Eric Harroun, Indictment and Affidavit in Support of Complaint

American Eric Harroun, who fought alongside jihadists in Syria, was indicted yesterday for material support of Jabhat al-Nusrah and conspiring to use explosives devices overseas.

Indictment

Affidavit in support of criminal complaint

For more about American jihadists, buy J.M. Berger's book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

Labels: American-Jihadists, Eric-Harroun, Foreign-Fighters, Internet, Jabhat-Al-Nusrah, Jihad-Joe, Social-Media, Syria

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Signs of Life (Maybe) from Omar Hammami

Omar Hammami in a video posted online this morning.

A previously unseen video from Alabama-born jihadist Omar Hammami was posted to YouTube early this morning.

In the video, titled "An Urgent Message," Hammami speaks for three minutes in Arabic. He appears to be sitting in the same room and wearing the same clothes as he was in the last video he posted online from Somalia nearly seven months ago.

Update: Hammami alive, speaks with Current TV

According to Somali journalists, the video appears to expand on the plea for help Hammami posted in that video, which indicated Al Shabab wanted to kill him. According to their translations, the newly released video is addressed to Al Qaeda and senior jihadists to inform them that foreign fighters in Somalia are experiencing problems with Al Shabab. He also said Shabab is not ready to carry out jihad on an international level. Hammami also asks for help in leaving Somalia, they said.

The video's caption reads "Waiting around to see how things develop. Stay tuned!" The video was also posted without further comment on a Twitter account used by an individual claiming to be Hammami's "PR rep."

Hammami has not been heard from since May, when he abruptly stopped communicating due to African Union forces fighting the Al Qaeda-linked militia Al Shabab in his vicinity. His last direct communication was with Christof Putzel of CurrentTV. His "PR rep" stopped emailing me at the same time.

In an interview with me for Foreign Policy in May, Hammami's "PR rep" expanded on the American jihadist's complaints about al Shabaab and said the Somali militia had not yet killed Hammami because it was "too messy politically."

"Things can't be done in the open, and he hasn't given them any opportunities to create an 'accident'," he said. The interview took place around the time Hammami posted "part 1" of his text autobiography and an audio lecture on the political priorities of jihadist movements, which he believed was partially responsible for his troubles.
In early October, the Washington Post ran a story suggesting Hammami was "on the run," but the assertion was weakly sourced.

This post has been updated.

For more about American jihadists, check out J.M. Berger's new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, on sale everywhere.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS:

Rights, Rules Suffer When Line Between Informant and Agent Blurs

Patriot Games: FBI Undercover Operations And Timothy McVeigh

A Nation of Spies and Snitches

White Paper: PATCON infiltration and Oklahoma City

Exclusive: Omar Hammami on why Al Shabab wants to kill him

Labels: Abu-Mansour-Al-Amriki, Al-Qaeda, Al-Shabab, American-Al-Qaeda, American-Jihadists, Jihad-Joe, Omar-Hammami, Somalia

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

The Content and Context of Anwar Awlaki's E-mails with Fort Hood Shooter Nidal Hasan

Probably the most difficult, bedeviling problem in combating terrorism through law enforcement is interpreting the words of suspects to divine their real intentions, then to build a case from that interpretation.

It seems to me that this issue is exemplified by the long-withheld e-mail exchange between the radical American cleric Anwar Awlaki and the Fort Hood shooter, Major Nidal Hasan.

My friend Daveed Gartenstein-Ross has a new entry over at Gunpowder and Lead, with Lauren Morgan, outlining the case for rating the e-mail exchange as a high threat and arguing that it should have prompted more aggressive investigative action. The post was prompted by a question from Charles Cameron.

I waited for this post before ringing in, because I wanted to see if I would be swayed by Daveed's argument, which he broadly telegraphed on Twitter last week. While we ultimately reach the same conclusion -- that the FBI and Defense Department should have investigated Hasan more aggressively -- we get there by a different path and with somewhat different areas of emphasis.

I'm not going to summarize the G&L post, which you should read before proceeding, precisely because it so thorough in its treatment of the question. But therein lies the rub. We're scrutinizing these emails and how they were handled. Why? Because we now know one person involved carried out a horrific act of terrorism and the other became a top Al Qaeda propagandist.

Nothing in Daveed's argument is wrong and it all falls within the scope of what he and Lauren set out to examine. There are clearly markers of concern in these e-mails, and the fact they involve an active duty military officer and a known radicalizer with links to September 11 is alone sufficient reason for the Washington Field Office to have escalated the case, at least to the point of an interview with Hasan and his immediate superiors.

But I think there are distractions lurking here, which move us away from what actually went wrong and what lessons we should learn.

I want to raise two key issues in this respect, because I think it's hard to really understand the case without them. This doesn't negate the points raised by Daveed and Lauren, but I feel that the context here is so important that it's misleading to consider the issue without acknowledging them.

The first issue has to do with the relationship between the FBI's San Diego and Washington Field Offices. If you read the more thorough Senate Homeland Security Committee report, the more telling Webster Commission Report, and records released by the 9/11 Commission, you don't have to squint very hard between the lines to see there were political tensions between the two offices, which I have also heard from multiple sources with knowledge of the situation.

Much of this tension specifically revolved around Awlaki and long preceded the Hasan emails. The Awlaki investigation ping-ponged back and forth between the two offices like a hot potato since 2001. These tensions resulted in strained and often inadequate communication between the two branches, which creates inertia and resistance and obstacles to effective, objective functioning.

This doesn't excuse the handling of the case. If anything, an institutional management failure is more damnable than a simple oversight or misinterpretation. But the testy relationship between the offices, clearly illuminated in the Webster report, has little to do with the content of the investigation.

When we're looking for lessons learned, it's my opinion (based on what we know today) that the will to analyze may have been a larger issue than the approach to analysis.

The characterization of the e-mails by unnamed officials as "fairly benign," which Daveed rightly attacks, was an after-the-fact effort at spin. It deserves to be refuted but also points to the second issue.

Anyone who has spent time with raw intelligence knows that you have to triage leads. For every intercept that states "I've bought the fertilizer and I'm loading it in the truck tonight down by the lake," there are literally thousands and thousands that say "I hate America," "I love Al Qaeda," "I'd like to kill those bastards," "I swear to God it's time for action and not words," "If I was James Holmes, here's how I would have done it better," "You need to start mentally preparing now to kill your neighbors when the revolution comes," and "Would you consider someone like Hasan Akbar to be fighting jihad, and if he died would he be a martyr?" (All of the above are paraphrases of actual extremist content I've reviewed.)

