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Female comedian outrages Muslim cleric By Associated Press Friday, April 30, 2004 OSLO, Norway - The founder of suspected terror group Ansar al-Islam, normally cool under pressure, lost his temper when a female Muslim comedian jokingly lifted him off the ground before an audience. Mullah Krekar, the former leader of a fundamentalist Islamic group of Kurds in northern Iraq, was participating in a debate over his new biography Tuesday evening. Krekar, a refugee in Norway since 1991, has become the country's highest profile Muslim after his repeated arrests, court cases, television appearances and now his book "My Own Words." Comedian...

ARIS, April 29 - How much weight does a bearded mullah carry in a freewheeling liberal society like Norway's? The country's well-known Muslim comic, Shabana Rehman, decided to find out Tuesday when she lifted the founder of Iraq's Ansar al-Islam terrorist group off the ground before a startled audience. "If a small woman like me can lift him up, he can't be dangerous," Ms. Rehman said Thursday by telephone from northern Norway. The cleric, known as Mullah Krekar, did not find the stunt funny. He went up smiling but was sputtering with rage by the time Ms. Rehman set him...

Eight of the ten surveyed claimed that people have become more sceptic towards immigrants due to the Mullah Krekar case. The negative attitude is evident nation wide. (Scanpix)The national survey was conducted by telephone interviews in the end of March by Opinion AS on behalf of Nordiske TV Dager in connection with this year’s media festival opening in Bergen in May. According to a press release sent out by the media festival, the answers are so overwhelmingly negative that there is no longer any doubt that people in Norway believe the Krekar case has created fear of immigrants and increased...

A Norwegian court has ordered the founder of an Islamic militant group to remain in custody for another four weeks. Mullah Krekar, head of the Kurdish group Ansar al-Islam, was charged last December with plotting the murder of his political rivals in northern Iraq. "The accused, with reasonable grounds, can still be suspected of illegal acts," a court statement said. US officials say Ansar al-Islam may be behind Sunday's suicide bombings in northern Iraq, which killed 56 people. The US also suspects the group has links to the al-Qaeda network. The Iraqi Kurdish mullah has repeatedly claimed he is no...

Krekar contradicts his own defense Mullah Krekar, under arrest in Norway for suspected terror links, represented himself in an Al-Jazeera TV program as leader of the suspected terrorist group Ansar al-Islam just last month. He also confirmed the group was behind a suicide bombing in Northern Iraq last year. This is how mullah Krekar appeared on the Al-Jazeera program last month. RELATED ARTICLES Debate rages over Krekar in Norway - 09.01.04 Court orders Mullah Krekar's release - 05.01.04 Prosecutor wants Krekar jailed - 05.01.04 Mullah Krekar arrested - 02.01.04 Arabs recruited from Norway to fight in Iraq - 18.12.03 Mullah...

An Oslo city court ordered the release on Monday of Mullah Krekar, the controversial former leader of guerrilla group Ansar al-Islam. State prosecutors had arrested him Friday on charges tied to at least two suicide bombings. Krekar was charged under several paragraphs of Norway's criminal code linked to alleged murder attempts in Northern Iraq in the spring of 2002. Prosecutors had sought to keep Krekar in custody for at least four weeks, but the Oslo court claimed they lacked sufficient evidence. Prosecutors earlier vowed they'd appeal any release, and Krekar remained in jail Monday evening pending that appeal. They...

Denne artikkelen er hentet fra www.aftenposten.no Adressen til artikkelen er http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article.jhtml?articleID=700469 Oppdatert: 02.01.2004, kl 14:49 Mullah Krekar arrested Mullah Krekar, the controversial former leader of the Kurdish guerilla group Ansar al-Islam based in Northern Iraq, was arrested on Friday afternoon in his apartment in Oslo's central Toeyen district. Krekar will be charged with complicity in a suicide attack according to newspaper VG's web site. Citing "centrally placed sources", VG reported that Oekokrim had expanded charges against Krekar to include a suicide attack carried out by Ansar al-Islam in Northern Iraq. Oekokrim has gathered information via electronic surveillance that they...

The Norwegian police arrested Mullah Krekar, the spiritual leader of the Islamic militant group Ansar al-Islam, on Friday on charges of attempted murder in connection with two suicide bombings in northern Iraq two years ago. Norwegian law allows foreigners in Norway to be charged with certain crimes committed outside the country. But Mr. Krekar's lawyer said the timing of the arrest suggested that it was related to the recent terror alert in Hamburg, Germany. Officials there sealed off a military hospital on Tuesday after receiving information from American intelligence agencies, and the interior minister said Ansar al-Islam was suspected of...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Insurgents shot down a U.S. military helicopter west of Baghdad on Friday, killing one soldier, and attackers posing as journalists fired assault weapons and rocket-propelled grenades at American paratroopers guarding the burning aircraft, the military said. Elsewhere, Arab gunmen shot and killed a Kurd amid rising ethnic tensions in the northern, oil-rich city of Kirkuk, and a minor Baath party official was assassinated in an apparent revenge killing. An American tanker was set ablaze in a rebel attack, and coalition forces raiding a Sunni Muslim mosque arrested 32 suspected non-Iraqi Arab insurgents and seized an arms...

OSLO, Norway (AP) - Mullah Krekar, the spiritual leader of the Islamic militant group Ansar al-Islam, was arrested Friday on charges of helping a plot to try to murder his rivals in northern Iraq in 2000-01, his lawyer told The Associated Press. The charges against Krekar weren't terror-related and a court hearing will take place Saturday, where authorities will ask that he be held for at least four weeks, said public prosecutor Erling Grimstad. Krekar was arrested at his apartment by agents with Oekokrim, Norway's elite police unit, and was being questioned, Grimstad said. The charges were based on an...

