization’s attempt to recruit youths there (Rediff.com, December 19, 2008).
Salafi Jihad and Talibanization
On an official level, the Maldivian government has become involved in promoting a deal between the Taliban and the Afghan government. A secret meeting in January between Afghan government officials and a delegation that included representatives of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hizb-i-Islami, along with seven men “with close links to the Taliban and respected by Mullah Omar” raised fears among some Maldivians over a perceived trend towards Taliban-style governance in the Maldives (Minivan News, January 28). [5]
The newly democratized Maldives has been coming under the grip of a Salafi-Jihadi ideology which is increasingly gaining currency among Maldivians, especially the youth. Radical political parties such as the Adhalaat (Justice) Party (part of the government coalition) are clamoring for Shari’a to be implemented. Adhalaat, which is sympathetic to the Taliban, also control’s the nation’s Ministry of Islamic Affairs. Another growing Salafi-Wahhabist organization is the Jamiat ul-Salaf, which is vehemently opposed to secularism within Muslim-dominated societies. Jamiat ul-Salaf supports Islamizing education in the country and promotes intolerance towards other religions, especially Christianity.
The Ministry of Islamic Affairs of the Maldives claims to have developed de-radicalization methods and has been taking measures to curb the activities of the various transnational Islamic organizations that have arrived in the Maldives in recent years (Miadhu Daily, April 12, 2009). However, the radical branch of Islam and its call for jihad against non-believers has many more supporters in the Maldives now than in the past and threatens to continue inducing Muslim youths in that country to join global jihadi groups.
Notes
1. For a complete transcript of President Mohamed Nasheed’s interview, See “Radicals in Pak recruiting our youth: Maldives”, CNN-IBN, New Delhi, Oct 25, 2009.
2. See video of Ali Jaleel at www.liveleak.com/view .
3. See the video at threatswatch.org/rapidrecon/2007/11/ansar-almujahideen-targets-the
4. Maldives Police Service, www.police.gov.mv, December 13, 2007.
5. Al-Jazeera TV, January 28 - english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/01/20101271653316762.html
http://www.jamestown.org/programs/gta/single/?tx_ttnews[tt_news]=36036&tx_ttnews[backPid]=26&cHash=11cf84a0f2
Jihad and Islamism in the Maldive Islands
By: Animesh Roul
Maldivian President Mohammed Nasheed admitted in October, 2009 that hundreds of Maldivian Muslims had been recruited by Pakistan-based terrorist groups and are presently fighting against government forces in Pakistan. [1] The revelation by Nasheed was substantiated by video footage circulated by al-Qaeda’s media wing in November 2009, which not only proved Maldivians’ participation in the global jihad movement, but also demonstrated the impact of radical Islam on the psyche of Maldivian youth. Ali Jaleel (a.k.a. Musab Sayyid), a Maldivian national who had been fighting alongside pro-Taliban forces in Pakistan, was featured in that video. [2] Ali Jaleel died during the suicide attack on the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) headquarters in Lahore on May 27, 2009 (Haeveeru Online, November 8, 2009).
Soon after, another video aimed at jihadi recruitment featured a previously unknown al-Qaeda cell operating in the Maldives. The short video flashed the message, "Your brothers in the Maldives are calling you." This brief internet footage was perhaps a declaration of sorts for the establishment of the first al-Qaeda cell in the Maldives. The image in the video shows three men sitting together on a beach while another man is standing in the foreground near a coconut tree (Adnkronos International, November 20, 2009). Later it was confirmed that the video teaser was posted by the media wing of the lesser-known Ansar al-Mujahideen. [3]
In an earlier incident, Maldivian national Ibrahim Fauzee was arrested in Karachi, Pakistan, in May 2002 while living in a suspected al-Qaeda safe house. Fauzee, an Islamic cleric, was held in extrajudicial detention in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp until his release and repatriation to the Maldives in March 2005 (al-Jazeera, October 7, 2009). These and other incidents have sparked concerns about the spread of radical Islam in the Indian Ocean archipelago.
A Paradise for Radicalism
The Maldives, a Sunni Muslim majority island nation, is sometimes described as a paradise for Islamic radicalism. The country witnessed a terrorist strike for the first time in September, 2007, when a bomb explosion in the capital Male wounded 12 foreigners, including British, Japanese and Chinese tourists (The Guardian, September 30, 2007). The blast in Sultan Park was targeted at the thriving tourism industry, which is by and large the economic lifeline of the Maldives. Despite the economic benefits, many radical Islamic groups active in the Maldives have denounced tourism’s influence on the local Islamic culture.
Following the Sultan Park bombing, security agencies rounded up over 50 suspects, including a couple of Bangladeshi nationals. Many more fled to Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Two suspects wanted in the investigation, Abdul Latheef Ibrahim and Ali Shameem, had left the Maldives prior to the blast incident with the help of a sympathetic immigration official. Both suspects are believed to have traveled to Karachi via Sri Lanka.
Three terrorists in their early 20s, Mohamed Sobah, Moosa Inaz, and Ahmed Naseer, were sentenced to 15 years in jail in connection with the Sultan Park bombing after confessing to their role in the attack during the trial. [4] They have reportedly admitted their goal was to "target, attack and injure non-Muslims to fulfill jihad."
The bombing prompted the authorities to crack down on extremist elements holed up in the illegal Dhar-ul-Khair mosque on Himendu (or Himandhoo) Island in October 2007. The situation spiraled into a violent confrontation between the members of Dhar-ul-Khair mosque and security forces when the latter attempted to carry out a search and sweep operation. The Maldivian police and the Maldives National Defense Force (MNDF) successfully put down the radical rising and ended the hostage crisis in Dhar-ul-Khair in a scenario similar to the Lal Masjid standoff in Islamabad in July, 2007. Sixteen people were sentenced for the violent confrontation with police at Dhar-ul-Khair (Miadhu online, October 8, 2007; The Guardian, October 9, 2007).
The Pakistan Factor
There is growing evidence of Maldivian youths frequenting Pakistan for reasons unknown or suspicious in nature, though enrollment in various madrassas (Islamic seminaries) was usually cited as the prime reason for their travel. Intelligence agencies of the United States and India have noted this development with concern and believe that the growing religious extremism in Maldives is a Pakistani import.
In the early weeks of February 2010, nine alleged Maldivian terrorists who were arrested in Pakistan’s troubled South Waziristan tribal agency in March, 2009 were brought back to the Maldives. According to Maldivian police, these nine people have ties to the 2007 Sultan Park bombing and may have left the country for Pakistan via Sri Lanka for further training and indoctrination. The nine suspects, who were repatriated in two phases, included Yoosuf Izaadhy, Ahmed Ashraf, Abdullah Sameer, Ali Faiz, Moosa Yoosuf, Yoosuf Mohammed, Ali Shafeeq, Mohamed Zuhrey, and Ahmed Ali. (Haveruu Online, April 2, 2009; Minivan News, April 1, 2009; Miadhu Daily, February 8).
The infiltration of Pakistani militants in the Malidives goes back to the post-tsunami period. The Pakistan-based Idara Khidmat-e-Khalq (IKK), a charitable front of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), reached the Maldives in the wake of the December, 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami under the guise of providing humanitarian services. The JuD is the political face of the Kashmir-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist group. According to intelligence sources, the IKK spearheaded LeT’s activities in the Maldives, which focused on drawing youths into its fold (rediff.com, September 10, 2009). The IKK reported spending $282,000 in the Maldives, although the Maldivian government says the organization was never registered as a charitable group providing post-Tsunami relief (The Hindu, November 14, 2007).
Worried India
Neighboring India fears that the Maldives’ territory will be used as a breeding ground for Islamist terrorists or as a launching pad for attacks against India. The Maldives are undoubtedly a fertile ground for jihadist recruitment, due to an already radicalized youth (the effect of schools and madrassas being taken over by Mullahs), the influence of the Islamist organization Jamiat Ahl e-Hadith and the persuasive power of Islamist propaganda urging Maldivians to fight to relieve the plight of fellow Muslims abroad. As such, the Maldives offer excellent prospects for global jihadi groups like the LeT and al-Qaeda. Even Maldivian President Mohammed Naseed believes that there is a Maldivian connection to LeT’s November 2008 attack on Mumbai (Rediff.com, October 26, 2009). With increasing concern for the growing radicalization of Maldivian society, and as reports surfaced about the LeT’s foray into the archipelago, the government announced in January that it would not allow its territory to be used for terrorist activities against its neighbors, especially India (Press Trust of India, February 4).
The LeT has been trying to set up bases in uninhabited islands in the Indian Ocean since early 2005 under the guise of carrying out charitable operations. In mid-2009, India’s Intelligence Bureau (IB) issued a warning that the next big attack on Indian soil would be launched from the Maldives and that this threat necessitated the establishment of a robust coastal security apparatus (Rediff.com, July 7, 2009). The IB has also cautioned that terrorist groups like LeT were trying to infiltrate India’s porous coastline (Economic Times, June 30, 2009). Though this alert seemed routine, the actual threat emanating from places like Maldives is not totally unfounded. Again this year, the IB issued intelligence reports about LeT’s aggressive strategy, which has seen the movement deploy nearly 1,000 operatives in the Maldives (Rediff.com, February 4; Minivan News, February 4).
In April 2005, Kerala police arrested Maldivian national Asif Ibrahim, who had reportedly frequented the Indian state to procure arms and ammunition for the LeT's Maldives operations. Ibrahim confessed to having planned to blow up a government-run mosque and to assassinate then-Maldivian President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. Sabahuddin Ahmed, one the prime suspects in the Mumbai carnage, has disclosed details of the LeT's Maldives chapter and the organization’s attempt to recruit youths there (Rediff.com, December 19, 2008).