The words of suspects -- whether recounted in e-mails, phone intercepts, informant reports, or online postings -- must be interpreted and prioritized relative to dozens or hundreds or thousands of other leads. This can be a science if you're a trained FBI profiler, but it's strictly an art if you're anyone else. Zach Chesser's online output, to the layman, was pretty alarming and seemed to indicate he might try to act out violently on U.S. soil, but he never did. And even profilers cannot read intent from most verbal and written content with absolute reliability.

Based on who Hasan was (a military officer), who he was talking to (a suspected 9/11 accomplice), and the fact he repeatedly tried to get Awlaki's attention using a variety of stratagems, the case should have been escalated and Hasan's superiors should have been informed.

But when you place the content of Hasan's messages alongside all the other raw intelligence that counterterrorism investigations generate, it's extremely hard to argue from a subjective, non-psychoanalytical reading that they represented a red flag.

Even putting aside the broad universe of raw intelligence, consider just the workload generated by the Awlaki Web site intercept and what we don't know about the nature of that content.

If you get 60 leads per day featuring people writing to Awlaki, are half asking what concrete steps they can take to participate in jihad? Are the other half are oblique in the same way Hasan was oblique? Which would you prioritize?

Hasan's e-mails didn't exist in a vacuum; they competed for attention with an unknown number of other e-mails featuring unknown content from Awlaki's Web site but also his email accounts as well as traffic from other investigations. The Webster report indicates that two San Diego analysts were processing an average of 65 to 70 electronic intercepts per day. Although it does not specify if all of those were related to Awlaki, other figures quoted in the report would be consistent with that conclusion. (H/T @emptywheel) The exact content distribution is unknown.

It's difficult to separate hindsight from our analysis. We approach these emails looking for evidence of Hasan's intentions, but we already know his actual intentions. If we read the thousands of e-mails generated during the period Hasan was corresponding with Awlaki, without any names attached, would we pick Hasan's messages as the most important? Would they even make the top 10 or the top 100? I suspect they would not.

It would be interesting to approach this subject from the perspective of a blind study, analyzing dozens of unlabeled intercepts -- some from people who went on to act violently, and some from people who did not. I'd bet serious money such an experiment would be a massive failure and would not reliably identify which subjects became violent and which did not.

Without such a study in hand (and if you have one, please send), we need to acknowledge the lack of hard data correlating different types of talk with physical action and the subjectivity of the exercise. The content certainly informs our understanding, but I don't think it leads to a "lesson learned" moment.

I don't disagree with the content markers noted by Daveed and Lauren, but I think it's a mistake to say those markers can be interpreted with much certainty without the benefit of hindsight. I'm not claiming this is their actual argument -- I think they're arguing to include context -- but I came away from reading the piece feeling that there was too much emphasis on the content and too much certainty about its significance.

It is, of course, important to understand and study content, but you can't point to a reference to Hasan Akbar in a vacuum and say it's significant, unless you've looked at a constellation of similar references and attempted to correlate them to action.

I don't think this particular example illustrates useful investigative triggers that are likely to result in improved screening, and I don't think it illustrates a systemic failure that requires correction. The "lesson learned" is that the context of the messages should have escalated the investigation (and prompted more attention to the content).

If the content of the Hasan e-mails represents a threshold for escalated investigative concern, we're going to need a whole lot more FBI agents. I see dozens of online postings and messages per day that are far more worrisome than these e-mails, yet it is extraordinarily rare for these posts to connect with terrorist acts in any way. We need more study of how talk correlates to action, but the art of textual interpretation is not simple and rarely leads to black-and-white answers.

For more about American jihadists, check out J.M. Berger's new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, on sale everywhere.


This post was updated at 1:47 p.m. 

Labels: American-Al-Qaeda, American-Terrorists, Anwar-Awlaki, Fort-Hood, Jihad-Joe, Nidal-Malik-Hasan

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

The Boy Who Cried 'Lone Wolf'

I had two recent pieces on "Jihad Joes" in Foreign Policy:

THE BOY WHO CRIED 'LONE WOLF'

Friday's arrest of a would-be suicide bomber in Washington, D.C. led to a fresh paroxysm of analysis in the media on the ominous threat of lone wolf terrorism on U.S. soil.

The problem is that Amine El-Khalifi wasn't alone. He was in contact with men he believed were part of Al Qaeda, and those men handed him a complete (but inert) suicide vest and an automatic weapon to carry out his attack. The fact those men were FBI undercover agents is beside the point. If someone claiming to work for Al Qaeda hands you a fully assembled bomb for your attack, you're not a lone wolf.

Read more by J.M. Berger at Foreign Policy

AL QAEDA'S YOUNG AMERICANS

Hundreds of Somalis gathered on the outskirts of Mogadishu on Feb. 13 to celebrate the union of al Qaeda with its Somali cousin, the insurgent-terrorist group al-Shabab. But the mainstream media hasn't quite figured out what to make of the news, first announced last week, that the two groups had officially merged.

Many reporters were already accustomed to thinking of them as the same group. Others grasped at straws to fit the news into the "al Qaeda is losing" narrative -- dominant ever since Osama bin Laden was killed last May.

They might have done better with a simple headline: "Dozens of Americans Join al Qaeda."

Read more by J.M. Berger at Foreign Policy

For more about American jihadists, check out J.M. Berger's new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, on sale everywhere.

Labels: Al-Shabab, American-Al-Qaeda, American-Jihadists, American-Terrorists, Amine-El-Khalifi, Foreign-Policy, individual-jihad, Jihad-Joe

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Ex-Marine Yonathan Melaku Pleads Guilty, Jihadist Videos Released

Yonathan Melaku, a former U.S. Marine, pled guilty today to shooting at U.S. military buildings. He was arrested in June just before he could deface Arlington National Cemetery. Below are jihadi-style videos Melaku recorded of him firing shots out of his car window. As you can see, Melaku will not be picking up the academy award for short jihadi agitprop feature any time soon.

Labels: American-Jihadists, American-Terrorists, Jihad-Joe, Yonathan-Melaku

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

What Tarek Mehanna Isn't

American citizen Tarek Mehanna's lawyers managed to convince many in the media that his prosecution as a terrorist was all about the First Amendment and U.S. attitudes toward Muslims.

A Boston jury did not agree, on Tuesday convicting Mehanna of material support to Al Qaeda and lying to federal investigators.

One can forgive the defense team for thinking that First Amendment martyrdom was the smart approach. Faced with an overwhelming amount of evidence as to Mehanna's words and actions, they decided the only way to do their job was to undermine the fundamental nature of the charges. The strategy failed, but that doesn't mean they had any better options.

