BBC: Spy lifts lid on al-Qaeda

It is rare to get an insider's perspective on the emergence of al-Qaeda. It is also rare to get a glimpse of the world of spies and agents. To provide both is incredibly unusual.

Omar Nasiri - not his real name but one chosen to protect his identity - says he spent seven years working as an agent for European intelligence services and as an al-Qaeda operative, part of the time in the UK.

He provides a unique insight into how al-Qaeda was far more organised, coherent and determined in the 1990s than was appreciated at the time.

Nasiri's story begins in the mid 1990s in Belgium after his brother became involved with a group of Algerian Islamic activists.

To make money, Nasiri began to supply the cell with guns. But after stealing some cash from the cell, he realised his life was in danger.

He knew the French were taking the threat from the Algerian Islamists seriously and so he walked into the French consulate in Brussels.

He met an officer from the DGSE, France's overseas intelligence service. Nasiri remembers that the officer offered him money - and protection - but at a price.

"He said 'to give you what you ask, a new identity, a future, you need to do more.'" That meant becoming a spy.

Nasiri's family's house was raided in March 1995. The material discovered in that raid proved to be one of the first signs of emerging links between jihadist groups - and of the role of al-Qaeda, according to Belgian police.

As well as weapons, a training manual was found. The first page of it was dedicated to Osama bin Laden.

Meanwhile, the French had begun to hear of training camps in Afghanistan. They wanted Nasiri to investigate.

"My mission (was) to find the route of jihad through Pakistan and Afghanistan... No leads, no names, no address, Nothing. Just go find the route of jihad."

Through a series of contacts he found his way to Peshawar where he met Abu Zubaydah, the gatekeeper of the Afghan training camps who would be captured soon after 9/11 and was recently transferred from a secret CIA prison to Guantanamo Bay.

His first stop was Khalden, one of al-Qaeda's key training camps. Amongst those who attended were Mohammed Atta - the ringleader of the 9-11 attacks - and Richard Reid, the so called "shoe bomber" who tried to detonate explosives on a transatlantic flight.

Nasiri described how recruits were provided with intense and highly comprehensive military training - much of which was based on training manuals of UK and US special forces and also involved assassination and kidnapping techniques.

Spiritual preparation was also an important part of the training, taking up as much, if not more of the time.

Intelligence experts believe he provides a convincing and unusually detailed portrait of camp life.

"It's an extraordinarily complete story, and certainly I don't think there's anything to match it in terms of intelligence reporting," said Mike Scheuer, who was head of the CIA's Bin Laden unit between 1996 and 1999.

Recruits were also trained how to resist interrogation and provide false information - Nasiri's mentor at the camps, Ibn Sheikh al-Libi, would go on to provide false evidence of links between al-Qaeda and Iraq after he was captured by the US.

This evidence was cited by both the US Secretary of State Colin Powell and President Bush in the build-up to the war with Iraq.

From Khalden, Nasiri was sent to Darunta, the "graduate" school which focused on training individuals for operations.

Nasiri also witnessed chemical weapons experiments - including the use of gases and poisons on rabbits, evidence of an organised WMD programme far earlier than had previously been reported.

With his training complete, Abu Zubaydah despatched Nasiri back to Europe with instructions to set up a "sleeper" cell and to remain in contact.

"He asked me to go back... and begin to make a list of all targets," recalls Nasiri.

After resuming contact with his French handlers, Nasiri was sent to London. The French were worried that Islamic radicals were using London as a base. They called the British capital Londonistan.

Nasiri was now run jointly by French and British intelligence. He began to infiltrate Finsbury Park Mosque and spy on its imam, Abu Hamza, as well as another radical, Abu Qatada.

He passed messages back between the training camps and London, from those around Abu Zubaydah to Abu Qatada, with the British Security Service and the French listening in, he says.

He was even sent a notebook he had compiled on how to make explosives. He was told by his handlers to focus on Abu Hamza rather than Abu Qatada, a decision he disagreed with.

British police and security officials were focused on whether Islamic radicals posed a threat to the UK but not necessarily on the larger international picture and the connections going back and forth.

"At the time we didn't think that the growing threat from al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden was sufficient to put more resources on it," says Bob Milton, who worked on the issue at the Metropolitan Police Special Branch between 1996 and 1998.

"We were monitoring what he was doing, certainly working with the US and European colleagues to do that. But at that time we were still unsure what the threat would be."

In 1998, al-Qaeda's war against the west began in earnest as US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed.

But Nasiri's relationship with the intelligence services deteriorated rapidly. He felt they were not listening to him. They may not have trusted him and have been unsure of where his loyalties really lay.

He was left without a role just as the threat was growing. But his story makes clear that al-Qaeda was far more organised, more determined and more coherent in the 1990s than anyone appreciated at the time.

Thousands - probably tens of thousands - graduated from al-Qaeda's training camps in the 1990s and the spread of ideology has left an equally lasting legacy in terms of radicalisation.

>>>>>>Thousands - probably tens of thousands - graduated from al-Qaeda's training camps in the 1990s and the spread of ideology has left an equally lasting legacy in terms of radicalisation. <<<<<<<

We should give credit where credit is due for this. This is Clinton's gift that keeps on giving.

Throughout the 1990s U.S. and British services activelly assisted AQ to set up beach head in Europe, in Bosnia and Kosovo. British made a deal with Islamists, they were free to stage operations from Londonistan on condition they do not attack targets on British soil.

Americans provided diplomatic support, military muscle and weapons in cooperation with Clinton's "brothers in arms" - Iranian mullahs.