Salafi Jihad and Talibanization
On an official level, the Maldivian government has become involved in promoting a deal between the Taliban and the Afghan government. A secret meeting in January between Afghan government officials and a delegation that included representatives of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hizb-i-Islami, along with seven men “with close links to the Taliban and respected by Mullah Omar” raised fears among some Maldivians over a perceived trend towards Taliban-style governance in the Maldives (Minivan News, January 28). [5]
The newly democratized Maldives has been coming under the grip of a Salafi-Jihadi ideology which is increasingly gaining currency among Maldivians, especially the youth. Radical political parties such as the Adhalaat (Justice) Party (part of the government coalition) are clamoring for Shari’a to be implemented. Adhalaat, which is sympathetic to the Taliban, also control’s the nation’s Ministry of Islamic Affairs. Another growing Salafi-Wahhabist organization is the Jamiat ul-Salaf, which is vehemently opposed to secularism within Muslim-dominated societies. Jamiat ul-Salaf supports Islamizing education in the country and promotes intolerance towards other religions, especially Christianity.
The Ministry of Islamic Affairs of the Maldives claims to have developed de-radicalization methods and has been taking measures to curb the activities of the various transnational Islamic organizations that have arrived in the Maldives in recent years (Miadhu Daily, April 12, 2009). However, the radical branch of Islam and its call for jihad against non-believers has many more supporters in the Maldives now than in the past and threatens to continue inducing Muslim youths in that country to join global jihadi groups.
Notes
1. For a complete transcript of President Mohamed Nasheed’s interview, See “Radicals in Pak recruiting our youth: Maldives”, CNN-IBN, New Delhi, Oct 25, 2009.
2. See video of Ali Jaleel at www.liveleak.com/view .
3. See the video at threatswatch.org/rapidrecon/2007/11/ansar-almujahideen-targets-the
4. Maldives Police Service, www.police.gov.mv, December 13, 2007.
5. Al-Jazeera TV, January 28 - english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/01/20101271653316762.html
Friday, January 29, 2010
NEXT TIME I WALK AND LET THE BOMBS GO OFF : TORONTO 18 MEMBER
*** Either you walk away or you step up. MS ***
FROM: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/toronto/archive/2010/01/29/next-time-i-ll-walk-away-from-bomb-plot-toronto-18-member.aspx
BRAMPTON — In a passionate outburst before a Superior Court judge yesterday, "Toronto 18" member Shareef Abdelhaleem vowed that should he ever hear of another bomb plot, he would simply "walk away" and allow events to take their course.
"I tried my best to reduce everything," testified Abdelhaleem, who insisted yesterday his participation in the Toronto 18 plot was aimed at mitigating harm to civilians.
"Next time -- well, there will be no next time -- but next time I hear someone trying to blow something up, I'm just going to walk away," Abdelhaleem told the court.
If the hypothetical plot then succeeded, he said, he would walk into a police station and inform authorities: "I knew all about this and did absolutely nothing to stop it."
He said he would tell families who lost loved ones the same thing.
Abdelhaleem was found guilty last week of participating in a 2006 terrorist plot to bomb three targets in southern Ontario, including a regional Canadian Security Intelligence Service facility, a military base and the Toronto Stock Exchange. The defence argues he was entrapped by police, and Abdelhaleem has been testifying at a hearing on that matter.
Abdelhaleem says he gained an inside line on the bomb plot so he could have the power to stop it -- actions he believes the Crown is now persecuting him for.
Under cross-examination by Crown attorney Croft Michaelson, Abdelhaleem admitted he helped bomb plot leader Zakaria Amara in his plans to acquire three tonnes of ammonium nitrate -- even placing chemical orders on his own initiative at times -- while at the same time failing to voice opposition to the bombings themselves.
But Abdelhaleem attempted to focus the court's attention on his efforts to reduce the amount of harm done by the attacks, dismissing as "outrageous" Amara's alleged plan to include metal shards in the bombs to cause more civilian casualties. Abdelhaleem said he felt obliged to stop that from happening.
"I didn't know what I was going to do. I had no plan," he told the court. But he testified that if Amara moved that part of the plot forward, "I was going to sabotage it somehow."
Abdelhaleem, 34, said he also encouraged the group to make smaller bombs to "reduce" the explosive impact.
"I was not taking an initiative to blow something up," he told the judge, noting he was determined to get the address of the terrorist group's chemical storehouse so "if I were to intervene, I'd know where the store was."
One idea Abdelhaleem says he considered was putting a humidifier inthe storehouse to destroy the bomb chemicals, which were supposed to be kept free of moisture, once they arrived.
Abdelhaleem, who referred to himself as a "middleman" between Amara and undercover police agent Shaher Elsohemy, told the court he volunteered to play that role because he believed he was doing nothing to advance the plot and thus doing nothing wrong, "so if I'm seen with Amara, that would be OK."
It was also a way to protect Mr. Elsohemy-- whom he considered a friend at the time -- and to gain information about the chemical storehouse, Abdelhaleem testified.
An adamant and animated Abdelhaleem, speaking in a quick burst, told the judge he wanted to "highlight and bold" that point.
FROM: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/toronto/archive/2010/01/29/next-time-i-ll-walk-away-from-bomb-plot-toronto-18-member.aspx
BRAMPTON — In a passionate outburst before a Superior Court judge yesterday, "Toronto 18" member Shareef Abdelhaleem vowed that should he ever hear of another bomb plot, he would simply "walk away" and allow events to take their course.
"I tried my best to reduce everything," testified Abdelhaleem, who insisted yesterday his participation in the Toronto 18 plot was aimed at mitigating harm to civilians.
"Next time -- well, there will be no next time -- but next time I hear someone trying to blow something up, I'm just going to walk away," Abdelhaleem told the court.
If the hypothetical plot then succeeded, he said, he would walk into a police station and inform authorities: "I knew all about this and did absolutely nothing to stop it."
He said he would tell families who lost loved ones the same thing.
Abdelhaleem was found guilty last week of participating in a 2006 terrorist plot to bomb three targets in southern Ontario, including a regional Canadian Security Intelligence Service facility, a military base and the Toronto Stock Exchange. The defence argues he was entrapped by police, and Abdelhaleem has been testifying at a hearing on that matter.
Abdelhaleem says he gained an inside line on the bomb plot so he could have the power to stop it -- actions he believes the Crown is now persecuting him for.
Under cross-examination by Crown attorney Croft Michaelson, Abdelhaleem admitted he helped bomb plot leader Zakaria Amara in his plans to acquire three tonnes of ammonium nitrate -- even placing chemical orders on his own initiative at times -- while at the same time failing to voice opposition to the bombings themselves.
But Abdelhaleem attempted to focus the court's attention on his efforts to reduce the amount of harm done by the attacks, dismissing as "outrageous" Amara's alleged plan to include metal shards in the bombs to cause more civilian casualties. Abdelhaleem said he felt obliged to stop that from happening.
"I didn't know what I was going to do. I had no plan," he told the court. But he testified that if Amara moved that part of the plot forward, "I was going to sabotage it somehow."
Abdelhaleem, 34, said he also encouraged the group to make smaller bombs to "reduce" the explosive impact.
"I was not taking an initiative to blow something up," he told the judge, noting he was determined to get the address of the terrorist group's chemical storehouse so "if I were to intervene, I'd know where the store was."
One idea Abdelhaleem says he considered was putting a humidifier inthe storehouse to destroy the bomb chemicals, which were supposed to be kept free of moisture, once they arrived.
Abdelhaleem, who referred to himself as a "middleman" between Amara and undercover police agent Shaher Elsohemy, told the court he volunteered to play that role because he believed he was doing nothing to advance the plot and thus doing nothing wrong, "so if I'm seen with Amara, that would be OK."
It was also a way to protect Mr. Elsohemy-- whom he considered a friend at the time -- and to gain information about the chemical storehouse, Abdelhaleem testified.
An adamant and animated Abdelhaleem, speaking in a quick burst, told the judge he wanted to "highlight and bold" that point.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
TORONTO 18 BOMB PLOT : THE COPS MADE ME DO IT
FROM: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/756727--bomb-plotter-blames-police-in-toronto-18-case?bn=1
Toronto 18 bomb plotter Shareef Abdelhaleem testified in a Brampton court Wednesday that he was originally opposed to the explosives plot because he was against terrorism, but that an undercover police agent “was very excited” about the prospect and of making money from such an attack.
The 34-year-old, who is arguing he was entrapped by friend turned informant Shaher Elsohemy, said that when details of the bomb plot were laid out for them by Zakaria Amara, he was opposed to it.
“I reiterated basically why I think Zak was wrong and everything else, this and that. That was my part. Elsohemy seemed to be for it. He was very excited,” recalled Abdelhaleem about a discussion the trio had in early April 2006.
“He was excited in two ways: doing something meaningful, I guess, doing something for God, and the prospect that he wouldn’t have to drive a s---ty car anymore. ... We were talking about making money off the stock market, he was very excited about that.”
Abdelhaleem, who took the stand for the first time in open court, said he raised the issue of making money from a terrorist attack, pointing out to Elsohemy that some people made money after 9/11 but that the discussion “was quickly dismissed.”
He also admitted that he sought advice about how to play the stock market and hide money in an offshore account, but the idea “died out.”