The phrase "budding Islamic scholar" has now become ubiquitous in media descriptions of Mehanna, a phrase the defense used in an effort to normalize Mehanna's indisputably radical beliefs and actions as a normal, even respected part of Islam.

If Glenn Beck put forth the idea that Islamic scholarship included praising the 9/11 hijackers, gloating and laughing at Ground Zero, and celebrating the immolation of American soldiers as "Texas barbecue," he would rightfully be lambasted by sensible people.

But when Mehanna himself advances that argument, through his defense team, people who say they have the best interests of American Muslims at heart should take a deep breath and think about whether they want to co-sign that assertion.

It's one thing to advocate for the First Amendment and the protection of objectionable speech. It's quite another thing to defend an extremist by trying to normalize his behavior within a community that already has enough perception problems.

People of good conscience might differ on whether Mehanna should be considered a criminal, although I personally agree with the jury that his actions in total surpassed the scope of the First Amendment.

But the evidence submitted in court clearly shows that Mehanna was, by almost any interpretation, a hateful person who gloried violence. Defend his legal position if you must, but don't call him a "budding Islamic scholar" and don't allow him to wrap himself in the mantle of "ordinary American Muslim." He is not.

For much more about the Tarek Mehanna case, check out J.M. Berger's new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, on sale everywhere.

Labels: American-Jihadists, American-Terrorists, Jihad-Joe, Tarek-Mehanna

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Nasser Al-Awlaki Blasts U.S. For Killing of Son and Grandson

The father of Anwar Al-Awlaki blasted the United States in an audio message "to the Muslims of Britain" posted online today.

"When the United States assassinated my beloved son, Anwar, using drone Hellfire missiles, he was far from any battlefield," Nassar Al-Awlaki said.

Anwar Awlaki was killed in September by a U.S. drone strike. He was born in the Los Cruces, New Mexico, where his father, Nassar, was studying as an agronomist. The audio appears to have been tied to a protest outside the U.S. embassy in London by the banned group, Muslims Against Crusades.

"Anwar was assassinated because of his teachings," Nassar Al-Awlaki said, complaining that no evidence was ever presented against Anwar Awlaki and "no evidence ever will be."

Awlaki also said that his 16-year-old grandson, killed in a drone strike in October, was a noncombatant who was with teenage friends at the time he was killed.

"They knew that Imam Anwar Awlaki carried an effective message that was simple and straightforward. Its target was the Muslims in the West. They consider an affluent convincing Muslim preacher as a threat. So they tried everything to silence him," Awlaki said.

For more about Awlaki, check out J.M. Berger's new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, on sale everywhere.

Labels: Al-Qaeda-In-The-Arabian-Peninsula, American-Al-Qaeda, American-Jihadists, American-Terrorists, Anwar-Awlaki, Jihad-Joe, Muslims-Against-Crusades, Nasser-Awlaki

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Larger than Death

We think of iconic figures as being larger than life, but within the world of Al Qaeda and its allies and supporters, fallen warriors take on a larger-than-death quality.

The U.S. has killed Osama bin Laden and Anwar Awalki, and now is the time to study the question: What happens when you decapitate al Qaeda figureheads?

Our strategy has been predicated on the assumption that we're better off with these figures dead than alive, and that's probably true. But it's also testable now. We can watch how the jihadi community processes these deaths and take lessons from what we see, in the weeks and months to come.

Consider the case of Abdullah Azzam, Osama bin Laden's mentor, who shepherded the foreign fighter community into the jihad against the Soviets and was involved in the founding of al Qaeda. Azzam was assassinated by a car bomb in 1989. There are only guesses about who was responsible, but suspects include the CIA, the Mossad, Jordanian intelligence and his own allies/rivals, Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al Zawahiri.

Azzam's been dead for more than 20 years, but he's still one of the most powerful radicalizing figures in the jihadist pantheon. I would love for the FBI to release a comparative study showing how many U.S.-based terrorists were arrested with Azzam's videos and writings on their computers as opposed to the works of Awlaki. I predict it's at least 50-50, and the advantage might well go to Azzam.

For instance, Roshonara Choudhry, a lone wolf terrorist who stabbed a British MP, cited both Awlaki and Azzam as having pushed her toward violence -- but said Azzam was the one who convinced her to act.

Long after his death, Azzam is revered for his role in the Afghan jihad. His lectures are available online, with English translations, and his books are widely available in English as well. Azzam was an effective and emotional speaker, and an educated scholar who ranks among the most important thinkers within the jihadist movement.

It's clear that Azzam's death did not detract from his power. On the one hand, the fact that he died may have prevented him from creating other, even more important works. On the other hand, his death prevented him from making mistakes and taking actions (such as joining al Qaeda terrorism) that might have diminished his stature.

Osama bin Laden and Anwar Awlaki have now been frozen in time. They will always be the people they are today, any improvement or diminishment of their stature is likely to be minimal, aside from a trickle of new information and unreleased works.

In bin Laden's case, death froze him at a point where his stature had diminished (rightfully or wrongly). His body of works -- audio, video and texts -- are competent but not (in my opinion) especially stirring from an emotional standpoint nor are they especially important in their intellectual content. They are, ultimately, political tracts tied to a certain time and place, and they may not age well.

Awlaki is a different story. Intellectually, he's only a shadow of Azzam. Awlaki's contributions to jihadist thought are negligible, his primary strength was interpreting the work of other ideologues in ways that made them relevant and emotionally resonant to English-speaking audiences. In that role, he was an unparalleled talent, and emotional resonance probably matters more in terms of keeping the flame alive after the body has passed.

Awlaki's personal life narrative may also make his death matter more. For bin Laden, frankly, there was really only one way that his story could end after September 11, and even his adherents accepted that. Awlaki's life story is more rounded and diverse, and his death is already seen as tragic by a wider audience, including people outside of extremist circles. That meme may spread over time and create new headaches for counterterrorism.

But all this is speculation. Now is the time to watch how different communities react to these events and to learn from what transpires. It may be tempting for analysts, after 10 long years and these landmark deaths, to call it a war and move on to other subjects.

Give it a little longer.

Video: J.M. Berger on Fox News discussing Awlaki's 'Larger than death' legacy

For more about Awlaki and Abdullah Azzam's role in radicalizing Americans, check out J.M. Berger's new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, on sale everywhere.

