Free Republic

WASHINGTON, Oct. 1, 2009 – Iraqi forces, with U.S. advisors, in recent days have arrested an alleged terrorist financier and recruiter, as well as five suspects in a roadside bomb network, military officials reported. In Balad, the Iraqi army’s emergency response brigade arrested alleged Khitab Hezbollah financier and recruiter Khalid Masur Ismail in Baghdad’s Sadr City district. Ismail, who also is known as Abu Mustafa, was arrested on a court-issued warrant when he identified himself upon contact and admitted to working as a manager for a security firm alleged to be a front for Khitab Hezbollah. During the operation, Iraqi...

(IsraelNN.com) A new Islamist jihad group that may become as much of a threat to Hamas as it is to Israel is gaining strength in Gaza. The Gaza-based group of Salafi Muslims, known as the Army of Islam (Jaish al-Islam), first made headlines a year ago when it kidnapped British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reporter Alan Johnston near his Gaza City bureau office. "It was nothing personal," commented their leader, Abu Mustafa, in an interview published over the weekend by the German Der Spiegel. "It was a message to the West that they should release imprisoned Muslims." He added that at...

It's not easy to find a place to meet the man who goes by the name of Abu Mustafa. A number of places were agreed on and jettisoned. Finally, after hours of cruising around Gaza City with Abu Mustafa's driver, the call came. The meeting would take place on the beach. There are enough people on the beach that one doesn't attract so much attention, the caller explained. How absurd this notion was would soon become clear. Most people don't stick out on the beaches of Gaza to the degree that Abu Mustafa does. He picks his way across the...