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Two weeks ago, Turkish police arrested an Islamist with ties to many upper tier al-Qaida members. The man not only tried to get asylum in Germany, but claims to have known about the London bombings beforehand and to have helped the 9/11 pilots. The Turkish interrogators in Istanbul's high-security prison wanted to be polite; they wanted to show respect for Islam. They offered their prisoner, an Islamist named Luai Sakra, 31, a chance to pray during a pause in questioning. They'd done the same thing with earlier suspects. The move was supposed to establish trust. But this prisoner reacted a...

AS THE WAR with Saddam's Iraq approached, a small group of terrorists in Kurdish-controlled Iraq garnered a significant amount of news coverage. Senior-level Bush administration officials had claimed that this group, Ansar al Islam, represented a key link between Saddam's regime and al Qaeda. There was evidence, after all, that Saddam's intelligence operatives funded and supplied the al Qaeda terrorists who joined this group's ranks in the wake of the invasion of Afghanistan. That evidence was hotly contested for months until the story of Ansar al Islam gradually receded from the headlines. Today, the group is hardly even mentioned--if at...

SULAYMANIYAH, Iraqi Kurdistan - "A series of suicide bombings in previously peaceful South Kurdistan (Iraqi Kurdistan) has aroused suspicions that elements of the Iranian regime are backing efforts to destabilize the region." writes The Washington Times. "Before then, Tehran was keen to see the Kurds cooperate with the [Iraqi] Shi’ite parties," he said. "Now that the Shi’ites are on top, Iran is doing its best to weaken the Kurdish wing in parliament. Bomb attacks up here are an ideal distraction." said a Kurdish official. At least 85 persons have died and hundreds have been injured in three attacks over the...

"In August 1998, the detainee traveled to Pakistan with a member of Iraqi Intelligence for the purpose of blowing up the Pakistan, United States and British embassies with chemical mortars."  U.S. government "Summary of Evidence" for an Iraqi member of al Qaeda detained at Guantanamo Bay, CubaFOR MANY, the debate over the former Iraqi regime's ties to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network ended a year ago with the release of the 9/11 Commission report. Media outlets seized on a carefully worded summary that the commission had found no evidence "indicating that Iraq cooperated with al Qaeda in developing or...

A SERIES of arrests in Spain, Germany, France and Holland has revealed a European terror network that recruits fighters and suicide bombers and sends them into Iraq.For two years recruiters have been providing fake documents, training and finance for the fighters, communicating secretly over the internet and liaising with cells based in Syria. Despite much closer links between intelligence and law enforcement agencies across Europe, experts say that the terrorists are moving between European countries to avoid detection. “The terrorists are operating internationally, even if the law enforcement agencies are a long way behind them,” said M J Gohel, chief...

BAGHDAD (AFP) - A former Iraqi general believed to be Jordanian extremist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's "military adviser" was arrested west of Baghdad. Abed Dawood Suleiman and his son, former army captain Raed Abed Dawood, were picked up in a morning raid on their house in Khalidiya, west of Baghdad, a defense ministry source said Wednesday. Zarqawi, the Al-Qaeda frontman in Iraq, is believed to have masterminded much of the country's violence, including car and suicide bombings that killed almost 700 people in May alone. He has a 25-million-dollar price on his head. "Abed Dawood Suleiman is considered to be Abu...

MADRID: Spanish authorities have arrested 19 suspected extremists, including five linked to last year's deadly Madrid train bombings, the interior ministry announced Wednesday. The other 14 suspects are alleged to be connected with the radical group Ansa al-Islam, which is believed to have links with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who is blamed for many of the bloodiest attacks in Iraq. More than 500 police were mobilised for the swoops, which were carried out in the regions around Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Andalucia as well as in the Spanish enclave of Cueta north of Morocco. The March 11, 2004 train bombings in...

Former Ansar Al-Islam leader mullah Krekar compared his goal for Kurds with the establishment of the state of Israel as he testified in his trial to overturn a decision to expel him from Norway. Laywer Brynjar Meling (right) and mullah Krekar during a pause in proceedings at Oslo's Court of Appeals. On Thursday morning mullah Krekar began his explanation of why he should not be sent out of the country. Before beginning his testimony the mullah kissed the Koran and said that Norwegian authorities were justified in their investigation but explained that he felt a victim of religious persecution. "I...

The accused terrorist and former leader of Ansar-Al Islam Mullah Krekar is in these days trying to prevent being expelled from Norway by sueing the Norwegian Goverment. Norwegian Minister Erna Solberg (Conservative)has decided that Krekar is a threat to the Norwegians and there for signed his deportation order on the grounds that he has broken the terms of his assylum by traveling back to North Iraq and that he posses a threat to national security. Krekars laywer, Meling claims that Krekar will not be safe if expelled and therefore can not be forced out. Nor is the country stable enough...

Baghdad, 23 May - The number two of the al-Qaeda network, Ayman al-Zawahiri, visited Iraq under a false name in September 1999 to take part in the ninth Popular Islamic Congress, former Iraqi premier Iyad Allawi has revealed to pan-Arab daily al-Hayat. In an interview, Allawi made public information discovered by the Iraqi secret service in the archives of the Saddam Hussein regime, which sheds light on the relationship between Saddam Hussein and the Islamic terrorist network. He also said that both al-Zawahiri and Jordanian militant al-Zarqawi probably entered Iraq in the same period. "Al-Zawahiri was summoned by Izza Ibrahim...