Labels: Abdullah-Azzam, Al-Qaeda, Anwar-Awlaki, Jihad-Joe, Osama-Bin-Laden

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Declassified State Department Cables On Al Qaeda-Linked Cell in California

State Department cables obtained by INTELWIRE describe Ayman Al Zawahiri's trip to California in 1995 and the activities of an Al Qaeda-linked terrorist cell in Northern California.

The general outline of the cell's activities has been previously reported in newspapers and in Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam.

The documents, obtained from the State Department under the Freedom of Information Act, detail the trial of a group of Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operatives captured in Egypt and Albania, with the latter being deported to Egypt. Because of this, the trial became known as the "Returnees from Albania" case. One of those tried in the case was Khaled Abu El Dahab, a naturalized U.S. citizen who lived in California with the notorious Al Qaeda infiltrator Ali Mohamed. Dahab was arrested in Egypt.

Click here to read the full documents

According to the cables:

Zawahiri [who was at the time emir of Egyptian Islamic Jihad] visited the U.S. in early 1995 using a forged passport, primarily to collect contributions from Islamist circles. Abu ad-Dahhab placed Zawahiri at the Al-Nur mosque in Santa Clara, California. Three American citizens of Egyptian extraction who, per Abu ad-Dahhab, helped Zawahiri' s 1995 visit were Ali Abu al-Sa'ud Mustafa [Ali Mohamed] and two brothers, Ali and Hassan Zaki, all living in the San Franscisco area. Mustafa had served in the U.S. army for several years. [Egyptian newspaper] Al-Hayat of February 11 adds that Egyptian authorities may ask the U.S. to render Mustafa for trial in the "returnees" case, primarily for his EIJ fundraising. Mustafa apparently told Abu ad-Dahhab that the money that Mustafa had raised was used to plan the 1995 bomb attack on the Egyptian embassy in Pakistan. Mustafa is also wanted for helping to train EIJ operatives in bomb-making techniques, per Al-Hayat.

Mohamed and Zawahiri were convicted in absentia during the trial, however Mohamed was by this point under indictment in New York for his role in the 1998 East African Embassy bombings. Dahab was convicted and sentenced to prison. His current status is unknown, although according to some accounts he died in prison.

Although the cell was initially organized under the banner of EIJ, testimony from both Mohamed and Dahab, as well as other witnesses, indicated that both men took orders directly from Osama bin Laden at times, and both took part in highly sensitive Al Qaeda activities, including communications, security and the planning of terrorist attacks. For most meaningful purposes, the cell is considered an Al Qaeda operation.

Also convicted in absentia during the "Returnees" trial was Mohammed Al Islambouli, the brother of Sadat assassin Khaled Al Islambouli, who recently returned to Egypt after the fall of Mubarak and was promptly arrested. The cables state that "some observers [in Cairo] believe Muhammad Islambouli is connected with the EIJ defendants through setting up terrorist training camps in the Balkans."

If you see any interesting tidbits in this material not covered here, feel free to discuss them with me on Twitter.

For more about American jihadists, check out J.M. Berger's new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, on sale everywhere.

Labels: Ali-Mohamed, American-Al-Qaeda, American-Terrorists, Ayman-Al-Zawahiri, Egypt, Egyptian-Islamic-Jihad, Jihad-Joe, Khaled-Al-Dahab

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

BloggingHeads: J.M. Berger and Daveed Gartenstein-Ross on the Decade Since 9/11

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, the author of Bin Laden's Legacy, sits down with me for a Bloggingheads.tv session in which we discuss the war on terror since 9/11, whether Al Qaeda is winning, Ali-Frasier, whether it's more cost-effective to have a Global War on Drunk Driving than a Global War on Terror, if the Libya intervention becomes a good idea just because it isn't a disaster yet, and whether Islamism and terrorism are the same problem, or different problems....



For more about American jihadists, check out J.M. Berger's new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, on sale everywhere.

Labels: Al-Qaeda, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Jihad-Joe, Libya

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Listening to Anwar Awlaki

I have a new piece in Foreign Policy on Anwar Awlaki:

On Tuesday, Aug. 9, Naser Abdo, an American soldier, was indicted for plotting a terrorist attack against soldiers stationed at Fort Hood -- just the latest in a series of U.S. citizens who have been inspired to violence by the words of Anwar al-Awlaki, the American imam who went rogue and today threatens the United States from his father's country of Yemen.

Awlaki is clearly a dangerous man. As a country, the United States spends a lot of time talking about, worrying about, and trying to kill him. Unfortunately, attention runs fast, but not deep.

On July 27, Salon's Glenn Greenwald argued that Awlaki represented "the face of moderate Islam" and "the opposite of [Osama] bin Laden" before Sept. 11, 2001. By Greenwald's account, Awlaki was subsequently radicalized by America's wars and foreign policies. This conclusion was based on exactly two sources -- an interview conducted with Awlaki in 2001 and another interview dated 2009.

On the same day, Navy SEAL Adm. Eric T. Olson, speaking at the Aspen Security Forum, discussed the threat posed by Awlaki. "He's a dual-passport holder who has lived in the United States," Olson said, "so he understands us much better than we understand him."

In reality, Awlaki has given us a shocking abundance of material with which we can judge and understand him. He has recorded more than 100 hours of audio lectures, more than bin Laden, almost all of them in colloquial English. He has also figured in a long trail of investigations, including FBI and 9/11 Commission documents that are available to the public. Taken together, these sources reveal a portrait of a conflicted man whose path to radicalization started in the 1990s and steadily progressed to his present-day status as a terrorist icon.

Click here for the full story

For more than 10,000 words of additional perspective on Awlaki, check out J.M. Berger's new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, on sale everywhere.

Labels: American-Al-Qaeda, American-Terrorists, Anwar-Awlaki, Foreign-Policy, Jihad-Joe

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

The Mullah Krekar Show

I have a piece at Foreign Policy on Mullah Krekar, the Oslo-based jihadist cleric who was indicted just last week for threatening Norwegian politicians with death. Here's a backgrounder on Krekar's long and tortured history with the Norwegian government.

Read the full article at Foreign Policy

Earlier this week, I had a piece for The Atlantic on homegrown jihadists and why they can't seem to follow Al Qaeda's directions.

Read the full article at The Atlantic

For more about American jihadists, check out J.M. Berger's new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, on sale everywhere.

Labels: Al-Qaeda, American-Jihadists, American-Terrorists, Anwar-Awlaki, Jihad-Joe, Mullah-Krekar, Oslo

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Al Shabab's Recruiting Pipeline From Minnesota To Somalia Detailed In New Filing

A trial brief filed this week in the U.S. District Court in Minnesota for accused Al Shabab collaborator Omer Adbi Mohamed revealed new details about just how Al Shabab's recruitment practices work in Minneapolis.