<p>OSLO, Norway (AP) -- Mullah Krekar, the spiritual leader of the Iraq-based Islamic militant group Ansar al-Islam, was arrested Friday, his brother told The Associated Press.</p> <p>Police went to Krekar's house in the morning and took him to a police station in Oslo, said Khalid Faraj Ahmad.</p>

OSLO, Norway (AP) -- Norway on Monday rejected Jordan's extradition request for the suspected spiritual leader of an Iraq-based Islamic militant group allegedly linked to al-Qaida. Norway said the documentation did not provide sufficient grounds to open the case for Mullah Krekar. Krekar, a refugee in Norway, is considered the spiritual leader of Ansar al-Islam, a group of fundamentalist Islamic Kurds in northern Iraq listed by the United States and United Nations as a terrorist group. Jordan in January demanded Krekar's extradition on drug charges, immediately after the Netherlands rejected the same request and deported Krekar to Norway. The Norwegian...

<p>October 27, 2003 -- WASHINGTON - The leader of an al Qaeda-linked terror group responsible for some of the biggest attacks on coalition forces in Iraq calls the shots from an apartment in Norway, U.S. counterterrorism officials say.</p> <p>The officials told The Post they are increasingly frustrated over Mullah Krekar, the founder and spiritual leader of Ansar al-Islam. Last week the Pentagon branded the group the "principal terrorist adversary" of U.S. forces in Iraq.</p>

She is young, glamorous and famous, he is an obscure bookseller from Kabul. She had a good idea - why not live with him for a few months and write his story, which would also be the story of one family's experience of surviving the tragedy of civil war? At the time, he thought it was a good idea, too. Asne Seierstad's book is now a world bestseller - but Mohammed Shah Rais is an angry man. 'It is defamation of me, my family and my nation,' he rages. So, just weeks after its publication in Britain, and in a...

ANSAR SPOKESMAN: - Ansar al-Islam behind UN bombing Sources in Ansar al-Islam tell TV 2 Nettavisen that former members of the organisation allegedly are responsible for the UN bombing in Baghdad. Ansar al-Islam is divided. A number of the former members of the organisation, who were active while Mullah Krekar was the leader, have given up and gone home. However, a small group has seized control and is still active, Mullah Krekar’s brother Khalid Faraj Ahmad tells TV 2 Nettavisen. He emphasizes that he has no knowledge of the persons responsible for the recent car bombings in Iraq. - Ansar...

AMSTERDAM — Military police arrested a Dutch terrorist suspect at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam on request of the Turkish authorities on Saturday. The suspect has been identified as S B and his lawyer, Victor Koppe, said the man has already appeared in court. The man has been remanded in custody and Turkey is expected to submit an extradition request. The arrested man is a Dutch national and works as a journalist. He lives in Amsterdam and "is politically active", Koppe said. The lawyer added that B is a member of the TDP, a communist-socialist movement, Dutch associated press ANP reported....

HAMBURG, Germany - A Moroccan on trial for allegedly supporting a cell of the Sept. 11 suicide hijackers was easy to get along with until he fell under the influence of a fellow countryman, who later was convicted on terrorism charges, their former landlord testified Thursday. Reinhard Martens, who rented defendant Abdelghani Mzoudi a room in his house in late 1996, remembered him as a "very good" tenant until another Moroccan, Mounir el Motassadeq, moved in at the start of 1997. "Mzoudi was quieter than before, he seemed like he could not make his own decisions," Martens testified. "Mounir was...

OSLO (Reuters) - The founder of a radical Iraqi Islamist organisation has distanced himself from the group after a report a breakaway faction was behind last month's bombing of a U.N. compound in Baghdad. "Mullah Krekar denies any links to Ansar al-Islam or the Baghdad bombing," Krekar's lawyer Brynjar Meling told Reuters in Oslo on Thursday, where Krekar has lived as a refugee with his family since the 1991 Gulf War. Meling said Ansar al-Islam, a north Iraq-based militia founded by Krekar, contained extremist factions who may have gained power since Krekar was removed as leader. Krekar has not been...

Ashcroft pleads his case in Norway US Attorney General John Ashcroft was granted a half-hour early Monday to discuss the war on terrorism with Norway's foreign minister. The fate of terror suspect Mullah Krekar was high on the agenda, even though Ashcroft refused to publicly mention Krekar by name. US Attorney General John Ashcroft (left) met briefly with Norwegian Foreign Minister Jan Petersen in Oslo early Monday. PHOTO: JON HAUGE "The Americans are very, very concerned with Mullah Krekar," claimed Norwegian Foreign Minister Jan Petersen after his meeting with Ashcroft ended. While Norway supports anti-terrorist efforts, clear differences exist over...

Norway charges Kurdish Islamist with terrorism OSLO, March 21 (Reuters) - The Iraqi Kurdish leader of Ansar al-Islam, accused by Washington of having ties to al Qaeda, was charged with terrorist offences on Friday in Norway, his lawyer said. Mullah Krekar was detained late on Thursday on the grounds he might flee the country while under police investigation into his links to Ansar al-Islam (Supporters of Islam), which Washington labels a terrorist group. "He has been charged with terrorism," his attorney Brynjar Meling told Reuters outside an Oslo courtroom where judges were considering whether there were sufficient grounds to keep...