Abdelhaleem told the court that he had talked about going for jihad in Afghanistan and wanted to receive in training in Pakistan. But he dismissed it as idle chatter and as something that many Muslims talk about.
He went on to explain that there is a distinction between jihad and terrorism.
“A jihadist has a certain rules of engagement with whoever he’s performing jihad against. Terrorism is a guy who is blind to all these rules, a guy who is pissed off and wiling to do anything. It’s not right.”
To this day, Abdelhaleem maintains he is against acts of terrorism, and said although prosecutors will have a “hard time” believing him, “you can’t do that, you just can’t do that.”
Throughout his testimony, the Mississauga man appeared restless, often touching his face and rubbing his beard. At points his voice grew louder and at other points he trailed off into inaudible mumbles.
Last week, Abdelhaleem was found guilty of participating in a 2006 explosives plot to bomb targets such as the Toronto Stock Exchange, the Toronto offices of Canada’s spy agency and a military base off Highway 401.
The verdict came days after Amara was sentenced to life for his role in the plot, which included building a remote controlled detonator and purchasing three tonnes of ammonium nitrate destined for truck bombs.
This week, defence lawyer William Naylor launched an entrapment hearing to determine whether police conduct in Abdelhaleem’s case constituted an abuse of process.
Abdelhaleem was among 18 people charged in the summer of 2006 with belonging to a homegrown terror cell, which organized terrorist training camps and planned to blow up buildings.
At the time of his arrest, court was told, he was a successful software developer whose last tax filings, in 2003 or 2004, showed an annual income of $375,000.
The money, said Abdelhaleem, was spent on “trips, clothes, everything else you know, drinking, drugs, women.”
Before his arrest, there had also been efforts to arrange a marriage between Abdelhaleem and one of the daughters of the infamous Khadr clan, known as Canada’s al Qaeda family.
“I called it off right away. ... I just wanted to stay out of trouble,” said Abdelhaleem, adding, “They’re very nice people from what I hear.”
The hearing is expected to last the week.
Toronto 18 bomb plotter Shareef Abdelhaleem testified in a Brampton court Wednesday that he was originally opposed to the explosives plot because he was against terrorism, but that an undercover police agent “was very excited” about the prospect and of making money from such an attack.
The 34-year-old, who is arguing he was entrapped by friend turned informant Shaher Elsohemy, said that when details of the bomb plot were laid out for them by Zakaria Amara, he was opposed to it.
“I reiterated basically why I think Zak was wrong and everything else, this and that. That was my part. Elsohemy seemed to be for it. He was very excited,” recalled Abdelhaleem about a discussion the trio had in early April 2006.
“He was excited in two ways: doing something meaningful, I guess, doing something for God, and the prospect that he wouldn’t have to drive a s---ty car anymore. ... We were talking about making money off the stock market, he was very excited about that.”
Abdelhaleem, who took the stand for the first time in open court, said he raised the issue of making money from a terrorist attack, pointing out to Elsohemy that some people made money after 9/11 but that the discussion “was quickly dismissed.”
He also admitted that he sought advice about how to play the stock market and hide money in an offshore account, but the idea “died out.”
Abdelhaleem told the court that he had talked about going for jihad in Afghanistan and wanted to receive in training in Pakistan. But he dismissed it as idle chatter and as something that many Muslims talk about.
He went on to explain that there is a distinction between jihad and terrorism.
“A jihadist has a certain rules of engagement with whoever he’s performing jihad against. Terrorism is a guy who is blind to all these rules, a guy who is pissed off and wiling to do anything. It’s not right.”
To this day, Abdelhaleem maintains he is against acts of terrorism, and said although prosecutors will have a “hard time” believing him, “you can’t do that, you just can’t do that.”
Throughout his testimony, the Mississauga man appeared restless, often touching his face and rubbing his beard. At points his voice grew louder and at other points he trailed off into inaudible mumbles.
Last week, Abdelhaleem was found guilty of participating in a 2006 explosives plot to bomb targets such as the Toronto Stock Exchange, the Toronto offices of Canada’s spy agency and a military base off Highway 401.
The verdict came days after Amara was sentenced to life for his role in the plot, which included building a remote controlled detonator and purchasing three tonnes of ammonium nitrate destined for truck bombs.
This week, defence lawyer William Naylor launched an entrapment hearing to determine whether police conduct in Abdelhaleem’s case constituted an abuse of process.
Abdelhaleem was among 18 people charged in the summer of 2006 with belonging to a homegrown terror cell, which organized terrorist training camps and planned to blow up buildings.
At the time of his arrest, court was told, he was a successful software developer whose last tax filings, in 2003 or 2004, showed an annual income of $375,000.
The money, said Abdelhaleem, was spent on “trips, clothes, everything else you know, drinking, drugs, women.”
Before his arrest, there had also been efforts to arrange a marriage between Abdelhaleem and one of the daughters of the infamous Khadr clan, known as Canada’s al Qaeda family.
“I called it off right away. ... I just wanted to stay out of trouble,” said Abdelhaleem, adding, “They’re very nice people from what I hear.”
The hearing is expected to last the week.
CANADA'S SPIN ON HOMEGROWN TERRORISM
FROM: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/canada/100126/homegrown-extremism
TORONTO, Canada — A man found guilty of Canada’s biggest terrorist conspiracy since the 9/11 attacks seems to have given new meaning to the term “homegrown” extremist.
Shareef Abdelhaleem was found guilty last week of being a key player in a plot for mass murder on the streets of downtown Toronto, Canada’s financial capital.
The twist comes from evidence that Abdelhaleem’s inspiration did not solely come from extremist interpretations of Islam. It also came, the court heard, from the practices of high-rolling Wall Street investors.
The plan was to blow up a truck packed with explosives in front of the Toronto Stock Exchange, another in front of the headquarters of Canada’s spy agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, and a third at a military base.
“The potential for loss of life existed on a scale never before seen in Canada,” Justice Bruce Durno said last week, while sentencing another of the accused ringleaders, Zakaria Amara, to life in prison.
The plot was stopped by Canada’s national police force, the RCMP, which paid two Muslim civilians to infiltrate the group of conspirators. The infiltrator who befriended Abdelhaleem received about $4 million for his work, which included a new home and identity under the witness protection program.
The infiltrator helped arrange a sting that saw the plotters buy a truckload of fake ammonium nitrate. Police arrested two of them in June 2006 as they unloaded the material, which, if it had been real, could have been used for a bomb. Sixteen others allegedly involved in the conspiracy were arrested minutes later.
The group became known as the Toronto 18. The infiltrator testified that Abdelhaleem, now 34, hoped the Al Qaeda leadership would eventually endorse the carnage as “an act of Al Qaeda in Canada.”
The plot came with a U.S. connection: In March 2005, two Georgia residents traveled to Canada to meet some of the Toronto 18 members. Ehsanul Islam Sadequee and Syed Haris Ahmed were convicted in American courts last summer of supporting terrorism in the U.S. and abroad.
In Toronto, four people were accused of being at the heart of the bomb plot — Abdelhaleem, Amara, Saad Gaya and Saad Khalid. All have been found guilty. Abdelhaleem, however, has not been convicted. His lawyer has introduced a motion to stay the case, which would see his client walk free, on the grounds of entrapment.
The others were accused of taking part in a jihad training camp in a wooden area north of Toronto, where they practiced shooting at targets with paintball guns and a handgun. Seven have had charges against them stayed or dropped, four face trials this spring, the rest were found guilty.
Fourteen of those arrested were young adults and four were under 18 years old. All were either born in Canada or spent most of their lives here. By any definition, they were homegrown. As an RCMP report recently noted, they communicated “in a sort of ‘hoser-gangsta’ patois,” and repeatedly proclaimed their love of Tim Horton’s doughnuts and the beauty of rural Ontario.
In many ways, they mirrored the profile of European or American jihadists. Some were marginalized or naive suburban youths influenced by extremist websites and angered by Western wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the plight of Palestinians.
Khalid, now 23, was shaken by personal trauma. When he was 16, he returned home from school to find his depressive mother dead, submerged in the bathtub. He turned to Islam for comfort, eventually hanging out with youths who held extremist views.
Amara, a Canadian citizen, was the lost, troubled type. Born to a Cypriot mother and a Jordanian father, he was baptized a Christian but turned to a fundamentalist brand of Islam while living in the Toronto bedroom community of Mississauga.
He married when he was 18 and became a father a year later. He dropped out of university to support his family and got a job pumping gas. His defense lawyer said he turned to extremism to get over the divorce of his parents and escape the drudgery of his life.
After pleading guilty last week, Amara apologized and read an “open letter to Canadians” in court: “I deserve nothing less than your complete contempt.”
The twist in the homegrown profile comes from Abdelhaleem. At the time of his arrest, he was a computer engineer with a six-figure salary driving a BMW. That in itself isn’t unusual: Some extremists have come from affluent backgrounds.
Also typical was evidence that he wanted change through violence; namely, getting the Canadian government to pull its troops out of Afghanistan. What made him different is evidence that he wanted to profit financially from the bombings.
The police agent who befriended him testified that Abdelhaleem said he wanted to attack the Toronto Stock Exchange, cause markets to plunge and make money by selling stocks “short.”
This is the Wall Street alchemy where investors profit by betting that stock prices will decline. Abdelhaleem, the agent testified, wanted to use the money to fund future terror attacks in New York and Chicago.
There were suspicions that “short-selling” occurred with airline stock prior to the 9/11 attacks. The Security Exchange Commission investigated but found no evidence.
Short-sellers on Wall Street were widely criticized for making a fortune by betting on the recent market collapse, helping to bring down Bear Sterns and Lehman Brothers, and precipitating the latest recession.