Mullah Krekar to be expelled Controversial mullah Krekar, former leader of Ansar al-Islam, will be expelled from Norway, on the instructions of Minister of Local Government and Regional Development Erna Solberg. Solberg instructed the Immigration Appeals Board (UNE) to uphold the decision to expel Krekar on the grounds of national security. "This is something we have been waiting for for some time. For my client and me it is neither new nor surprising that the UNE has received instructions from the ministry," said Krekar's legal counsel, Brynjar Meling. The ruling means that Krekar now loses his asylum status, travel documents,...

Celebrity Pentecostal preacher Runar Søgaard is under protection by Swedish police after receiving death threats. A high-profile sermon where Sögaard called the prophet Mohammed "a confused pedophile" has triggered fears of religious war. Søgaard, 37, enjoys celebrity status in Sweden after his marriage to recording star and Eurovision song contest winner Carola, even though they are now divorced. "Even if I see Runar while he has major police protection I will shoot him to death," a radical Islamist told Swedish newspaper Expressen. Persons connected to the Kurdish group Ansar al-Islam claim to have received a fatwa, a decree from a...

BERLIN (AP) - Islamic terror groups are becoming increasingly active in Germany and coordinating with militants across Europe to recruit fighters to join the insurgency in Iraq, equipping them with fake passports, money and medical supplies, security officials say. One of the best examples of the cross-continent cooperation involves an Algerian man arrested in Germany and now on trial in Italy for allegedly helping Muslims from Somalia, Egypt, Iraq and Morocco recruit some 200 militants from around Europe to fight in Iraq. Many in Germany's Islamic communities have shown sympathy for Muslims fighting jihad, or holy war, in places like...

MADRID (Reuters) - Armed Islamist militants that operate in Europe are also helping support the armed insurgency in Iraq, one of Europe's foremost experts on such groups told Reuters. Spanish High Court Judge Baltasar Garzon, who has been investigating Islamist militants in Spain since 1991, warned that groups such as the Algerian Salafist movement and the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group were particularly dangerous for Europe. "They are groups that have membership inside and outside Europe and in any case we have to keep close watch on the relationship these groups have with others like Ansar al-Islam," Garzon told Reuters in...

Ansar al-Islam Emerges as Primary Extremist Group Funneling Fighters Into Iraq Copenhagen – When robbers stole more than $300,000 from an armored car here in 1997, investigators were taken aback by the size and brazenness of the heist. But they really became alarmed when they discovered that one of the culprits had been under surveillance as a suspected Islamic extremist. That man, Mustapha Darwich Ramadan, was arrested shortly before he planned to flee Copenhagen on a flight to Amman, Jordan, police said. He was convicted of robbery and served 3 1/2 years in prison. After his release in June 2001,...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) -- An Iraqi militant group has claimed responsibility in an Internet statement for downing a British military transport plane north of Baghdad on election day. The Ansar al-Islam group said in a statement posted Sunday on an Islamic Web site that its fighters tracked the aircraft, "which was flying at a low altittude, and fired an anti-tank missile at it." British officials have not said how many people died when the plane sent down, but Britain's Press Association has reported that "around 10" servicemen were killed, quoting military sources. The toll was "highly unlikely"...

Saddam, the ATM of Al Qaeda By Christopher S. Carson FrontPageMagazine.com | November 15, 2004 The Report of the 9/11 Commission has been digested, and the news media outlets have seized upon it as confirmation of their view that al Qaeda is a kind of purely stateless entity that never had "operational links" with rogue states like Iraq. Somehow, goes the thrust of the Report, Osama bin Laden was for years able to finance, train and supply an international terrorist corporation that had ongoing jihad operations in fifty countries - by himself, on no more than a $30 million personal...

ULM, Germany (AP) - German police stepped up their crackdown on Islamic extremism Wednesday, detaining 22 people during raids of apartments and mosques allegedly used by a network that provided financing and other support to terrorists. About 700 officers searched dozens of apartments, mosques and call centers in five German states, discovering militant Islamic propaganda and forged passports and visas, authorities said. The raids capped a long-term investigation of 20 people who allegedly raised money through smuggling and producing false papers to "pursue their ideological goals," said prosecutors in Munich, where authorities coordinated the probe. The suspects included German citizens...

A look at the Islamic extremist group Ansar al-Islam, blamed for attacks in Iraq and supported by a network of members in Europe, according to authorities. -HISTORY: Founded in late 2001 in Kurdish part of northern Iraq by Mullah Krekar, who has lived as refugee in Norway since 1991. Area was beyond Saddam Hussein's control thanks to Western-enforced no-fly zones. Supporters set up an enclave near the Iranian border ruled by strict Islamic law. Members trained in Afghanistan and provided safe haven to al-Qaida members fleeing after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. -SIZE: Ansar al-Islam fighters in Iraq, believed to...

BERLIN (AP) - Islamic extremists accused of plotting to kill Iraq's prime minister in Germany are smuggling battle-hardened fighters from Iraq to Europe, raising a potential new terrorist threat on the continent, according to German officials. More than 20 alleged supporters of Ansar al-Islam have been arrested in Europe in the past year as authorities move against the group that has links with al-Qaida and Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who's been leading bloody attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq. Ansar al-Islam is suspected of spiriting dozens of fired-up young Muslims to Iraq to join the insurgency, but the latest...