I've hacked the file up into a highly condensed excerpt below, or you can read the whole document. Journalists, I edited what's below heavily so quote the document proper if you are quoting.

Starting in or about September 2007, the defendant and his conspirators formed a secretive plan in which ethnic Somali men residing in Minneapolis would return to Somalia to conduct jihad alongside Islamic extremists against the Ethiopian military present in Somalia to assist the internationally-supported Transitional Federal Government of Somalia (“TFG”).

In or about September 2007, the defendant Omer Abdi Mohamed and his conspirators, to include Khalid Abshir (“Abshir”), Dahir Gure (“Gure”), Ahmed Ali Omar (“Omar”), and Shirwa Ahmed (“Shirwa Ahmed”) ... began to raise funds and planned to join Abshir’s relative in Somalia, a senior member of al Shabaab.

Throughout the fall of 2007, the defendant and his conspirators secretly began to mobilize groups of men to depart for Somalia. The group met at mosques, restaurants, and private restaurants to plan the logistics of the trip. ... The group also conferred with one man who had recently returned from Somalia and stated that the men would engage in a “good jihad.”

To raise money, the group solicited donations from unsuspecting members of the Somali community under false pretenses. The defendant and his conspirators went to local malls and apartment buildings to ask for money, claiming it would be used to build a mosque or to assist with relief efforts in Somalia. In fact, the money was to pay for the airfare and travel expenses of the group of men to join in the conspiracy.

They challenged members of the conspiracy who had planned to travel, questioning their commitment, dedication, and knowledge of both the religion and events in Somalia, before ultimately assisting them with the trip.

When the time came to buy tickets, the defendant relied on a contact he had at Amana Travel to assist with booking the tickets. The defendant contacted Amana Travel, accompanied men to the travel agency, and paid for the tickets. The defendant and his conspirators acquired and provided to [local recruit Kamal] Hassan a fraudulent itinerary reflecting that Hassan would be traveling to Saudi Arabia for purpose of misleading Hassan’s family about his destination.

[S]even men who had left from Minneapolis in the fall of 2007 reunited at a safe-house in Southern Somalia. They were provided weapons training and met with senior leaders of al Shabaab. At a different safe-house, the men from Minneapolis, along with other members of al Shabaab, were issued AK-47s and ammunition.

When they arrived at the camp, the men were divided into groups and began to construct the camp. Under the supervision of the leaders, they began cutting down trees and clearing brush. Salah Ahmed and Isse left the camp after several weeks and began making their way back to the United States. Shirwa Ahmed also left the camp to assist a friend, but was persuaded to return to the camp by his conspirators in Somalia.

The remaining men from Minneapolis along with other recruits were provided weapons training, religious instruction and anti-Western propaganda. The camp received visits from senior members of al Shabaab. An al Shabaab “media” crew arrived to film a propaganda video that depicted recruits training and featured an English-language recruiting appeal made by a man from Minneapolis. Robow and Nabhan appear in the video.

In mid-July 2008, after graduating from the training camp, the men from Minneapolis were assigned to a group of foreign fighters and dispatched to conduct an ambush of Ethiopian troops traveling along a road in Somalia. The preparations and ambush were filmed by a member of the conspiracy and produced as an al Shabaab propaganda video. Senior members of al Shabaab narrate the video and a man from Minneapolis makes a speech to the camera in which he encourages more men to join them in Somalia.

[O]n October 29, 2008, five coordinated vehicle borne improvised explosive devices (“IED”) exploded in the Somali territories of Puntland and Somaliland. The bombings resulted in the death of the suicide bombers, including [Minneapolis recruit] Shirwa Ahmed, as well as approximately 22 persons.

For more about American jihadists, check out J.M. Berger's new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam.

Related posts:

Dealing With Radicalization In America

Omar Hammami Falls Short In OBL Eulogy

Labels: Al-Shabab, American-Jihadists, Jihad-Joe, Omar-Hammami, Omer-Abdi-Mohamed, Somalia

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Jihad Joe Reading And Signing At Porter Square Books in Cambridge

I'll be appearing at my local, Porter Square Bookstore, in Cambridge to do a reading from Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go To War In The Name Of Islam on Tuesday, July 12, at 7 p.m. Click here to RSVP through Facebook, or just come on down. I hope to see you!

Labels: American-Al-Qaeda, American-Jihadists, American-Terrorists, J-M-Berger, Jihad-Joe

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Terrorist acts, terrorist thoughts

By J.M. Berger

On a recent Friday, in Washington, D.C., the New America Foundation issued a report on "Countering Domestic Radicalization." A few hours later, the Bipartisan Policy Commission released a report on "Preventing Violent Radicalization in America." A week later, Google hosted an extravagant "Summit Against Violent Extremism" in Dublin.

You can expect to hear a lot more of this in the days and weeks to come. Ten years after September 11, the conversation has shifted away from traditional counterterrorism and toward "countering violent extremism," known as CVE.

The reasoning behind CVE is fairly easy to understand. Advocates say it's better, for both budgetary and social reasons, to prevent people from becoming terrorists in the first place than to arrest them after they have committed a crime. It's the triumph of Doctor Phil over Jack Bauer.

Traditional counterterrorism targets people who are already taking active steps in pursuit of illegal activities, regardless of their religion, and arrests them before they can do harm.

In contrast, CVE seeks to prevent violent thoughts from taking root in the minds of ordinary people who are not actively pursuing illegal activities. And by ordinary people, everyone taking part in this conversation means Muslims.

This summer's think tank reports are not the worst examples of this kind of approach. Each contains a combination of astute insights and well-intentioned policy recommendations.

Many of those recommendations are oriented toward engaging Muslims rather than alienating them by singling them out for enforcement.

But both reports drive this point home in an unfortunate way, by talking exclusively about Muslim radicalization and not, for instance, white supremacy or the sovereign citizen movement.

Allowing for imperfect data, the percentage of Muslims who have a favorable view of Al Qaeda appears to be no larger than the number of white Americans who characterize themselves as racist.

Yet no one has ever once asked my opinion about how to keep young people from sliding into Odinism, or neo-Nazi beliefs, even though incidents of racist and anti-Semitic violence far outnumber incidents of jihadist terrorism in the United States.

If the first step in making Muslims feel less alienated is to single them out for remedial social engineering, then we have a problem before we even start.