Some might argue that when it comes to economic sabotage, Abdelhaleem learned from the real professionals. If so, he’s as homegrown as they come.
TORONTO, Canada — A man found guilty of Canada’s biggest terrorist conspiracy since the 9/11 attacks seems to have given new meaning to the term “homegrown” extremist.
Shareef Abdelhaleem was found guilty last week of being a key player in a plot for mass murder on the streets of downtown Toronto, Canada’s financial capital.
The twist comes from evidence that Abdelhaleem’s inspiration did not solely come from extremist interpretations of Islam. It also came, the court heard, from the practices of high-rolling Wall Street investors.
The plan was to blow up a truck packed with explosives in front of the Toronto Stock Exchange, another in front of the headquarters of Canada’s spy agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, and a third at a military base.
“The potential for loss of life existed on a scale never before seen in Canada,” Justice Bruce Durno said last week, while sentencing another of the accused ringleaders, Zakaria Amara, to life in prison.
The plot was stopped by Canada’s national police force, the RCMP, which paid two Muslim civilians to infiltrate the group of conspirators. The infiltrator who befriended Abdelhaleem received about $4 million for his work, which included a new home and identity under the witness protection program.
The infiltrator helped arrange a sting that saw the plotters buy a truckload of fake ammonium nitrate. Police arrested two of them in June 2006 as they unloaded the material, which, if it had been real, could have been used for a bomb. Sixteen others allegedly involved in the conspiracy were arrested minutes later.
The group became known as the Toronto 18. The infiltrator testified that Abdelhaleem, now 34, hoped the Al Qaeda leadership would eventually endorse the carnage as “an act of Al Qaeda in Canada.”
The plot came with a U.S. connection: In March 2005, two Georgia residents traveled to Canada to meet some of the Toronto 18 members. Ehsanul Islam Sadequee and Syed Haris Ahmed were convicted in American courts last summer of supporting terrorism in the U.S. and abroad.
In Toronto, four people were accused of being at the heart of the bomb plot — Abdelhaleem, Amara, Saad Gaya and Saad Khalid. All have been found guilty. Abdelhaleem, however, has not been convicted. His lawyer has introduced a motion to stay the case, which would see his client walk free, on the grounds of entrapment.
The others were accused of taking part in a jihad training camp in a wooden area north of Toronto, where they practiced shooting at targets with paintball guns and a handgun. Seven have had charges against them stayed or dropped, four face trials this spring, the rest were found guilty.
Fourteen of those arrested were young adults and four were under 18 years old. All were either born in Canada or spent most of their lives here. By any definition, they were homegrown. As an RCMP report recently noted, they communicated “in a sort of ‘hoser-gangsta’ patois,” and repeatedly proclaimed their love of Tim Horton’s doughnuts and the beauty of rural Ontario.
In many ways, they mirrored the profile of European or American jihadists. Some were marginalized or naive suburban youths influenced by extremist websites and angered by Western wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the plight of Palestinians.
Khalid, now 23, was shaken by personal trauma. When he was 16, he returned home from school to find his depressive mother dead, submerged in the bathtub. He turned to Islam for comfort, eventually hanging out with youths who held extremist views.
Amara, a Canadian citizen, was the lost, troubled type. Born to a Cypriot mother and a Jordanian father, he was baptized a Christian but turned to a fundamentalist brand of Islam while living in the Toronto bedroom community of Mississauga.
He married when he was 18 and became a father a year later. He dropped out of university to support his family and got a job pumping gas. His defense lawyer said he turned to extremism to get over the divorce of his parents and escape the drudgery of his life.
After pleading guilty last week, Amara apologized and read an “open letter to Canadians” in court: “I deserve nothing less than your complete contempt.”
The twist in the homegrown profile comes from Abdelhaleem. At the time of his arrest, he was a computer engineer with a six-figure salary driving a BMW. That in itself isn’t unusual: Some extremists have come from affluent backgrounds.
Also typical was evidence that he wanted change through violence; namely, getting the Canadian government to pull its troops out of Afghanistan. What made him different is evidence that he wanted to profit financially from the bombings.
The police agent who befriended him testified that Abdelhaleem said he wanted to attack the Toronto Stock Exchange, cause markets to plunge and make money by selling stocks “short.”
This is the Wall Street alchemy where investors profit by betting that stock prices will decline. Abdelhaleem, the agent testified, wanted to use the money to fund future terror attacks in New York and Chicago.
There were suspicions that “short-selling” occurred with airline stock prior to the 9/11 attacks. The Security Exchange Commission investigated but found no evidence.
Short-sellers on Wall Street were widely criticized for making a fortune by betting on the recent market collapse, helping to bring down Bear Sterns and Lehman Brothers, and precipitating the latest recession.
Some might argue that when it comes to economic sabotage, Abdelhaleem learned from the real professionals. If so, he’s as homegrown as they come.
TORONTO 18 PLOT : JIHAD AS OPPOSED TO TERRORISM ?
FROM: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/toronto/archive/2010/01/27/toronto-18-plotter-says-jihad-different-from-terrorism.aspx
"Toronto 18" bomb plotter Shareef Abdelhaleem was against terrorism and felt like an "outsider" when his friends discussed the topic in the months leading to his 2006 arrest, a Superior Court judge heard this morning.
Abdelhaleem was testifying at an entrapment hearing in Brampton to determine whether police conduct in his case constituted an abuse of process. The 34-year-old software developer was found guilty last week of participating in a terrorist plot to detonate powerful truck bombs at the Toronto Stock Exchange, the CSIS regional office on Front Street and a military base between Toronto and Ottawa.
A seemingly agitated Abdelhaleem talked interchangeably about his cocaine habit, his troubled relationship with his father and his contact with police agent Shaher Elsohemy, who helped foil the Toronto 18 plot.
Wearing a dark shirt and neat beard, a slumped Abdelhaleem spoke quickly and often trailed off into mumbles.
He told the court he believed in a strong distinction between jihad, which has "certain rules of engagement," and terrorism.
"Terrorism is a guy that is blind to all these rules. Pissed off and willing to do anything. It's not right," Abdelhaleem told the judge.
His testimony continues.
"Toronto 18" bomb plotter Shareef Abdelhaleem was against terrorism and felt like an "outsider" when his friends discussed the topic in the months leading to his 2006 arrest, a Superior Court judge heard this morning.
Abdelhaleem was testifying at an entrapment hearing in Brampton to determine whether police conduct in his case constituted an abuse of process. The 34-year-old software developer was found guilty last week of participating in a terrorist plot to detonate powerful truck bombs at the Toronto Stock Exchange, the CSIS regional office on Front Street and a military base between Toronto and Ottawa.
A seemingly agitated Abdelhaleem talked interchangeably about his cocaine habit, his troubled relationship with his father and his contact with police agent Shaher Elsohemy, who helped foil the Toronto 18 plot.
Wearing a dark shirt and neat beard, a slumped Abdelhaleem spoke quickly and often trailed off into mumbles.
He told the court he believed in a strong distinction between jihad, which has "certain rules of engagement," and terrorism.
"Terrorism is a guy that is blind to all these rules. Pissed off and willing to do anything. It's not right," Abdelhaleem told the judge.
His testimony continues.
Friday, January 22, 2010
BANNING ISLAMIST GROUPS VS FREE SPEECH
*** How far are we willing to go in the name of "free speech" ? MS ***
FROM: http://www.jamestown.org/programs/gta/single/?tx_ttnews[tt_news]=35936&tx_ttnews[backPid]=26&cHash=ed01757c24
Ban on U.K. Radical Islamist Group al-Muhajiroun Raises Free Speech Questions
Raffaello Pantucci
The British Home Office finally proscribed the radical Islamist organization al-Muhajiroun (The Emigrants) and a number of its successor organizations on January 14. The ban included the best-known offshoot of al-Muhajiroun, Islam4UK. Described by the Home Office as a sort of “cleaning up” following the proscription in July 2006 of two predecessor organizations, al-Ghurabaa (The Strangers) and the Saved Sect, the order awakened a heated debate in the United Kingdom about whether the government was taking responsible security measures or criminalizing dissent and persecuting Muslims. U.K. Home Secretary Alan Johnston cited al-Ghurabaa and the Saved Sect in his defense of the proscription of al-Muhajiroun in a letter to the Guardian, which had been critical of the move:
"Prior to its proscription in 2006, those two organizations called for readers of its websites to "kill those who insult the prophet," praised the terrorist actions of Osama bin Laden, and advised that it was forbidden to visit Palestine "unless you engage in the main duty of that place, i.e. jihad." These are not views that are merely provocative – they are designed to encourage violence and legitimize violent acts in the name of religion. They are vehemently opposed by the vast majority of Muslims."
"Anyone living in a democracy has to accept that freedom of speech gives people the right to say things that others find offensive. But all democracies have to set reasonable limits. Freedom of speech, cannot, by definition, be extended to those who use this right to incite hatred or violence – to curtail the rights of their fellow citizens to life, liberty and security (Guardian, January 19)."
For many, the actual proscription of al-Muhajiroun may come as something of a surprise, given the general perception it had been banned years ago. This incorrect assumption was borne out of the fact that the British government had previously proscribed the predecessor groups, without bothering to add the name al-Muhajiroun to the official list of banned organizations since the group had officially disbanded in October 2004. The group claimed the decision to disband was made as in the wake of 9/11 as, “there is nothing left except that the sincere Muslims who fight with their lives, flesh and wealth unite for the sake of Allah.” Analysts have instead speculated that there was growing concern in the organization about a schism between the Pakistani and British branches, and the fact that earlier in 2004 a group of individuals linked to the organization had been arrested as part of a major police counterterrorism investigation codenamed Operation Crevice.