AQ worked closely with U.S. services in Bosnia and got first hand account how U.S. services operate. A nice refresher of knowledge gathered in MAK/CIA days in Pakistan.

What happened 9/11 was predictable and preventable. It is enough to google "Bosnia" and your AQ suspect of choice to get the picture.

This is not a blowback. It was planned that way.

Ever wondered what documents Berger stole from the National Archive?

There is a book (now available in paperback ):

***********************

Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left
(Hardcover)
by David Horowitz

********************************************************

And reviews:

****************************************

Editorial Reviews

Rich Lowry, Editor National Review

David Horowitz is synonymous with pyrotechnics. A historian and polemicist of the first order, he is paid the ultimate compliment --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Davis Hanson, Author, Ripples of Battle

An original look at those who want us to fail in the Middle East, both at home and abroad. The --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

***********************************************************

See all Editorial Reviews

Fascinating Analysis of Leftist Goals, August 13, 2006

Reviewer: N. Sincerity - See all my reviews

A former 1960s radical, Horowitz is well-acquainted with the Leftist mindset. In this book, he strives to explain the modern alliance between left wing progressivists and radical Islamofascists. He argues that this alliance is based on a common desire to destroy Western capitalism. Leftist sympathy with Islamofascist ideas makes no sense from an intellectual point of view, given that countries ruled by radical Islamists are among the most racist, sexist, theocratic states in the world today. However, Leftists have recognized that they can benefit politically from destructive terrorist attacks on the Western world. A West under attack can be made to turn on its leaders in fear and desperation (as they did in Spain after the Madrid train bombings). Only once people reject current government structures can the Left execute its anti-capitalist revolution and build a new reality that mirrors the Leftist view of utopia. The complete and utter idealogical hypocrisy of the Islamofascist-Leftist alliance is distressing, but as Horowitz reminds us, Leftists radicals truly believe the ends justify the means.

***************************************

"Recruits were also trained how to resist interrogation and provide false information - Nasiri's mentor at the camps, Ibn Sheikh al-Libi, would go on to provide false evidence of links between al-Qaeda and Iraq after he was captured by the US."

I noticed that BBC line... also noticed the article uses a source by the name of former CIA employee Michael Scheuer of the Jamestown Foundation. I wonder if he was the source of that line about al-Libby.

1998 : (BIN LADEN ASKS IRAQ FOR ADVANCED WEAPONS INCLUDING CBW AND "POISONS" ACCORDING TO INTEL FROM VARIOUS SOURCES - See AL QAEDA'S IBN AL-SHAYKH AL-LIBI) Then we have the smoking vial, the intelligence that a link-up between the maniacs of al Qaeda with the resources of the Baathist terror-state [Iraq] was real, and that it could lead to attacks more devastating than 9/11: 26. During a custodial interview, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi [a senior al Qaeda operative] said he was told by an al Qaeda associate that he was tasked to travel to Iraq (1998) to establish a relationship with Iraqi intelligence to obtain poisons and gases training. After the USS Cole bombing in 2000, two al Qaeda operatives were sent to Iraq for CBW-related [Chemical and Biological Weapons] training beginning in Dec 2000. Iraqi intelligence was "encouraged" after the embassy and USS Cole bombings to provide this training. The analysis of this report follows. CIA maintains that Ibn al-Shaykh's [Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi a senior al Qaeda operative's] timeline is consistent with other sensitive reporting indicating that bin Laden asked Iraq in 1998 for advanced weapons, including CBW and "poisons." Again, all this is amazing stuff: a phenomenally important story, if true. "-------- http://www.andrewsullivan.com/

Interesting thread :

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1923465/posts

from the thread:

Startling implications of a Jihadi letter
American Thinker ^ | November 09, 2007 | Ray Robison

New light is being shed on the 2001 anthrax attacks in a fascinating open letter to Ayman al Zawahiri of al Qaeda, written by a jihadi living in London.

Numan Bin Uthman, a former leader of an armed Islamic group in Libya, provides yet more evidence that the global Islamic jihad movement is losing its resolve. But the letter contains a startling admission. Uthman tells us of a conversation he had with al Qaeda leaders before the 9/11 attacks in which he urged them not to use WMD. From AKI News:

Uthman also said that he had taken part in an important al-Qaeda summit in Kandahar, Afghanistan in 2000, in which al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden had defined search for and use of weapons of mass destruction as a "Sharia obligation". "During this occasion, I had a strong dispute with the martyr Abu Hafs al-Kumandan, because he was heavily involved in acquiring weapons of mass destruction," he said in the letter.

I was unfamiliar with the name "al Kumandan" but there is a well known al Qaeda leader named Abu Hafs who is a "martyr" and was killed by U.S. Forces in Afghanistan. Looking up Kumandan on the internet I found a reference and it seems to mean "commander". Abu Hafs has been identified as Usama bin Laden's WMD chaser. He fits Uthman's description. He was the number three man in al Qaeda.

Controversial informant Ibn Sheik al Libi identified Abu Hafs, otherwise known as Mohammad Atef as a contact between al Qaeda and the Saddam regime for procurement of WMD, before he recanted.

In a previous article I noted that a new al Qaeda document matched very well with a Saddam regime document. The linkage between the documents gave a chain of command and time-line from a Saddam regime order to "hunt Americans" in Somalia followed by a Abu Hafs order just two days later that would lead to that ultimate end.

I have also argued publicly that the 2001 anthrax attack makes a lot more sense as a continuation of the 9/11 attacks than as the plot of some embittered scientist....(/snip)

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.