Once you get past this inherent contradiction, the next question is whether government and policymakers have a track record that suggests they can successfully navigate the waters of Muslim politics, ideology and belief in order to discourage radicalism and encourage moderation.

During the Gulf War, U.S. military commanders allowed the Saudi government to run a "cultural exchange program" on base with American soldiers near Riyadh. In reality, the program set out to convert those soldiers to Islam, reportedly with great success.

Leading the charge was a Canadian Muslim named Bilal Philips, who has since become an international pariah, banned from traveling to the U.K. and Germany over controversial interpretations of Islamic law on such issues as homosexuality and child brides.

In my new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, I reveal for the first time that another preacher given full access to U.S. soldiers in Riyadh, an American Muslim known as Tahir, was later discovered to be a member of Al Qaeda.

From the 1990s through 2003, both Republican and Democratic politicians embraced Abdurrahman Alamoudi, then-leader of the American Muslim Council, who was chosen as a partner in a number of government programs, from Muslim military chaplains to State Department goodwill efforts. Alamoudi is today serving a prison sentence for trying to assassinate the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.

The Pentagon even hosted Anwar Awlaki as a luncheon speaker on Islam soon after September 11, according to documents recently uncovered by Fox News. Today, American drones are scouring Yemen in an effort to kill Awlaki, whose preaching has inspired dozens of terrorist attempts by Western Muslims.

Unfortunately, there are not many success stories to offset these spectacular failures. The government has repeatedly demonstrated its inability to parse and evaluate Muslim thought and to identify moderate people and trends.

These failures aren't just embarrassments. When we elevate hucksters like Alamoudi, it dismays and discourages those moderate Muslims who know better, and when we subsequently have to prosecute the hucksters, it alienates other Muslims who feel that the U.S. government is trying to silence the community's most prominent voices.

Even when you move past such large-scale disasters, government efforts to engage American Muslims have fallen flat. Consider the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an occasional partner in the government's efforts to engage the Muslim community over the years.

CAIR has been largely pushed out of those programs over the last couple of years due to its historical links to Hamas, its often unhelpful narrative about the perceived victimization of Muslims in America and its tendency to approach the issue of radicalization with a mix of denial and rationalization.

While it has largely failed to satisfy its government constituents, CAIR also lacks credibility among radical-leaning Muslims, who routinely blast the organization as a snitch, a sellout and a passive collaborator in U.S. anti-Muslim policies.

Similar complications apply for many other American Muslim leadership organizations of the moment. The best-funded (and thus most prominent) organizations get significant money and theological guidance from overseas. They aren't populist and do not offer a particularly comfortable space for less-religious Muslims to participate.

Many of these groups also advance a watered-down version of the "war on Islam" narrative that is most important to violent radicalization, and not many can pass the white-glove test imposed by critics and watchdogs in political and media circles.

But at the same time, these groups are too assimilated and conciliatory to possess credibility with the segments of the Muslim community most vulnerable to violent radicalization.

There are other considerations as well, but all are variations on a single theme: Tackling extremism at the thought level is a complex endeavor with far more pitfalls than payoffs.

So where do we go from here?

Unlike racist radicals, Muslim extremists tend to focus on mass casualty attacks, rather than individual hate crimes. For that reason and others, the government will not let this issue go untended. But history suggests the CVE approach is ineffective at best, harmful at worst.

In contrast, consider the following statistic. More than 180 homegrown extremists have tried to carry out terrorist attacks on U.S. soil since September 11. Only four have succeeded, thanks to old-fashioned counterterrorism. Many of those cases were cracked thanks to cooperation between American Muslims and law enforcement.

That's an impressive track record, and our policy investments should be informed by that success.

The vast majority of American Muslims oppose the acts of violence and terrorism carried out in their name by a handful of self-styled religious zealots who embrace the ideology of Al Qaeda. But the diversity of America's Muslim community makes it a challenge to develop critical mass for a legitimate grassroots movement that has both the credibility and will to fight radicalization directly.

I'm an optimist. I believe that such a movement can and will develop, if Muslims are given space to process this issue from within. When Americans are asked by an indigenous, populist Muslim movement for help counteracting the poison of radicalization, we should give it.

Until then, we should stay out of the way.

J.M. Berger is author of the new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam.

Labels: Abdurrahman-Alamoudi, Al-Qaeda, American-Jihadists, Anwar-Awlaki, Bilal-Philips, CVE, Jihad-Joe

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

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Sunday Reading: The New York Times Review of 'Jihad Joe'

The New York Times has a review of my new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, by national security reporter Scott Shane. You can read the whole thing here. The money quote follows:

At a time when some politicians and pundits blur the line between Islam and terrorism, Berger, who knows this subject far better than the demagogues, sharply cautions against vilifying Muslim Americans. "Extreme and indiscriminate anti-Muslim rhetoric helps to validate the worldview of our enemies -- the premise that America's wars are indeed wars against Islam," Berger writes. "You cannot tell someone, 'You are my enemy,' and then blame them for believing you."

It is a timely warning from an expert who has not lost his ­perspective.

Check out the full review

Buy the book

Labels: American-Al-Qaeda, American-Jihadists, American-Terrorists, J-M-Berger, Jihad-Joe

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

New "Jihad Joe" Cases Develop On Both Coasts, Melaku, Abdul-Latif And Mujahidh

The Justice Department revealed details of three new "Jihad Joe" suspects today in coast-to-coast court filings and press releases.

Abu Khalid Abdul-Latif, 33, of Seattle, and Walli Mujahidh, 32, of Los Angeles, and Yonathan Melaku, 22, of Alexandria are all American citizens and all appear to fit the "individual jihad" terrorist model, acting independently and without contacting a formal terrorist network such as Al Qaeda.

Today's cases are notable as examples of radicalized American Muslims acting out with near total independence. Melaku in particular fits the lone wolf profile. In most of the previous "lone wolf" cases, foreign terrorists (or FBI agents posing as such) have played a significant role in motivating and training would-be attackers.

In both cases revealed today, firearms were an important part of the equation. There have been 17 deaths from clear cases of homegrown Islamic terrorism since September 11, and all of them were the result of gunfire.

In May, I wrote about this issue for the New York Daily News. Al Qaeda's English-language Inspire magazine has been focused on guns for some months, with articles encouraging lone shooters and tips on how to use and maintain assault rifles.

In June, American Al Qaeda member Adam Gadahn explicitly encouraged American Muslims to go buy weapons at gun shows and use them to shoot their fellow citizens, in an Al Qaeda video encouraging individual jihadists.