According to group founder Omar Bakri Mohammad, al-Muhajiroun was established on March 3, 1983 in Saudi Arabia. At the time Bakri Mohammed was an on again-off again member of the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, which he was then having difficulty with as they disapproved of his activities in Saudi Arabia. He was duly arrested and expelled by Saudi authorities and landed in the United Kingdom in January 1986. He spent the next decade establishing Hizb ut-Tahrir in the U.K., making it into the most public face of the “Londonistan” phenomenon. However, his brash pronouncements (including a declaration that Prime Minister John Major would be a target for assassination) attracted increasingly negative attention and in the end resulted in his falling out with Hizb ut-Tahrir. In January 1996, he announced the “reformation” of al-Muhajiroun, taking only two loyal followers with him.
Unfettered by Hizb ut-Tahrir’s politically wary global leadership, Omar quickly steered al-Muhajiroun deep into the radical fringe. While already known before 9/11, the group achieved even greater notoriety afterwards by hosting events honoring the “Magnificent 19” [the 9/11 suicide bombers] and became a focus for counterterrorism investigators. While initial attention focused on the more overt jihadi preacher Abu Hamza al-Masri (currently in a British jail fighting deportation to the United States), over time it became increasingly apparent that al-Muhajiroun figured prominently in the background of a number of terrorist suspects and cells. The group regularly rejects links to terrorism; the standard denial is that the people concerned were not members when they were involved in terrorism, but this is something very hard to prove or disprove given the opaque nature of al-Muhajiroun’s official membership. Nevertheless, it is hard not to note the group’s presence on the British jihadi fringe for much of the late 1990s and 2000s. Aside from the group arrested in Operation Crevice, there has been evidence linking the rest of the organization to numerous terrorist networks in the U.K.. Looking abroad, members or former members of the group have been present on the battlefields of Chechnya, Kashmir, Palestine and Afghanistan, both before and after 9/11. In late 2000, al-Muhajiroun founder Omar Bakri Mohammad claimed responsibility for recruiting Britain’s first suicide bomber, Mohammed Bilal (a.k.a. Asif Sadiq), who blew himself up and several Indian soldiers in Kashmir on Christmas Day, 2000 (Asian Age, December 30, 2000; Dawn Weekly, January 6, 2001).
Within the U.K., however, the decision to ban the group was seen by many in a very different light. Early this year, the group announced that it was planning a protest march in Wootton Bassett, a village in southwest England which has become famous for honoring fallen British servicemen whose remains pass through after repatriation at nearby RAF Base Lyneham (Times, January 2). Al-Muhajiroun’s plans met with universal opprobrium, including that of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who declared the plans “abhorrent and offensive” (Guardian, January 4). At the same time, in the town of Luton, a group of five local men tied to al-Muhajiroun were convicted of using “threatening, abusive or insulting words and behavior likely to cause harassment and distress” (BBC, January 11). The men had protested a march through Luton by servicemen of the Anglian Regiment returning from Iraq by waving placards denouncing the troops as the “Butchers of Basra.” Thus when the Home Secretary made the announcement that the group was to be proscribed on January 12, the events were naturally linked. This opened up a debate about whether it was proper to proscribe groups for expressing distasteful opinions.
The government’s response was to point to a just completed (and confidential) Joint Terrorism Analysis Center (JTAC) report commissioned after the group announced its “reformation” in May of last year (BBC, January 12, 2010). Naturally this was received with some skepticism, and when the renewed attention brought to “Londonistan”—in the wake of revelations that Christmas Day “underwear bomber” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab may have been in part radicalized in London—was factored in, the belief was that the government needed to take visible action and this group was the target (Times, December 29, 2009).
The actual impact of the ban is very hard to measure. Al-Muhajiroun co-founder Anjem Choudary remains a very public figure (he did numerous public interviews in the wake of the proscription) and has not given any indication that he is going to curb his calls for Shari’a in the U.K. As he pointed out, “unless the Government can prove that you are ostensibly exactly the same organization, doing the same things at the same time, it’s very difficult to clamp down” (Times, January 16). More likely, the group will go relatively quiet for a while before re-emerging under a new name – as it did when some of its predecessor groups were proscribed. This cycle will likely continue to repeat itself until enough of the senior leadership receives heavy prison sentences for infringing terrorism legislation – something that is unlikely given Choudary’s background as a lawyer and the care with which the extremists make their inflammatory statements.
Raffaello Pantucci is a Consulting Research Associate with the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) and an EU Science and Technology Fellowship Programme (China) Research Fellow.
Notes:
1. For the official proscription order and complete list of the proscribed al-Muhajiroun off-shoots see: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2010/uksi_20100034_en_1.
2. Omar Bakri Mohammed, “An official declaration dissolving Al-Muhajiroun,” http://www.almuhajiroun.net, October 8, 2004.
3. For a comprehensive history of the genesis of the group, please see: Quintan Wiktorowicz, Radical Islam Rising: Muslim Extremism in the West, (Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005).
4. For a complete overview of the group’s links to terrorism, please see the forthcoming Raffaello Pantucci, “The Tottenham Ayatollah and the Hook Handed Cleric: An examination of all their jihadi children,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 33(3), March 2010.
FROM: http://www.jamestown.org/programs/gta/single/?tx_ttnews[tt_news]=35936&tx_ttnews[backPid]=26&cHash=ed01757c24
Ban on U.K. Radical Islamist Group al-Muhajiroun Raises Free Speech Questions
Raffaello Pantucci
The British Home Office finally proscribed the radical Islamist organization al-Muhajiroun (The Emigrants) and a number of its successor organizations on January 14. The ban included the best-known offshoot of al-Muhajiroun, Islam4UK. Described by the Home Office as a sort of “cleaning up” following the proscription in July 2006 of two predecessor organizations, al-Ghurabaa (The Strangers) and the Saved Sect, the order awakened a heated debate in the United Kingdom about whether the government was taking responsible security measures or criminalizing dissent and persecuting Muslims. U.K. Home Secretary Alan Johnston cited al-Ghurabaa and the Saved Sect in his defense of the proscription of al-Muhajiroun in a letter to the Guardian, which had been critical of the move:
"Prior to its proscription in 2006, those two organizations called for readers of its websites to "kill those who insult the prophet," praised the terrorist actions of Osama bin Laden, and advised that it was forbidden to visit Palestine "unless you engage in the main duty of that place, i.e. jihad." These are not views that are merely provocative – they are designed to encourage violence and legitimize violent acts in the name of religion. They are vehemently opposed by the vast majority of Muslims."
"Anyone living in a democracy has to accept that freedom of speech gives people the right to say things that others find offensive. But all democracies have to set reasonable limits. Freedom of speech, cannot, by definition, be extended to those who use this right to incite hatred or violence – to curtail the rights of their fellow citizens to life, liberty and security (Guardian, January 19)."
For many, the actual proscription of al-Muhajiroun may come as something of a surprise, given the general perception it had been banned years ago. This incorrect assumption was borne out of the fact that the British government had previously proscribed the predecessor groups, without bothering to add the name al-Muhajiroun to the official list of banned organizations since the group had officially disbanded in October 2004. The group claimed the decision to disband was made as in the wake of 9/11 as, “there is nothing left except that the sincere Muslims who fight with their lives, flesh and wealth unite for the sake of Allah.” Analysts have instead speculated that there was growing concern in the organization about a schism between the Pakistani and British branches, and the fact that earlier in 2004 a group of individuals linked to the organization had been arrested as part of a major police counterterrorism investigation codenamed Operation Crevice.
According to group founder Omar Bakri Mohammad, al-Muhajiroun was established on March 3, 1983 in Saudi Arabia. At the time Bakri Mohammed was an on again-off again member of the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, which he was then having difficulty with as they disapproved of his activities in Saudi Arabia. He was duly arrested and expelled by Saudi authorities and landed in the United Kingdom in January 1986. He spent the next decade establishing Hizb ut-Tahrir in the U.K., making it into the most public face of the “Londonistan” phenomenon. However, his brash pronouncements (including a declaration that Prime Minister John Major would be a target for assassination) attracted increasingly negative attention and in the end resulted in his falling out with Hizb ut-Tahrir. In January 1996, he announced the “reformation” of al-Muhajiroun, taking only two loyal followers with him.
Unfettered by Hizb ut-Tahrir’s politically wary global leadership, Omar quickly steered al-Muhajiroun deep into the radical fringe. While already known before 9/11, the group achieved even greater notoriety afterwards by hosting events honoring the “Magnificent 19” [the 9/11 suicide bombers] and became a focus for counterterrorism investigators. While initial attention focused on the more overt jihadi preacher Abu Hamza al-Masri (currently in a British jail fighting deportation to the United States), over time it became increasingly apparent that al-Muhajiroun figured prominently in the background of a number of terrorist suspects and cells. The group regularly rejects links to terrorism; the standard denial is that the people concerned were not members when they were involved in terrorism, but this is something very hard to prove or disprove given the opaque nature of al-Muhajiroun’s official membership. Nevertheless, it is hard not to note the group’s presence on the British jihadi fringe for much of the late 1990s and 2000s. Aside from the group arrested in Operation Crevice, there has been evidence linking the rest of the organization to numerous terrorist networks in the U.K.. Looking abroad, members or former members of the group have been present on the battlefields of Chechnya, Kashmir, Palestine and Afghanistan, both before and after 9/11. In late 2000, al-Muhajiroun founder Omar Bakri Mohammad claimed responsibility for recruiting Britain’s first suicide bomber, Mohammed Bilal (a.k.a. Asif Sadiq), who blew himself up and several Indian soldiers in Kashmir on Christmas Day, 2000 (Asian Age, December 30, 2000; Dawn Weekly, January 6, 2001).
Within the U.K., however, the decision to ban the group was seen by many in a very different light. Early this year, the group announced that it was planning a protest march in Wootton Bassett, a village in southwest England which has become famous for honoring fallen British servicemen whose remains pass through after repatriation at nearby RAF Base Lyneham (Times, January 2). Al-Muhajiroun’s plans met with universal opprobrium, including that of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who declared the plans “abhorrent and offensive” (Guardian, January 4). At the same time, in the town of Luton, a group of five local men tied to al-Muhajiroun were convicted of using “threatening, abusive or insulting words and behavior likely to cause harassment and distress” (BBC, January 11). The men had protested a march through Luton by servicemen of the Anglian Regiment returning from Iraq by waving placards denouncing the troops as the “Butchers of Basra.” Thus when the Home Secretary made the announcement that the group was to be proscribed on January 12, the events were naturally linked. This opened up a debate about whether it was proper to proscribe groups for expressing distasteful opinions.
The government’s response was to point to a just completed (and confidential) Joint Terrorism Analysis Center (JTAC) report commissioned after the group announced its “reformation” in May of last year (BBC, January 12, 2010). Naturally this was received with some skepticism, and when the renewed attention brought to “Londonistan”—in the wake of revelations that Christmas Day “underwear bomber” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab may have been in part radicalized in London—was factored in, the belief was that the government needed to take visible action and this group was the target (Times, December 29, 2009).
The actual impact of the ban is very hard to measure. Al-Muhajiroun co-founder Anjem Choudary remains a very public figure (he did numerous public interviews in the wake of the proscription) and has not given any indication that he is going to curb his calls for Shari’a in the U.K. As he pointed out, “unless the Government can prove that you are ostensibly exactly the same organization, doing the same things at the same time, it’s very difficult to clamp down” (Times, January 16). More likely, the group will go relatively quiet for a while before re-emerging under a new name – as it did when some of its predecessor groups were proscribed. This cycle will likely continue to repeat itself until enough of the senior leadership receives heavy prison sentences for infringing terrorism legislation – something that is unlikely given Choudary’s background as a lawyer and the care with which the extremists make their inflammatory statements.
Raffaello Pantucci is a Consulting Research Associate with the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) and an EU Science and Technology Fellowship Programme (China) Research Fellow.
Notes:
1. For the official proscription order and complete list of the proscribed al-Muhajiroun off-shoots see: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2010/uksi_20100034_en_1.
2. Omar Bakri Mohammed, “An official declaration dissolving Al-Muhajiroun,” http://www.almuhajiroun.net, October 8, 2004.
3. For a comprehensive history of the genesis of the group, please see: Quintan Wiktorowicz, Radical Islam Rising: Muslim Extremism in the West, (Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005).
4. For a complete overview of the group’s links to terrorism, please see the forthcoming Raffaello Pantucci, “The Tottenham Ayatollah and the Hook Handed Cleric: An examination of all their jihadi children,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 33(3), March 2010.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
RADICALIZATION IN PRISON : CONVERTS OFF TO YEMEN ?
FROM: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/20/world/middleeast/20terror.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
WASHINGTON — Some American former convicts who converted to Islam in prison have moved to Yemen and a few may have joined extremist groups there, according to a new Senate report.
The report, from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, says that as many as 36 American Muslims who were prisoners have moved to Yemen in recent months, ostensibly to study Arabic, and that several of them have “dropped off the radar” and may have connected to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
The report warns that Americans recruited in Yemen or Somalia may pose a particular threat, since they can operate freely inside the United States.
American intelligence and counterterrorism officials, though, said they thought the report’s claim about former prisoners was exaggerated. A law enforcement official confirmed that some of them had traveled to Yemen — perhaps one or two dozen over the past several years — intending to study Arabic or Islam. The official said the former convicts did not appear to be part of any organized recruitment effort, however, and few are known to have connections with extremists.
Yemen has come under increased scrutiny from American counterterrorism agencies since November, after it emerged that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Tex., had exchanged e-mail messages with Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Yemeni-American cleric in hiding in Yemen. The focus intensified after the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner on Dec. 25 by a Nigerian man who allegedly was trained and supplied with explosives in Yemen.
The Senate report, written by the committee’s Democratic staff, said the government was “on heightened alert because of the potential threat from extremists carrying American passports and the related challenges involved in detecting and stopping homegrown operatives.”
With the United States putting Al Qaeda under intense pressure in Pakistan, some fighters have moved to join militant groups in Yemen and Somalia, as well as in North Africa and Southeast Asia, the report said. “These groups may have only an informal connection with Al Qaeda’s leadership in Pakistan, but they often share common goals,” Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the committee’s Democratic chairman, wrote in a letter accompanying the report.
The report notes that members of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, based in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, appeared at an antigovernment rally in southern Yemen last month. In video later shown on Al Jazeera television, a militant told the crowd that the group’s war was with the United States, not the Yemeni Army.
In addition to the American former prisoners in Yemen, the report said there were about 10 other Americans not of Yemeni ancestry who have also moved there, married Yemeni women and adopted a radical form of Islam. None in that group, however, appear to have sought terrorist training, the report said.
In nearby Somalia, the Senate report recounted, news reports told of Somali-Americans traveling to join a militant group, the Shabab. It also described Americans caught entering Somalia from Djibouti.
An immigration official in Djibouti said that he had recently turned away two Somali-Americans trying to cross into Somalia, because he thought they might be trying to link up with the Shabab. Two others were arrested and prosecuted in Djibouti for entering illegally.
The possibility that American prisons could become an incubator for radical Islam has long been raised by experts on terrorism, and a few Muslim prison chaplains in United States prisons have been accused of having extremist views. To date, only a handful of alleged terrorist plots, none of them successful, have involved American Muslims who are former prisoners.
Three American Muslims were convicted for a 2005 plot to attack Jewish institutions and military bases around Los Angeles that was said to have been concocted inside New Folsom Prison, near Sacramento. Michael Finton, who converted to Islam while imprisoned in Illinois from 1999 to 2005, was charged last year with trying to blow up the federal courthouse in Springfield, Ill.
And four former New York state prisoners, at least two of whom converted to Islam in prison, were accused last year of plotting to attack synagogues in the Bronx and shoot down military planes.
A. J. Sabree, a corrections official in Georgia and a Muslim, who worked for years as a prison chaplain, said he had never heard of Muslim former prisoners moving to Yemen. Erik Kriss, a spokesman for the New York State prison system, which employs about 40 imams to counsel inmates, said officials there were not aware of the phenomenon.
Mr. Kriss cautioned against equating conversion in prison to Islam, which is relatively common, to radicalization.
“We do not have any evidence of anything resembling widespread terrorist-inspired radicalization or recruiting,” he said. “But we recognize the potential and therefore remain vigilant in guarding against it.”
Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.
WASHINGTON — Some American former convicts who converted to Islam in prison have moved to Yemen and a few may have joined extremist groups there, according to a new Senate report.
The report, from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, says that as many as 36 American Muslims who were prisoners have moved to Yemen in recent months, ostensibly to study Arabic, and that several of them have “dropped off the radar” and may have connected to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
The report warns that Americans recruited in Yemen or Somalia may pose a particular threat, since they can operate freely inside the United States.
American intelligence and counterterrorism officials, though, said they thought the report’s claim about former prisoners was exaggerated. A law enforcement official confirmed that some of them had traveled to Yemen — perhaps one or two dozen over the past several years — intending to study Arabic or Islam. The official said the former convicts did not appear to be part of any organized recruitment effort, however, and few are known to have connections with extremists.
Yemen has come under increased scrutiny from American counterterrorism agencies since November, after it emerged that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Tex., had exchanged e-mail messages with Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Yemeni-American cleric in hiding in Yemen. The focus intensified after the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner on Dec. 25 by a Nigerian man who allegedly was trained and supplied with explosives in Yemen.
The Senate report, written by the committee’s Democratic staff, said the government was “on heightened alert because of the potential threat from extremists carrying American passports and the related challenges involved in detecting and stopping homegrown operatives.”
With the United States putting Al Qaeda under intense pressure in Pakistan, some fighters have moved to join militant groups in Yemen and Somalia, as well as in North Africa and Southeast Asia, the report said. “These groups may have only an informal connection with Al Qaeda’s leadership in Pakistan, but they often share common goals,” Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the committee’s Democratic chairman, wrote in a letter accompanying the report.
The report notes that members of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, based in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, appeared at an antigovernment rally in southern Yemen last month. In video later shown on Al Jazeera television, a militant told the crowd that the group’s war was with the United States, not the Yemeni Army.
In addition to the American former prisoners in Yemen, the report said there were about 10 other Americans not of Yemeni ancestry who have also moved there, married Yemeni women and adopted a radical form of Islam. None in that group, however, appear to have sought terrorist training, the report said.
In nearby Somalia, the Senate report recounted, news reports told of Somali-Americans traveling to join a militant group, the Shabab. It also described Americans caught entering Somalia from Djibouti.
An immigration official in Djibouti said that he had recently turned away two Somali-Americans trying to cross into Somalia, because he thought they might be trying to link up with the Shabab. Two others were arrested and prosecuted in Djibouti for entering illegally.
The possibility that American prisons could become an incubator for radical Islam has long been raised by experts on terrorism, and a few Muslim prison chaplains in United States prisons have been accused of having extremist views. To date, only a handful of alleged terrorist plots, none of them successful, have involved American Muslims who are former prisoners.
Three American Muslims were convicted for a 2005 plot to attack Jewish institutions and military bases around Los Angeles that was said to have been concocted inside New Folsom Prison, near Sacramento. Michael Finton, who converted to Islam while imprisoned in Illinois from 1999 to 2005, was charged last year with trying to blow up the federal courthouse in Springfield, Ill.
And four former New York state prisoners, at least two of whom converted to Islam in prison, were accused last year of plotting to attack synagogues in the Bronx and shoot down military planes.
A. J. Sabree, a corrections official in Georgia and a Muslim, who worked for years as a prison chaplain, said he had never heard of Muslim former prisoners moving to Yemen. Erik Kriss, a spokesman for the New York State prison system, which employs about 40 imams to counsel inmates, said officials there were not aware of the phenomenon.
Mr. Kriss cautioned against equating conversion in prison to Islam, which is relatively common, to radicalization.
“We do not have any evidence of anything resembling widespread terrorist-inspired radicalization or recruiting,” he said. “But we recognize the potential and therefore remain vigilant in guarding against it.”
Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007
FROM: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h1955_rfs.xml
To prevent homegrown terrorism, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. Short title.
This Act may be cited as the “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007”.
SEC. 2. Prevention of violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism.
(a) In general.—Title VIII of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (6 U.S.C. 361 et seq.) is amended by adding at the end the following new subtitle:
“subtitle J—Prevention of violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism
“SEC. 899A. Definitions.
“For purposes of this subtitle:
“(1) COMMISSION.—The term ‘Commission’ means the National Commission on the Prevention of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism established under section 899C.
“(2) VIOLENT RADICALIZATION.—The term ‘violent radicalization’ means the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious, or social change.
“(3) HOMEGROWN TERRORISM.—The term ‘homegrown terrorism’ means the use, planned use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual born, raised, or based and operating primarily within the United States or any possession of the United States to intimidate or coerce the United States government, the civilian population of the United States, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.
“(4) IDEOLOGICALLY BASED VIOLENCE.—The term ‘ideologically based violence’ means the use, planned use, or threatened use of force or violence by a group or individual to promote the group or individual’s political, religious, or social beliefs.
“SEC. 899B. Findings.
“The Congress finds the following:
“(1) The development and implementation of methods and processes that can be utilized to prevent violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence in the United States is critical to combating domestic terrorism.
“(2) The promotion of violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence exists in the United States and poses a threat to homeland security.
“(3) The Internet has aided in facilitating violent radicalization, ideologically based violence, and the homegrown terrorism process in the United States by providing access to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related propaganda to United States citizens.
“(4) While the United States must continue its vigilant efforts to combat international terrorism, it must also strengthen efforts to combat the threat posed by homegrown terrorists based and operating within the United States.
“(5) Understanding the motivational factors that lead to violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence is a vital step toward eradicating these threats in the United States.
“(6) Preventing the potential rise of self radicalized, unaffiliated terrorists domestically cannot be easily accomplished solely through traditional Federal intelligence or law enforcement efforts, and can benefit from the incorporation of State and local efforts.
“(7) Individuals prone to violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence span all races, ethnicities, and religious beliefs, and individuals should not be targeted based solely on race, ethnicity, or religion.
“(8) Any measure taken to prevent violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence and homegrown terrorism in the United States should not violate the constitutional rights, civil rights, or civil liberties of United States citizens or lawful permanent residents.
“(9) Certain governments, including the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia have significant experience with homegrown terrorism and the United States can benefit from lessons learned by those nations.
*** MORE can be found by visiting the source link above. This is a great effort and wish for it the success it deserves. MS ***
To prevent homegrown terrorism, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. Short title.
This Act may be cited as the “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007”.
SEC. 2. Prevention of violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism.
(a) In general.—Title VIII of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (6 U.S.C. 361 et seq.) is amended by adding at the end the following new subtitle:
“subtitle J—Prevention of violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism
“SEC. 899A. Definitions.
“For purposes of this subtitle:
“(1) COMMISSION.—The term ‘Commission’ means the National Commission on the Prevention of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism established under section 899C.
“(2) VIOLENT RADICALIZATION.—The term ‘violent radicalization’ means the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious, or social change.
“(3) HOMEGROWN TERRORISM.—The term ‘homegrown terrorism’ means the use, planned use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual born, raised, or based and operating primarily within the United States or any possession of the United States to intimidate or coerce the United States government, the civilian population of the United States, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.
“(4) IDEOLOGICALLY BASED VIOLENCE.—The term ‘ideologically based violence’ means the use, planned use, or threatened use of force or violence by a group or individual to promote the group or individual’s political, religious, or social beliefs.
“SEC. 899B. Findings.
“The Congress finds the following:
“(1) The development and implementation of methods and processes that can be utilized to prevent violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence in the United States is critical to combating domestic terrorism.
“(2) The promotion of violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence exists in the United States and poses a threat to homeland security.
“(3) The Internet has aided in facilitating violent radicalization, ideologically based violence, and the homegrown terrorism process in the United States by providing access to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related propaganda to United States citizens.
“(4) While the United States must continue its vigilant efforts to combat international terrorism, it must also strengthen efforts to combat the threat posed by homegrown terrorists based and operating within the United States.
“(5) Understanding the motivational factors that lead to violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence is a vital step toward eradicating these threats in the United States.
“(6) Preventing the potential rise of self radicalized, unaffiliated terrorists domestically cannot be easily accomplished solely through traditional Federal intelligence or law enforcement efforts, and can benefit from the incorporation of State and local efforts.
“(7) Individuals prone to violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence span all races, ethnicities, and religious beliefs, and individuals should not be targeted based solely on race, ethnicity, or religion.
“(8) Any measure taken to prevent violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence and homegrown terrorism in the United States should not violate the constitutional rights, civil rights, or civil liberties of United States citizens or lawful permanent residents.
“(9) Certain governments, including the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia have significant experience with homegrown terrorism and the United States can benefit from lessons learned by those nations.
*** MORE can be found by visiting the source link above. This is a great effort and wish for it the success it deserves. MS ***
FACING HOMEGROWN RADICALIZATION
FROM: http://www.thewashingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=3113
By Myriam Benraad
September 3, 2009
Last month, Kamal Hassan, a Somali-American living in Minnesota, pled guilty to training and fighting with al-Shabab, an al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group in Somalia. In July, two other Somali-Americans in Minnesota pled guilty to similar charges, with the FBI continuing to investigate more than a dozen others who may have traveled from the United States to Somalia. The FBI also recently arrested seven individuals in North Carolina on terrorism-related charges, including one who had spent time in Afghan training camps. These and other recent events have raised new concerns in the United States about the threat of homegrown radicalization. As U.S. attorney general Eric Holder acknowledged in a July speech, the "whole notion of radicalization is something that did not loom as large a few months ago...as it does now." While the U.S. government has focused primarily on Europe as a source of potential terrorists, Washington should also look to the continent as a model in confronting homegrown radicalization.
A Troubling Phenomenon
During his first major speech in July, White House counterterrorism advisor John Brennan provided an overview of the current administration's approach to protecting American citizens from violent extremism and terrorism. Although Brennan emphasized President Barack Obama's new partnership with Muslim communities and the administration's commitment to defeating al-Qaeda's capacities overseas, little was said about homegrown Islamist radicalization. This fundamental issue has long been downplayed by U.S. federal authorities and counterterrorism experts, who believe that Muslims and Arabs are generally better integrated into U.S. society -- as opposed to their counterparts in European society -- and are thus less vulnerable to the al-Qaeda narrative.
Homegrown radicalization has now returned to the spotlight after the watershed Somali cases. Court hearings have revealed that Islamist leaders approached most of the Minneapolis recruits and urged them to attend clandestine meetings where they were persuaded to travel to Somalia and become part of the local armed insurgency. Most troublingly, however, is that a number of the Somali-Americans who joined al-Shabab suffer from identity and integration issues similar to those of radicalized youth in Europe. Until now, the United States had seemingly been immune from this particular phenomenon.
Building on Europe's Lessons
Although American policymakers have long worried that Islamists radicalized in Europe would attack the United States, Washington can learn valuable lessons from Europe in addressing the challenge of homegrown radicalization. Consider, for example, some of the measures undertaken in France. Although the internal dynamics nurturing radicalization in France and the United States differ significantly, comparable trends exist. The impact of socioeconomic deprivation, political alienation, and identity issues as vehicles of radical narratives -- a factor that looms large in the Somali-American cases -- appears to be a common pattern. The malaise experienced by nonintegrated second- and third-generation immigrants, as well as the lack of educational and professional prospects for young people, has nurtured homegrown radicalization in France. While this phenomenon is far less widespread in the United States, the recent Somali cases indicate that it is occurring, at least to some extent.
France's law enforcement and intelligence efforts have been fairly far reaching and certainly go beyond what might be politically acceptable in the United States. French counterterrorism magistrates have frequently used their preventive detention powers to target individuals suspected of inciting violence, incarcerating some and deporting others. In 2004, for example, a wave of French prosecutions targeted radical imams and included the deportation of Chelali Benchellali, the Salafist imam of Venissieux's now famous mosque -- an act that would certainly have been more controversial in the United States. (MS: Why would it be controversial, I don't understand.)
France has also prosecuted a number of its citizens after they returned home from jihadist activities overseas -- a move the United States is now taking in the Somali cases as well. In May 2008, for instance, France condemned and jailed members of a Parisian network of jihadists recruited by young Salafi imam Farid Benyettou to fight in Iraq. Court hearings showed how Benyettou, a French citizen of Algerian background, managed to radicalize a group of men in 2003 through private readings of online Islamist propaganda and vehement anti-American rhetoric.
Following the massive riots of 2005 -- which witnessed the uprising of deprived multiethnic youth in French suburbs -- France has been forced to acknowledge the necessity of coupling its often harsh police methods with greater social dialogue and political engagement. After his election in 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy made ethnoreligious discrimination one of his top priorities. As such, he appointed Rachida Dati as the minister of justice, the first individual of North African/Muslim origin to access a top cabinet position.
In addition, France has undertaken efforts to better understand the ideological motivations of Islamists. Monitoring and counterradicalization programs have been implemented in the French prison system, historically a crucible for radical ideology and recruitment. Interestingly, official sources indicate that many American homegrown Islamists have also been radicalized while incarcerated, including the members of the prison-formed Jamiyat al-Islam al-Sahih cell in California that was convicted in 2007 for its plans to attack not only synagogues but also the Israeli consulate in Los Angeles. Indeed, prisons provide an ideal place for radicalizing the young and disenchanted in search of a sense of belonging and importance. Within the prison setting, Islam has the added appeal of addressing feelings of inequality and injustice. Fresh converts are protected by fellow inmates and accepted into a new world where the slate is wiped clean. Radicalization often occurs very quickly in this setting, and it is only recently that the Federal Bureau of Prisons has pushed for an increased and systematic monitoring of radical material in U.S. prisons. To their credit, however, U.S. authorities have lately engaged in enhanced cooperation with France regarding prison issues, such as the training of Muslim chaplains.
Conclusion
Information regarding Islamist radicalization in America currently remains limited, and recent developments should therefore serve as a clear warning. Already, the Obama administration is favoring a new approach that shifts from exclusively military options to increased law enforcement and intelligence efforts. Much remains to be done, however, and while U.S. policies are still mainly focused on defeating al-Qaeda's narrative and capacities overseas, dealing with radicals at home might prove all the more critical. Since al-Qaeda is evolving into a "franchise" operation, homegrown recruits could become the most serious threat to the United States. The phenomenon has become all the more worrying in light of many recent attempts by U.S. extremists to link up with foreign Islamist movements and inscribe their struggle at a global level.
In addressing homegrown radicalization, the French experience could provide the Obama administration with policy inspiration. France, although not a parallel model -- especially since it is still addressing the pervasive discontent of poorly integrated Muslim populations -- has witnessed no terrorist attack since the 1990s. Its success in handling the grassroots Islamist phenomenon has resulted from effective interagency coordination and the establishment of specific legal provisions and structures charged with the antiterrorist struggle. Figuring out ways to replicate this in the United States, including the possibility of establishing separate counterterrorism courts, would be an important step forward.
Myriam Benraad is the Keston Family scholar for The Washington Institute's Project Fikra, focusing on radicalization and counterradicalization in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, and the United States.
By Myriam Benraad
September 3, 2009
Last month, Kamal Hassan, a Somali-American living in Minnesota, pled guilty to training and fighting with al-Shabab, an al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group in Somalia. In July, two other Somali-Americans in Minnesota pled guilty to similar charges, with the FBI continuing to investigate more than a dozen others who may have traveled from the United States to Somalia. The FBI also recently arrested seven individuals in North Carolina on terrorism-related charges, including one who had spent time in Afghan training camps. These and other recent events have raised new concerns in the United States about the threat of homegrown radicalization. As U.S. attorney general Eric Holder acknowledged in a July speech, the "whole notion of radicalization is something that did not loom as large a few months ago...as it does now." While the U.S. government has focused primarily on Europe as a source of potential terrorists, Washington should also look to the continent as a model in confronting homegrown radicalization.
A Troubling Phenomenon
During his first major speech in July, White House counterterrorism advisor John Brennan provided an overview of the current administration's approach to protecting American citizens from violent extremism and terrorism. Although Brennan emphasized President Barack Obama's new partnership with Muslim communities and the administration's commitment to defeating al-Qaeda's capacities overseas, little was said about homegrown Islamist radicalization. This fundamental issue has long been downplayed by U.S. federal authorities and counterterrorism experts, who believe that Muslims and Arabs are generally better integrated into U.S. society -- as opposed to their counterparts in European society -- and are thus less vulnerable to the al-Qaeda narrative.
Homegrown radicalization has now returned to the spotlight after the watershed Somali cases. Court hearings have revealed that Islamist leaders approached most of the Minneapolis recruits and urged them to attend clandestine meetings where they were persuaded to travel to Somalia and become part of the local armed insurgency. Most troublingly, however, is that a number of the Somali-Americans who joined al-Shabab suffer from identity and integration issues similar to those of radicalized youth in Europe. Until now, the United States had seemingly been immune from this particular phenomenon.
Building on Europe's Lessons
Although American policymakers have long worried that Islamists radicalized in Europe would attack the United States, Washington can learn valuable lessons from Europe in addressing the challenge of homegrown radicalization. Consider, for example, some of the measures undertaken in France. Although the internal dynamics nurturing radicalization in France and the United States differ significantly, comparable trends exist. The impact of socioeconomic deprivation, political alienation, and identity issues as vehicles of radical narratives -- a factor that looms large in the Somali-American cases -- appears to be a common pattern. The malaise experienced by nonintegrated second- and third-generation immigrants, as well as the lack of educational and professional prospects for young people, has nurtured homegrown radicalization in France. While this phenomenon is far less widespread in the United States, the recent Somali cases indicate that it is occurring, at least to some extent.
France's law enforcement and intelligence efforts have been fairly far reaching and certainly go beyond what might be politically acceptable in the United States. French counterterrorism magistrates have frequently used their preventive detention powers to target individuals suspected of inciting violence, incarcerating some and deporting others. In 2004, for example, a wave of French prosecutions targeted radical imams and included the deportation of Chelali Benchellali, the Salafist imam of Venissieux's now famous mosque -- an act that would certainly have been more controversial in the United States. (MS: Why would it be controversial, I don't understand.)
France has also prosecuted a number of its citizens after they returned home from jihadist activities overseas -- a move the United States is now taking in the Somali cases as well. In May 2008, for instance, France condemned and jailed members of a Parisian network of jihadists recruited by young Salafi imam Farid Benyettou to fight in Iraq. Court hearings showed how Benyettou, a French citizen of Algerian background, managed to radicalize a group of men in 2003 through private readings of online Islamist propaganda and vehement anti-American rhetoric.
Following the massive riots of 2005 -- which witnessed the uprising of deprived multiethnic youth in French suburbs -- France has been forced to acknowledge the necessity of coupling its often harsh police methods with greater social dialogue and political engagement. After his election in 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy made ethnoreligious discrimination one of his top priorities. As such, he appointed Rachida Dati as the minister of justice, the first individual of North African/Muslim origin to access a top cabinet position.
In addition, France has undertaken efforts to better understand the ideological motivations of Islamists. Monitoring and counterradicalization programs have been implemented in the French prison system, historically a crucible for radical ideology and recruitment. Interestingly, official sources indicate that many American homegrown Islamists have also been radicalized while incarcerated, including the members of the prison-formed Jamiyat al-Islam al-Sahih cell in California that was convicted in 2007 for its plans to attack not only synagogues but also the Israeli consulate in Los Angeles. Indeed, prisons provide an ideal place for radicalizing the young and disenchanted in search of a sense of belonging and importance. Within the prison setting, Islam has the added appeal of addressing feelings of inequality and injustice. Fresh converts are protected by fellow inmates and accepted into a new world where the slate is wiped clean. Radicalization often occurs very quickly in this setting, and it is only recently that the Federal Bureau of Prisons has pushed for an increased and systematic monitoring of radical material in U.S. prisons. To their credit, however, U.S. authorities have lately engaged in enhanced cooperation with France regarding prison issues, such as the training of Muslim chaplains.
Conclusion
Information regarding Islamist radicalization in America currently remains limited, and recent developments should therefore serve as a clear warning. Already, the Obama administration is favoring a new approach that shifts from exclusively military options to increased law enforcement and intelligence efforts. Much remains to be done, however, and while U.S. policies are still mainly focused on defeating al-Qaeda's narrative and capacities overseas, dealing with radicals at home might prove all the more critical. Since al-Qaeda is evolving into a "franchise" operation, homegrown recruits could become the most serious threat to the United States. The phenomenon has become all the more worrying in light of many recent attempts by U.S. extremists to link up with foreign Islamist movements and inscribe their struggle at a global level.
In addressing homegrown radicalization, the French experience could provide the Obama administration with policy inspiration. France, although not a parallel model -- especially since it is still addressing the pervasive discontent of poorly integrated Muslim populations -- has witnessed no terrorist attack since the 1990s. Its success in handling the grassroots Islamist phenomenon has resulted from effective interagency coordination and the establishment of specific legal provisions and structures charged with the antiterrorist struggle. Figuring out ways to replicate this in the United States, including the possibility of establishing separate counterterrorism courts, would be an important step forward.
Myriam Benraad is the Keston Family scholar for The Washington Institute's Project Fikra, focusing on radicalization and counterradicalization in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, and the United States.
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