In the wake of bin Laden's death, federal authorities have closely monitored would-be individual jihadists who might carry out terrorist attacks without support from a formal terrorist network. Several American citizens have been arrested since May 1 for a variety of crimes related to Islamic extremism and terrorism.

For much more about American jihadists, check out my new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, on sale everywhere. Journalists interested in discussing this issue can contact me here. For reviews and additional information about the book, click here.

ABDUL-LATIF AND MUJAHIDH

Arrested late last night in Seattle, Abdul-Latif is an African-American convert born Joseph Anthony Davis. Also arrested was Walli Mujahidh, born Frederick Domingue Jr., from Los Angeles.

Abdul-Latif and Mujahidh were charged with terrorism and firearms-related crimes today after they purchased machine guns and a grenade in an FBI undercover sting. The guns were rendered unusable before the sale.

The two men allegedly planned to use the weapons in an assault on a military processing facility in Seattle, after initially discussing an assault on Joint Base Lewis-McChord, on Puget Sound. Abdul-Latif, a felon previously convicted of robbery and assault, faces additional charges for illegal firearms possession.

A person in the community reported Abdul-Latif to Seattle police after being approached to help with the attack, according to a Justice Department press release and a criminal complaint filed today. The police brought the FBI into the case, and the person who made the tip became a paid informant. The informant also has previous felony convictions. In early June, the two men were allegedly recorded in video and audio surveillance discussing the planned assault.

The targeted building, where the military processes new enlistees, includes a daycare center and civilian personnel on the premises, although Abdul-Latify specified he wanted to kill military targets and not civilians. Abdul-Latif and Mujahidh discussed reconnaissance and practice runs for the attack. Abdul-Latif carried out the surveillance, noting the placement of security cameras and a guard, whom he said would be killed "first" in the attack, according to the criminal complaint.

Abdul-Latif said he wanted to die as a martyr in the attack, which he characterized as revenge for wrongdoing by U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. He later introduced the informant to Mujahidh, according to the complaint. Abdul-Latif described his admiration for Osama Bin Laden (at this point it was after bin Laden's death), as well as his admiration for the 2009 Fort Hood killing spree by Army Major Nidal Hasan.

"We're not only trying to kill people, we're trying to send a message," Abdul-Latif said in one surveillance recording. "We're trying to get something that's gonna be on CNN and all over the world."

The two men are charged with conspiracy to kill federal government personnel and violations pertaining to the grenades and guns, charges carrying the potential of life in prison. They were scheduled to appear in court this afternoon in Seattle.

Although the investigation is still at an early stage, it was not clear whether Abdul-Latif or Mujahidh were directly influenced by Inspire magazine or the recent Adam Gadahn video, or whether their primary inspiration was, as described in the complaint, Nidal Hasan's shooting spree.

YONATHAN MELAKU

An Ethiopian-American and Marine reservist facing indictment for grand larceny in a separate case, Melaku was arrested last week after he was seen behaving suspiciously at Arlington National Cemetery after hours. According to an affidavit released today, Melaku was carrying a backpack containing four five-pound baggies of ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer often employed in the construction of improvised explosives, such as the truck bomb used in the Oklahoma City bombing.

Subsequent investigation revealed that Melaku was responsible for a series of shootings targeting military buildings last year. In at least one of those attacks, which only caused property damage, Melaku videotaped himself shouting "Allahu Akbar" while firing at the U.S. Marine Corps museum building. Forensics showed Melaku was carrying shell casings at the time of his arrest which are consistent with the other attacks.

A search revealed that Melaku's computer and at least one notebook contained extensive information on jihadist figures and procedures for building improvised explosives. Melaku had not been suspected in the attacks prior to his arrest last week.

The Defense Department initiated separation proceedings against Melaku on Tuesday.

Prior to 9/11, U.S. military personnel and military vets formed the backbone of the American jihadist movement, although that trend has significantly reversed in recent years.

However, while the overall trend has shifted toward a higher concentration of civilian jihadists, there are a number of examples of active and former military members who have been involved in jihadist terrorism, including Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter, and Hasan Akbar, who killed two fellow soldiers while serving in Iraq in 2003. Abdul-Latif, arrested today, was also reportedly a military veteran who served in the Navy during the 1990s.

OTHER POST-BIN LADEN CASES

Hundreds of American citizens have been arrested in relation to jihadist terrorism over the last 30 years, with more than 180 of those cases taking place after September 11. Several significant arrests have taken place since the death of Osama bin Laden on May 1, including:

Younus Abdullah Muhammad, the American co-founder of the radical Web site Revolution Muslim, was arrested in Morocco for extradition to the United States for his role in publicizing threats against the creators of "South Park" for an episode dealing with the controversy over depicting images of the Prophet Mohammed. Zach Chesser of Virginia was previously convicted of writing the threats and attempting to join the Al Shabab jihadist movement in Somalia.

Joseph Brice, a 20-year-old from Clarkston, Wash., was a skilled builder of improvised explosives who volunteered his services on jihadist online forums and eventually to an undercover FBI agent representing himself as a jihadist. Investigators are not ocnvinced Brice was a Muslim or ideologically committed to Islamic terrorist causes, but believe he may better fit the profile of a serial bomber. INTELWIRE will have more details about the Brice case later this week.

Three American citizens in Florida were arrested May 14 for raising money on behalf of Tehrik-e Taliban, the Pakistani group behind the attempted bombing of Times Square by American citizen Faisal Shahzad, includinjg Hafiz Muhammed Sher Ali Khan, 76, imam of the Miami Masjid; Hafiz Khan's son, Irfan Khan, 37, also of Miami, imam at the Jamaat Al-Mu’mineen Mosque in Margate, Fla.; and another son, Izhar Khan, 24, of North Lauderdale, Fla.

THE POST-BIN LADEN WAVE

In May, I spoke at George Washington University's Homeland Security Policy Institute (video) about Jihad Joe. In response to a question about the threat picture going forward, I said the period after bin Laden's death would represent a key test of the "individual" or "leaderless" jihad concept championed by American jihadist ideologues such as Anwar Awlaki and Adam Gadahn.

Despite the serious cases represented above, we have yet to see a numerically significant surge in actual or attempted attacks by lone wolves and individual jihadists. Melaku was actively pursuing individual jihad prior to bin Laden's death, and whatever Brice was up to, he was up to before bin Laden. The charges against Younus are also old. The Florida Taliban cell was active before bin Laden's death and at any rate does not qualify as a lone wolf operation.

The lack of activity so far is extremely encouraging , although I don't think we're quite out of the woods yet. While lone wolves often act with minimal preparation, they do tend to prepare. And the June Al Qaeda video release I mentioned above represents one of the most serious investments to date by Al Qaeda Central in the concept of individual jihad. The video release has already sparked some alarming conversations on the jihadist Internet forums. History does not offer any clear examples of terrorist attacks being conceived on the forums and graduating to execution, but there's a first time for everything.

For much more about the history of American jihadism and its current incarnation, check out my new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, on sale everywhere. Journalists interested in discussing this issue can contact me here. For reviews and additional information about the book, click here.

Labels: Adam-Gadahn, American-Jihadists, American-Terrorists, Anwar-Awlaki, Guns, Jihad-Joe, Joseph-Brice, Nidal-Malik-Hasan, Yonathan-Melaku, Younus-Abdullah-Mohammed

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

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Jihad Joe Review At Zenpundit: "A Book To Admire"

My new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, was reviewed by Charles Cameron at Zenpundit. Some excerpts:

Berger's work is detail-packed and focused, and a useful resource for that reason alone. But it is also and specifically the work of someone who has read and talked with and listened to the people he is writing about, and his work carries their voices embedded in his own commentary. It thus joins such works as Jessica Stern's Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill and Mark Juergensmeyer's similarly named and similarly excellent Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence. [...]

Berger neither condemns nor excuses: he sees, he asks, he researches, he reports. His observations of the current situation can thus be trusted to be driven by insight rather than ideology -- not the most common of stances, but one we very much need. [...]

Berger's is a book to read, certainly -- and more significantly perhaps, a book to admire.

Read the full review

Buy the book

Labels: American-Al-Qaeda, American-Jihadists, American-Terrorists, J-M-Berger, Jihad-Joe

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

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Berger on Foreign Policy: Zawahiri’s American Court Jester

I have a piece as part of Foreign Policy's roundtable on the start of the Zawahiri era of Al Qaeda.

Osama bin Laden liked having Americans in his entourage. Mohammed Loay Bayazid, a former resident of Kansas City, took notes at the meeting in which al-Qaeda was founded. Wadih El-Hage, formerly of Tucson, was one of the terror network's first members and eventually became bin Laden's personal assistant.

Now that Ayman al-Zawahiri has ascended to al-Qaeda's throne, he will likely bring along his own American courtier - Adam Gadahn, also known as Azzam the American, formerly of Orange County, California.

Click here to read the full story

For more about Gadahn, check out buy J.M. Berger's new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, out now!

Also be sure to check out the other, rather-more-impressive entries in the FP Roundtable:

William McCants: The al-Qaeda Zawahiri inherits

Leah Farrall: Al-Qaeda’s delayed announcement

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross: Zawahiri’s ascension won’t change al-Qaeda’s strategy

Labels: Adam-Gadahn, Al-Qaeda, American-Al-Qaeda, American-Jihadists, American-Terrorists, Ayman-Al-Zawahiri, Jihad-Joe, Osama-Bin-Laden

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Shadow of Ali Mohamed Hangs Over Nosair Appeal

The New York Times reports today that New York-area jihadist El Sayyid Nosair is appealing his sentence for terrorism-related conspiracy in the 1995 prosecution that brought down the "blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel Rahman.

The heart of Nosair's appeal revolves around Al Qaeda's mysterious spy, Ali Mohamed, who successfully infiltrated the U.S. Army during the 1980s, partially succeeded in infiltrating the FBI and was thwarted in a similar attempt against the CIA.

Nosair's argument, the kernel of which has been covered on this site and in my new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, is that prosecutors concealed Mohamed's location from the defense, which wanted to subpoena him as a witness.

First thing first: Mohamed's participation in the case would not have made a material difference in Nosair's verdict. His conviction was based on a raft of evidence pertaining to his assassination of radical rabbi Meir Kahane in November 1990 and his direction of other terrorist attempts from prison afterward.

Mohamed provided Nosair and others with training and support materials. Nosair's attorney wanted to argue that Mohamed (who was active duty Army at the time) was providing this support with the blessing of the U.S. government as training for the group to fight in Afghanistan alongside CIA-allied mujahideen.

The pertinence of this is pretty obviously flimsy, since Nosair never went to Afghanistan but instead worked on terrorist attacks in the greater New York area. Even if he had received training with government support, that wouldn't excuse his illegal actions any more than going through the police academy would excuse someone who later went on a shooting spree.

That said, the question of Mohamed's handling by federal officials, more broadly, has significant public interest outside of the context of Nosair.

Mohamed started acting as a double-agent informant for the FBI in 1991. He had been called back to the country by the FBI for questioning in the Nosair trial in late 1994 -- a very busy period for Al Qaeda and its affiliates, who were in the late stages of planning to bomb U.S. bound airliners (a plot soon to be disrupted) and in the early stages of the East African embassy bombing plot that would come to fruition in 1998. The details of Mohamed's relationship with the government is still murky.

The evidence suggests that some give and take took place during the Justice Department's 1994 meetings with Mohamed. In December 1994, according to court records, the lead prosecutor in the Nosair case, Andrew McCarthy, exchanged faxes with Mohamed concerning the subpoena issued by Nosair's attorney. McCarthy did not respond to my repeated requests for an interview about these faxes and other issues over the course of the last few years. The faxes may be explained by today's NYT report which states:

Far from keeping his whereabouts secret from the defense, the government has said in court papers that officials extracted an agreement from Mr. Mohamed, who met with the authorities in 1994, to be available for the trial, but that Mr. Nosair’s lawyers did not ask for help in securing his presence. “Mohamed simply was not suppressed,” prosecutors wrote.

I'd like to see exactly what those documents say, and they may turn up in the course of this case. I noted that while most of Nosair's filings in his appeal are available on PACER (and will eventually be posted here), none of the government's filings could be obtained as of this morning.

Finally, a note on the NYT's headline, it's not strictly accurate to refer to Nosair as a "convicted Al Qaeda agent." Even with a fairly loose definition of what it means to be an Al Qaeda agent (more on this in a day or two), it's a stretch to say Nosair was part of Al Qaeda in a meaningful sense -- based on the evidence as it currently stands. "Convicted Al Qaeda agent" also implies that he was convicted of being an Al Qaeda agent, which is flatly untrue. The story itself does not claim Nosair was a member or agent of Al Qaeda.

For much more about Ali Mohamed and Sayyid Nosair, buy J.M. Berger's new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, out now!

Labels: Al-Qaeda, Ali-Mohamed, American-Al-Qaeda, American-Terrorists, El-Sayyid-Nosair, Jihad-Joe

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink