Back in 2002, Al Jazeera cooperated directly with al-Qaeda to make what is easily one of the most remarkable documentaries of all time — "The Road to September 11" (not to be confused with "The Road to 9/11"). After roughly a year of searching for it, I finally had the (in retrospect quite obvious) idea to search in the Arabic script, and not only did I immediately find it, the version that I found has English subtitles. So, without further ado, here is the story of September 11, told with the aid of those who committed it.
Part 1:
Part 2:
Showing posts with label media coverage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label media coverage. Show all posts
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Friday, October 17, 2008
More propaganda
"Afghan mayor turns Taliban leader," announces Al Jazeera's top headline. But the man in question had not been mayor since the Taliban came to power, and had defected well over a year ago after being fired from his job as head of Herat's Department of Public Works. This story is not news by any stretch of the imagination, yet Al Jazeera considered it to be more important than the current financial Armageddon the planet is facing. I am apalled at this recent spate of pro-Taliban articles, and am very seriously considering finding somewhere else to get my news.
In other news, Hekmatyar has indicated that he would not be averse to switching sides (something he has a great deal of experience with), and the TTP is saying "uncle." I doubt that anything will come of the first (though I wouldn't put it past him), but it will be interesting to see what, if anything, will come of the second, especially inasmuch as the tribes are concerned.
In other news, Hekmatyar has indicated that he would not be averse to switching sides (something he has a great deal of experience with), and the TTP is saying "uncle." I doubt that anything will come of the first (though I wouldn't put it past him), but it will be interesting to see what, if anything, will come of the second, especially inasmuch as the tribes are concerned.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Taliban propaganda on Al Jazeera
Defections hit Afghan forces
After fighting the Taliban for the past seven years, many working for the Afghan security forces are now switching sides.
Sulieman Ameri and his 16 men were until a month ago serving the Afghan government as police patrolling the border with Iran.
Now they answer to the Taliban and their goal is to drive all foreign troops out of Afghanistan.
Ameri, now a Taliban commander, told Al Jazeera that he joined the Taliban because of what he called anti-Muslim behaviour by international soldiers.
"I have seen everything with my own eyes, I have seen prostitution, I have seen them drinking alcohol. We are Muslim and therefore jihad is our obligation," Ameri said in the mountains south of Herat.
"Our soil is occupied by Americans and I want them to leave this country. That is my only goal," he added.
'Respectful behaviour'
Brigadier-General Richard Blanchette, a spokesman for the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) in Afghanistan, said Isaf troops were "behaving in the most respectful way".
"I have no specific information about any activity that would have happened in Herat but I know for sure that the Taliban and other insurgents are conducting a propaganda campaign against us. And I can confirm to you that our troops are behaving in the most respectful way," he told Al Jazeera.
"Anytime that I would hear that somebody is joining the insurgency I think it is bad news because we know the Taliban are offering nothing for the future of this country," he said.
But Ameri and his men are not the only renegade government forces – some 70 police and soldiers have switched allegiances across the western region in the past two months.
Al Jazeera's Dan Nolan, reporting from Afghanistan, said "low wages for a dangerous jobs" did not seem to be the reason behind the desertions.
Instead, they deserted for ideological reasons, Nolan explained.
"When Russia came it was only one country, today we have 24 foreign infidel countries on our soil. All our men and women should come and join the jihad," Fida Mohammad, a new Taliban recruit, told Al Jazeera.
'Infidel' training
But though they reject the "infidels", they are not averse to receiving weapons or military training from them.
The recruits - so fresh that many have not yet grown their beards, while some are still smoking, a practice banned by the Taliban - carry weapons provided by the Afghan government and certificates for weapons training by the US.
Abdul Rahim, another new recruit, said he received training from American military contractor Blackwater for 45 days.
"I can use the training to save my life in these mountains and I can also use it to fight them," he said.
The switch in allegiances comes as the UN special envoy to Afghanistan warned on Tuesday that the Taliban's influence continues to spread beyond traditional strongholds to provinces around the capital, Kabul.
Kai Eide also told the UN Security Council that Taliban attacks - at a six-year high – would probably grow in the coming weeks instead of easing, as they have in previous winters.
"We should be prepared for a situation where the insurgency will not experience the same winter lull, the same reduction in hostilities we have experienced in past winters," he said.
Eide added that attacks against humanitarian workers had also increased.
Abdul Hakim Ashir, a spokesman for the Afghan interior ministry, denied that a high number of police officers had defected.
"I strongly refuse that 70 people [have defected to the Taliban] because this year we lost only 10 officers who maybe joined the Taliban,"
"We have increased the number of officers from 61,000 to 82,000 this year. The police recruitment process is going very well. Those from the young generation especially are joining the police forces.
"Over the last month, we have graduated 2,000 non-commissioned officers. That means there has been an increase and not a decrease in the police force."
Via Al Jazeera.
Comment:
70 is less than one tenth of one percent of 82,000. That's not exactly what I'd call "many". I'm pretty disgusted with Al Jazeera on this one.
After fighting the Taliban for the past seven years, many working for the Afghan security forces are now switching sides.
Sulieman Ameri and his 16 men were until a month ago serving the Afghan government as police patrolling the border with Iran.
Now they answer to the Taliban and their goal is to drive all foreign troops out of Afghanistan.
Ameri, now a Taliban commander, told Al Jazeera that he joined the Taliban because of what he called anti-Muslim behaviour by international soldiers.
"I have seen everything with my own eyes, I have seen prostitution, I have seen them drinking alcohol. We are Muslim and therefore jihad is our obligation," Ameri said in the mountains south of Herat.
"Our soil is occupied by Americans and I want them to leave this country. That is my only goal," he added.
'Respectful behaviour'
Brigadier-General Richard Blanchette, a spokesman for the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) in Afghanistan, said Isaf troops were "behaving in the most respectful way".
"I have no specific information about any activity that would have happened in Herat but I know for sure that the Taliban and other insurgents are conducting a propaganda campaign against us. And I can confirm to you that our troops are behaving in the most respectful way," he told Al Jazeera.
"Anytime that I would hear that somebody is joining the insurgency I think it is bad news because we know the Taliban are offering nothing for the future of this country," he said.
But Ameri and his men are not the only renegade government forces – some 70 police and soldiers have switched allegiances across the western region in the past two months.
Al Jazeera's Dan Nolan, reporting from Afghanistan, said "low wages for a dangerous jobs" did not seem to be the reason behind the desertions.
Instead, they deserted for ideological reasons, Nolan explained.
"When Russia came it was only one country, today we have 24 foreign infidel countries on our soil. All our men and women should come and join the jihad," Fida Mohammad, a new Taliban recruit, told Al Jazeera.
'Infidel' training
But though they reject the "infidels", they are not averse to receiving weapons or military training from them.
The recruits - so fresh that many have not yet grown their beards, while some are still smoking, a practice banned by the Taliban - carry weapons provided by the Afghan government and certificates for weapons training by the US.
Abdul Rahim, another new recruit, said he received training from American military contractor Blackwater for 45 days.
"I can use the training to save my life in these mountains and I can also use it to fight them," he said.
The switch in allegiances comes as the UN special envoy to Afghanistan warned on Tuesday that the Taliban's influence continues to spread beyond traditional strongholds to provinces around the capital, Kabul.
Kai Eide also told the UN Security Council that Taliban attacks - at a six-year high – would probably grow in the coming weeks instead of easing, as they have in previous winters.
"We should be prepared for a situation where the insurgency will not experience the same winter lull, the same reduction in hostilities we have experienced in past winters," he said.
Eide added that attacks against humanitarian workers had also increased.
Abdul Hakim Ashir, a spokesman for the Afghan interior ministry, denied that a high number of police officers had defected.
"I strongly refuse that 70 people [have defected to the Taliban] because this year we lost only 10 officers who maybe joined the Taliban,"
"We have increased the number of officers from 61,000 to 82,000 this year. The police recruitment process is going very well. Those from the young generation especially are joining the police forces.
"Over the last month, we have graduated 2,000 non-commissioned officers. That means there has been an increase and not a decrease in the police force."
Via Al Jazeera.
Comment:
70 is less than one tenth of one percent of 82,000. That's not exactly what I'd call "many". I'm pretty disgusted with Al Jazeera on this one.
Friday, September 12, 2008
'US drone' fires on Pakistan target
A suspected US drone aircraft has left at least eight people dead in northern Pakistan, while dozens of suspected fighters have been killed in the Bajaur region, Pakistani officials say.
The drone aircraft on Friday fired on a house near Miran Shah, the main town in the North Waziristan tribal region, leaving another 10 people injured.
North Waziristan, seen by the US as a safehaven for supporters of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, is part of a belt of tribally governed territory where Pakistan's government has little control.
Residents said two missiles were fired at a former government school where suspected fighters and their families were living in Tul Khail village, 5km east of Miran Shah.
Those killed were members of Al Badar, the armed Afghan group of veteran leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, according to an unnamed Pakistani official.
Heykmatyar is an Afghan leader who fought against Soviet occupation in the 1980s and against the Taliban in the 1990s. He reportedly allied with the deposed group after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, demanding the withdrawal of foreign forces.
US tensions
Friday's missile attack brings to five the number of such raids in the past two weeks.
Thirty-eight people, including women and children, have been killed in the past week's missile attacks.
Both the US military and the CIA operate drone aircraft armed with missiles of the type believed to have killed two senior al-Qaeda commanders in Pakistani territory earlier this year. Pakistan says it does not have missile-equipped drones.
Tensions between the US and Pakistan have further risen after a raid last week in which helicopter-borne US commandos landed in Pakistan's South Waziristan - the first known incursion into Pakistan by US troops since the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan.
Ashfaq Kayani, Pakistan's military chief, on Wednesday denounced the apparent US raids, saying unilateral actions risked undermining their co-operation.
He warned that "the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country will be defended at all cost. No external force is allowed to conduct operations inside Pakistan."
A day later, The New York Times reported that George Bush, the US president, had secretly approved orders in July to allow US special forces to carry out ground assaults inside Pakistan without the approval of the Pakistani government.
Bajaur fighting
Concurrent with the attack in North Waziristan, Major Murad Khan, a Pakistani military spokesman, announced 32 fighters had been killed, as well as two soldiers, over the last day during violence in the Bajur region.
Pakistani officials say hundreds of fighters have been killed there during a week-long offensive, which has forced 500,000 people to flee their homes. Officials acknowledge that civilian have been killed and villages badly damaged in the fighting.
Rehman Malik, the Pakistani interior minister, had previously announced a government ceasefire with fighters in Bajaur and other tribal areas in honour of Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting.
Via Al Jazeera.
Comment:
First off, a note on the article itself. As is mentioned, only militants were killed in the raid. Nevertheless, Al Jazeera decided to include a picture of a wounded child, the explanation given being that "Earlier air raids, which have killed and wounded civilians, have angered Pakistanis." This is blatantly biased, the sort of thing I'd expect from FOX, and if it continues I may have to reconsider using Al Jazeera as my primary news source.
As for the raid, ordinarily I would not have objected to it, because if Pakistan wants to claim that it has sovereignty over Waziristan, then it needs to actually exercise that sovereignty. However, it has now begun to do just that. With Pakistan finally taking the threat from TTP seriously, there is no need for us to intervene directly. Doing so, especially against their expressly declared wishes, is foolish.
Apologies on not posting more often. I have my hands full with my Persian lit. class.
The drone aircraft on Friday fired on a house near Miran Shah, the main town in the North Waziristan tribal region, leaving another 10 people injured.
North Waziristan, seen by the US as a safehaven for supporters of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, is part of a belt of tribally governed territory where Pakistan's government has little control.
Residents said two missiles were fired at a former government school where suspected fighters and their families were living in Tul Khail village, 5km east of Miran Shah.
Those killed were members of Al Badar, the armed Afghan group of veteran leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, according to an unnamed Pakistani official.
Heykmatyar is an Afghan leader who fought against Soviet occupation in the 1980s and against the Taliban in the 1990s. He reportedly allied with the deposed group after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, demanding the withdrawal of foreign forces.
US tensions
Friday's missile attack brings to five the number of such raids in the past two weeks.
Thirty-eight people, including women and children, have been killed in the past week's missile attacks.
Both the US military and the CIA operate drone aircraft armed with missiles of the type believed to have killed two senior al-Qaeda commanders in Pakistani territory earlier this year. Pakistan says it does not have missile-equipped drones.
Tensions between the US and Pakistan have further risen after a raid last week in which helicopter-borne US commandos landed in Pakistan's South Waziristan - the first known incursion into Pakistan by US troops since the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan.
Ashfaq Kayani, Pakistan's military chief, on Wednesday denounced the apparent US raids, saying unilateral actions risked undermining their co-operation.
He warned that "the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country will be defended at all cost. No external force is allowed to conduct operations inside Pakistan."
A day later, The New York Times reported that George Bush, the US president, had secretly approved orders in July to allow US special forces to carry out ground assaults inside Pakistan without the approval of the Pakistani government.
Bajaur fighting
Concurrent with the attack in North Waziristan, Major Murad Khan, a Pakistani military spokesman, announced 32 fighters had been killed, as well as two soldiers, over the last day during violence in the Bajur region.
Pakistani officials say hundreds of fighters have been killed there during a week-long offensive, which has forced 500,000 people to flee their homes. Officials acknowledge that civilian have been killed and villages badly damaged in the fighting.
Rehman Malik, the Pakistani interior minister, had previously announced a government ceasefire with fighters in Bajaur and other tribal areas in honour of Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting.
Via Al Jazeera.
Comment:
First off, a note on the article itself. As is mentioned, only militants were killed in the raid. Nevertheless, Al Jazeera decided to include a picture of a wounded child, the explanation given being that "Earlier air raids, which have killed and wounded civilians, have angered Pakistanis." This is blatantly biased, the sort of thing I'd expect from FOX, and if it continues I may have to reconsider using Al Jazeera as my primary news source.
As for the raid, ordinarily I would not have objected to it, because if Pakistan wants to claim that it has sovereignty over Waziristan, then it needs to actually exercise that sovereignty. However, it has now begun to do just that. With Pakistan finally taking the threat from TTP seriously, there is no need for us to intervene directly. Doing so, especially against their expressly declared wishes, is foolish.
Apologies on not posting more often. I have my hands full with my Persian lit. class.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Taliban fighters 'killed' in battle
Afghan army troops killed at least 34 Taliban fighters in a firefight after an army convoy was ambushed in the south of the country, a defence ministry spokesman said.
According to Zahir Azimi, the clash erupted after "enemy elements" attacked Afghan forces in Zabul province on the main highway between the capital Kabul and the southern city of Kandahar on Thursday. "A fierce battle started and the enemy were caught between the Afghan army on both sides," Azimi said.
"At least 34 enemy dead bodies are at the battlefield, but we believe there are many more killed." More Taliban fighters have reportedly been killed in a district that the anti-government group captured three days ago, a defence ministry spokesman said.
Afghan soldiers backed by Nato ground and air support launched an offensive in the remote Ajristan district of central Afghanistan's Ghazni province, killing at least 15 fighters, during an operation to retake control of the area, an Afghan official said on Thursday.
Ismail Jahangir, a government spokesman, said: "At least 15 Taliban have been killed and several others are wounded since [Wednesday]." The operation continued for a second day on Thursday, with the troops able to recapture the district headquarters compound but still fighting for wider control, Jahangir, a government spokesman said. The Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) said: "The joint operations began with a co-ordinated air strike on Taliban fighters, inside Ajiristan. Several insurgents have been killed and wounded."
Remote districts
Ajiristan was previously captured by the Taliban in October 2007, and was retaken the following day when at least 300 security forces moved into the district centre.
The Taliban have captured several mainly remote districts in the past but have not been able to retain hold of them for long, although there are a handful in the southern Helmand province, that security forces admit are in rebel control.
The fighting in Afghanistan meanwhile continued to take its toll on international forces. In the latest loss, a British soldier was killed in southern Afghanistan, the UK defence ministry said on Wednesday.
A ministry spokesman said no further details were immediately available.
Via Al Jazeera.
Comment:
Al Jazeera does not appear to have even mentioned this district's fall. This is what I'm talking about when I call Afghanistan "the forgotten war".
As for AJ's statements about where the Taliban holds districts, it is true that Helmand has more than any other province, but at least half of the Taliban's districts are nonetheless in other parts of the country. I hope to have at least a rough draft of the map I've been working on available later today.
According to Zahir Azimi, the clash erupted after "enemy elements" attacked Afghan forces in Zabul province on the main highway between the capital Kabul and the southern city of Kandahar on Thursday. "A fierce battle started and the enemy were caught between the Afghan army on both sides," Azimi said.
"At least 34 enemy dead bodies are at the battlefield, but we believe there are many more killed." More Taliban fighters have reportedly been killed in a district that the anti-government group captured three days ago, a defence ministry spokesman said.
Afghan soldiers backed by Nato ground and air support launched an offensive in the remote Ajristan district of central Afghanistan's Ghazni province, killing at least 15 fighters, during an operation to retake control of the area, an Afghan official said on Thursday.
Ismail Jahangir, a government spokesman, said: "At least 15 Taliban have been killed and several others are wounded since [Wednesday]." The operation continued for a second day on Thursday, with the troops able to recapture the district headquarters compound but still fighting for wider control, Jahangir, a government spokesman said. The Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) said: "The joint operations began with a co-ordinated air strike on Taliban fighters, inside Ajiristan. Several insurgents have been killed and wounded."
Remote districts
Ajiristan was previously captured by the Taliban in October 2007, and was retaken the following day when at least 300 security forces moved into the district centre.
The Taliban have captured several mainly remote districts in the past but have not been able to retain hold of them for long, although there are a handful in the southern Helmand province, that security forces admit are in rebel control.
The fighting in Afghanistan meanwhile continued to take its toll on international forces. In the latest loss, a British soldier was killed in southern Afghanistan, the UK defence ministry said on Wednesday.
A ministry spokesman said no further details were immediately available.
Via Al Jazeera.
Comment:
Al Jazeera does not appear to have even mentioned this district's fall. This is what I'm talking about when I call Afghanistan "the forgotten war".
As for AJ's statements about where the Taliban holds districts, it is true that Helmand has more than any other province, but at least half of the Taliban's districts are nonetheless in other parts of the country. I hope to have at least a rough draft of the map I've been working on available later today.
Friday, June 6, 2008
9/11 Trial Begins
So. This is Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, the man who bears the single greatest responsibility for the horrors of September 11.
I'll have a more detailed analysis of the trial later on, when I'm more awake.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Taliban captures Afghan district
Taliban fighters have captured a remote district in central Afghanistan, taking prisoner the police and administration chiefs, officials and the Taliban have said. The fighters attacked the district of Rashidan in the central province of Ghazni in a night attack, the provincial governor and a Taliban spokesman told the AFP news agency on Friday.
"Last night, Taliban attacked Rashidan district and it fell," Jan Mohammad Mujahed, a provincial police chief, said. Mujahed said the plight of the seized officials was unknown.
'Under control'
Zabihullah Mujahed, a spokesman for the Taliban, confirmed the fighters were in control and said the district chief, acting police chief and eight policemen had been taken prisoner. "They are alive and we have captured them. The district is totally under our control," he said. Rashidan is a small district about 120km southwest of Kabul. Teresa Bo, reporting for Al Jazeera in Afghanistan, said Ghazni - located along a major highway from Kabul, the capital, to the south - is one of the most complicated areas where fighting between Afghan, US and Taliban forces takes place almost every day. She said the Taliban holds power in strategic locations, adding: "Some of the police officers working here say they are afraid they will be the next target. "Security is one of the major concerns for every one in the area; the soldiers know they can be attacked any minute."
Vicious circle
Bo said a vicious cycle of violence continues as the Taliban fights for the control of the country and the US-led coalition struggles between re-construction and war.
The Taliban, in government between 1996 and 2001, last year overran several districts in remote parts of Afghanistan, but in most cases were ejected by government troops and soldiers attached to Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) and a separate US-led military coalition is fighting Taliban militants. Taliban officials say they control a handful of districts, mostly in the south of the country. Nato military force officials said in December that the Taliban held not more than five districts.
Via Al Jezeera.
Comment.
This is a good example of the media blackout of the war in Afghanistan. I run a blog that is devoted to the War on Terror, and even I didn't know the exact number of districts held (though I knew there were several). I'm going to see if I can figure out which districts they are.
"Last night, Taliban attacked Rashidan district and it fell," Jan Mohammad Mujahed, a provincial police chief, said. Mujahed said the plight of the seized officials was unknown.
'Under control'
Zabihullah Mujahed, a spokesman for the Taliban, confirmed the fighters were in control and said the district chief, acting police chief and eight policemen had been taken prisoner. "They are alive and we have captured them. The district is totally under our control," he said. Rashidan is a small district about 120km southwest of Kabul. Teresa Bo, reporting for Al Jazeera in Afghanistan, said Ghazni - located along a major highway from Kabul, the capital, to the south - is one of the most complicated areas where fighting between Afghan, US and Taliban forces takes place almost every day. She said the Taliban holds power in strategic locations, adding: "Some of the police officers working here say they are afraid they will be the next target. "Security is one of the major concerns for every one in the area; the soldiers know they can be attacked any minute."
Vicious circle
Bo said a vicious cycle of violence continues as the Taliban fights for the control of the country and the US-led coalition struggles between re-construction and war.
The Taliban, in government between 1996 and 2001, last year overran several districts in remote parts of Afghanistan, but in most cases were ejected by government troops and soldiers attached to Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) and a separate US-led military coalition is fighting Taliban militants. Taliban officials say they control a handful of districts, mostly in the south of the country. Nato military force officials said in December that the Taliban held not more than five districts.
Via Al Jezeera.
Comment.
This is a good example of the media blackout of the war in Afghanistan. I run a blog that is devoted to the War on Terror, and even I didn't know the exact number of districts held (though I knew there were several). I'm going to see if I can figure out which districts they are.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Sami al-Hajj arrives in Sudan
Al Jazeera cameraman Sami al-Hajj has been released from the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay and has arrived in Sudan.
Al-Hajj, who arrived at the airport in the capital Khartoum early on Friday from more than six years in captivity, was carried off the aircraft in a stretcher.
He appeared too weak to talk and was immediately taken to hospital where his wife and son were on their way to meet him.
Sudan's justice minister told Al Jazeera that al-Hajj was a free man and would not be arrested.
Al-Hajj's wife, Asma Ismailov, spoke to Al Jazeera before she travelled to Sudan.
"Now I can think differently, now I can plan my life differently, everything will be fine, God willing," she said.
Two other Sudanese inmates at Guantanamo were freed along with al-Hajj.
The cameraman was seized by Pakistani intelligence officers while travelling near the Afghan border in December 2001.
Despite holding a legitimate visa to work for Al Jazeera's Arabic channel in Afghanistan, he was handed to the US military in January 2002 and sent to Guantanamo Bay.
Al-Hajj, who is originally from Sudan, was held as an "enemy combatant" without ever facing a trial or charges.
He had been on hunger strike since January 7, 2007.
'Element of racism'
David Remes, a lawyer for 17 detainees at Guantanamo Bay, told Al Jazeera that the treatment al-Hajj received "was more horrific than most" and that there was "an element of racism" in the way he was treated.
He said he had been in contact with the lawyer representing al-Hajj and it appeared the cameraman had been "psychologically damaged".
"The Europeans would never receive this treatment," Remes said.
About 280 detainees remain at Guantanamo and the lawyer said European detainees had all been returned to their country, leaving nationalities such as Yemenis - who now constitute one third of the inmate population.
Remes said al-Hajj was being released because the Bush administration "wants to flush as many men out of Guantanamo as quickly as possible … as Guantanamo has become such an international badge of shame".
"Once the Supreme Court said the men could have lawyers the pressure increased [on the US] and condemnation isolated the US administration. Guantanamo was a PR disaster," he said.
"Unfortunately Americans appreciate violations of rights but they have no sympathy for men held at Guantanamo as the [Bush] administration has done such a good job in portraying them as the worst of the worst and as evil doers.
"I've met many prisoners, gotten to appreciate their suffering ... we know them as humans not as worst of worst, we've met their families.
"I've been to Guantanamo and the human dimension of Guantanamo is a story yet to be told," Remes said.
Force fed
Zachary Katznelson, a lawyer from the Reprieve organisation has worked on al-Hajj's case since August 2005 and has visited him 10 times in Guantanamo Bay, the last time just three weeks ago.
"Al-Hajj is remarkably thin, he has been on hunger strike and forcibly fed through his nose while being strapped down, twice a day, for 16 months," he said.
"He looks like an ill man, he has problems with his kidneys, liver, blood in his urine and there are concerns that he may have cancer."
Katznelson said that the cameraman's release was probably motivated by political concerns.
"I think this is part of a larger picture between the United States and Sudan, that they are trying to bring those countries closer together," he said.
"Sudan, one of the primary demands they made to the United States, is if you want to normalise relations with us you have to give something back, and one of the things is the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay."
'Telling the truth'
Martin Mubanga, a former Guantanamo detainee, told Al Jazeera that al-Hajj had refused to be broken by his experience in Guantanamo Bay.
"When I saw him in the last years [of my captivity] he became stronger as he took a stance against the American authorities," he said.
"Basically he was a man of resolve, he refused to be broken because at the end of the day he was telling the truth, he was not a member of al-Qaeda."
Mubanga said that al-Hajj would not believe he was free until he was back on the ground with his son.
"Only then will it probably begin to sink in that he is free, on the plane he'll probably still be thinking he is in a dream, that it is not really happening."
Al Jazeera has been campaigning for al-Hajj's release since his capture more than six years ago.
Al Jazeera concerns
Wadah Khanfar, Al Jazeera's director-general who is in Khartoum to welcome al-Hajj, criticised the US military for urging him to spy on the operations at the channel.
"We are concerned about the way the Americans dealt with Sami, and we are concerned about the way they could deal with others as well," he said.
"Sami will continue with Al Jazeera, he will continue as a professional person who has done great jobs during his work with Al Jazeera.
"We congratulate his family and all those who knew Sami and loved Sami and worked for this moment."
Via Al Jazeera.
Comment:
Finally.
Al-Hajj, who arrived at the airport in the capital Khartoum early on Friday from more than six years in captivity, was carried off the aircraft in a stretcher.
He appeared too weak to talk and was immediately taken to hospital where his wife and son were on their way to meet him.
Sudan's justice minister told Al Jazeera that al-Hajj was a free man and would not be arrested.
Al-Hajj's wife, Asma Ismailov, spoke to Al Jazeera before she travelled to Sudan.
"Now I can think differently, now I can plan my life differently, everything will be fine, God willing," she said.
Two other Sudanese inmates at Guantanamo were freed along with al-Hajj.
The cameraman was seized by Pakistani intelligence officers while travelling near the Afghan border in December 2001.
Despite holding a legitimate visa to work for Al Jazeera's Arabic channel in Afghanistan, he was handed to the US military in January 2002 and sent to Guantanamo Bay.
Al-Hajj, who is originally from Sudan, was held as an "enemy combatant" without ever facing a trial or charges.
He had been on hunger strike since January 7, 2007.
'Element of racism'
David Remes, a lawyer for 17 detainees at Guantanamo Bay, told Al Jazeera that the treatment al-Hajj received "was more horrific than most" and that there was "an element of racism" in the way he was treated.
He said he had been in contact with the lawyer representing al-Hajj and it appeared the cameraman had been "psychologically damaged".
"The Europeans would never receive this treatment," Remes said.
About 280 detainees remain at Guantanamo and the lawyer said European detainees had all been returned to their country, leaving nationalities such as Yemenis - who now constitute one third of the inmate population.
Remes said al-Hajj was being released because the Bush administration "wants to flush as many men out of Guantanamo as quickly as possible … as Guantanamo has become such an international badge of shame".
"Once the Supreme Court said the men could have lawyers the pressure increased [on the US] and condemnation isolated the US administration. Guantanamo was a PR disaster," he said.
"Unfortunately Americans appreciate violations of rights but they have no sympathy for men held at Guantanamo as the [Bush] administration has done such a good job in portraying them as the worst of the worst and as evil doers.
"I've met many prisoners, gotten to appreciate their suffering ... we know them as humans not as worst of worst, we've met their families.
"I've been to Guantanamo and the human dimension of Guantanamo is a story yet to be told," Remes said.
Force fed
Zachary Katznelson, a lawyer from the Reprieve organisation has worked on al-Hajj's case since August 2005 and has visited him 10 times in Guantanamo Bay, the last time just three weeks ago.
"Al-Hajj is remarkably thin, he has been on hunger strike and forcibly fed through his nose while being strapped down, twice a day, for 16 months," he said.
"He looks like an ill man, he has problems with his kidneys, liver, blood in his urine and there are concerns that he may have cancer."
Katznelson said that the cameraman's release was probably motivated by political concerns.
"I think this is part of a larger picture between the United States and Sudan, that they are trying to bring those countries closer together," he said.
"Sudan, one of the primary demands they made to the United States, is if you want to normalise relations with us you have to give something back, and one of the things is the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay."
'Telling the truth'
Martin Mubanga, a former Guantanamo detainee, told Al Jazeera that al-Hajj had refused to be broken by his experience in Guantanamo Bay.
"When I saw him in the last years [of my captivity] he became stronger as he took a stance against the American authorities," he said.
"Basically he was a man of resolve, he refused to be broken because at the end of the day he was telling the truth, he was not a member of al-Qaeda."
Mubanga said that al-Hajj would not believe he was free until he was back on the ground with his son.
"Only then will it probably begin to sink in that he is free, on the plane he'll probably still be thinking he is in a dream, that it is not really happening."
Al Jazeera has been campaigning for al-Hajj's release since his capture more than six years ago.
Al Jazeera concerns
Wadah Khanfar, Al Jazeera's director-general who is in Khartoum to welcome al-Hajj, criticised the US military for urging him to spy on the operations at the channel.
"We are concerned about the way the Americans dealt with Sami, and we are concerned about the way they could deal with others as well," he said.
"Sami will continue with Al Jazeera, he will continue as a professional person who has done great jobs during his work with Al Jazeera.
"We congratulate his family and all those who knew Sami and loved Sami and worked for this moment."
Via Al Jazeera.
Comment:
Finally.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
When Al Qaeda Calls
By Peter Maass
On an April day in London last year [2002], Yosri Fouda's cellphone rang, and a stranger introduced himself by saying, ''I'm a viewer of your show.'' He claimed to be in a position to ''provide something top secret'' and asked for Fouda's fax number. Then he hung up.
Fouda is a star reporter for Al Jazeera, which functions something like CNN for the Arab world. His monthly program, ''Top Secret,'' features reports that range from the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay to the exploitation of young camel jockeys in Qatar. He gets a stream of have-I-got-a-scoop-for-you offers, and most of them lead nowhere. But when he received, several days after the cellphone call, an anonymous three-page fax proposing a documentary for the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, he sensed that the call and the fax had come from Al Qaeda.
What do you do when Al Qaeda beckons? Fouda quietly asked his colleagues at Al Jazeera for advice, because if Al Qaeda was interested in talking with him, he was interested in talking with Al Qaeda, though he also wanted to stay alive.
Several days later the stranger called again.
''Are you ready to go to Islamabad?'' he asked.
''Yes, absolutely,'' Fouda replied.
He flew to Pakistan and was passed, secretly, from one Qaeda operative to another. It was the sort of cloak-and-dagger intrigue that led, months earlier, to the kidnapping and murder of the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Fouda fared immeasurably better — he was trundled to a safe house, where he met Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, chief of Al Qaeda's military committee, who confirmed that he was the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. Also present was Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who was introduced as the coordinator of the attacks and who had lived in Hamburg with Mohamed Atta, leader of the hijackers. Fouda's hosts were among the most-wanted terrorists in the world. Mohammed alone was worth $25 million in bounty money from the U.S. government.
If you want to explore the intricate dance that takes place between a journalist trying to get a story and a terrorist trying to disseminate a message, and if you want to delve into the unusual relationship between Al Jazeera and Al Qaeda, you can do no better than examining Fouda's odyssey to Karachi. I visited Fouda in London, where he has lived for the last 12 years and where he works from Al Jazeera's bureau on the bank of the Thames opposite Parliament. Although he is just a face in the crowd as he walks to the tube station next to Big Ben, he is rock-star famous in London's Arab neighborhoods. Throughout the Arab world, in fact, he carries the celebrity of Geraldo Rivera and the cachet of Bob Woodward.
Fouda is a chameleon. He wears a banker's suit on important occasions but otherwise prefers a leather jacket; in Karachi, he wore a shalwar kameez, the pajamalike outfit favored by Pakistanis. He mixes easily at both mosques and pubs. He is, in this way, an excellent journalist, because he can pretend to be all things to all people, including a friend to terrorists.
''If you want to keep your access, if you want to remain useful, you have to keep your impartiality,'' Fouda told me. ''It's no use if I came on my program and said, 'The bastard sat in front of me and said this and that.' Then you have blown every chance you may have to talk with them again and with other groups. Yes, put things in context, but keep yourself on the fence.''
--
The mysterious caller told Fouda to fly from Islamabad to Karachi and check into a $30-a-night hotel there. The caller, who appeared to be an Arab, furtively visited Fouda at the Karachi hotel and told him to leave by a back door and take a taxi to another part of the sprawling city. There, Fouda met another Qaeda contact, exchanged a password and drove with him to a crowded square, where the contact told him to take a motorized rickshaw to an address where another operative was waiting. After giving a different password — it was ''Lahore'' (another city in Pakistan) — Fouda was driven out of the city, and eventually his contact pulled up to a car parked by the side of the road.
Fouda was transferred to the other car, where two Qaeda escorts taped cotton patches over his eyes. He was not searched, nor was he asked if he had a weapon. The trust worked both ways. As the car drove aimlessly outside Karachi, so that Fouda would lose his bearings, he sat in the back seat and told his escorts that he would have shut his eyes even if he hadn't been blindfolded; he did not want them to think he might be interested in knowing the whereabouts of the ''brothers'' he was being taken to interview.
''I would be considered, as far as they were concerned, more on their side,'' Fouda noted as we ate breakfast at a hotel. He was dressed in a conservative blue suit, smoking one Marlboro after another and sipping a cup of coffee. He spoke precisely, as though narrating someone else's journey. ''I had a strong feeling that they would actually care about my safety so that I would come back and do the program that they wanted. I made sure that I gave them the feeling that I am all theirs.''
This is standard operating procedure for many journalists — make your sources think you are on their side. Smile sympathetically. Nod approvingly. Laugh at their jokes. Sometimes this behavior is genuine, sometimes contrived. It is one of the oddities of journalism that although reporters are always trying to convey the full truth in what they report, with some sources they may not convey the full truth of their opinions and feelings.
After half an hour or so, the car stopped, and Fouda was led into a building and up four flights of stairs. He was pulled into an apartment, and when his blindfold was removed, Fouda heard someone say: ''It is O.K. You can open your eyes now.'' He did, and standing in front of him and saying hello with a smile was Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who addressed him as ''Brother Yosri.'' Moments later, as he walked deeper into the apartment, Fouda was greeted, warmly, by Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who was sitting amid several laptops and cellphones.
''Recognize us yet?'' Khalid Shaikh Mohammed asked.
The atmosphere was friendly. Fouda placed his hand on a Koran and swore not to divulge information that would help anyone catch his most-wanted hosts. For 48 hours, Fouda lived with Mohammed and bin al-Shibh, sharing tea and takeout meals with them and listening as they explained how they plotted the 9/11 attacks. They said that they had decided that the time had come to take responsibility for a day of mayhem that they were quite proud to have organized. The decision to select Fouda as the messenger was made, they said, by bin Laden himself, apparently a fan of ''Top Secret.''
The apartment had scarcely any furnishings. They sat and slept on the floors. There was no television, and the windows had metal bars. Mohammed had several cellphones he constantly used for text messaging — he was as dexterous as a Japanese teenager. Bin al-Shibh was frequently working at his laptops and copying data onto disks. When he wasn't talking with them, Fouda behaved as nonchalantly as possible, not wanting to appear too interested in their secretive work. Fouda and the two Qaeda men prayed together, five times a day, which is not Fouda's habit.
At one point, bin al-Shibh brought a gray suitcase into the room. Handing a cup of tea to Fouda, he said, nodding to the suitcase, ''Yes, it is my Hamburg souvenirs, and you are the first outsider to have a look.'' He placed his ''souvenirs'' on the floor, including a ''how to fly'' textbook and flight-simulator CD's that had been used by Atta. Bin al-Shibh showed Fouda, on one of his computers, his last e-mail exchange with Atta; to evade detection, Atta had pretended to be a young man in America chatting online with his girlfriend in Germany, using code words — two high schools and two universities'' — for the targets of the coming attacks. (The fourth target, Fouda was told, was the Capitol Building.)
Fouda's desire not to offend his fundamentalist hosts ran into a stumbling block: he is a heavy smoker, but smoking is viewed as un-Islamic. He meekly asked permission to light up, and this prompted bin al-Shibh to deliver the sort of anticigarette lecture that teenagers get from parents. Fouda readily agreed it was a horrible habit that he should not indulge in, but until he gathered the strength to quit, might he have a smoke? Because the authors of 9/11 had an interest in not alienating their chosen messenger — the confidence game works both ways — they granted his wish. Fouda shifted to a spot closer to a balcony and savored his Marlboro.
--
Yosri Fouda was born 38 years ago in an Egyptian village, the son of a doctor. He earned a master's in television journalism from the American University in Cairo and won a scholarship to work on a Ph.D. in Britain, but he left school to take a producing job at the British Broadcasting Corporation's Arabic-language television service, reporting from the Balkans alongside veteran BBC journalists. After the Arabic service collapsed in 1996, Fouda agreed to work for Al Jazeera in London. ''He has an image as the Arab world's leading investigative journalist, not that there's a lot of competition for the title,'' says Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Fouda's program about his Karachi journey, broadcast for the anniversary of the attacks, ran nearly two hours. It began with Mohamed Atta's father saying, agitatedly, that his son had not taken part in the attacks on Sept. 11, and that he was either in jail somewhere in America or had been killed to keep him silent. Atta's father was expressing a viewpoint that remains widespread in the Arab world — that Israel and perhaps America were behind the whole thing, and that Al Qaeda and 19 Arab men were not involved.
Fouda demolished that notion. He laid out, in careful and well-produced detail, the preparations by Atta and other hijackers from Al Qaeda, drawing on the information provided in Karachi by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Ramzi bin al-Shibh (who was arrested in Karachi, apparently coincidentally, soon after the broadcast).
But something funny happened on the way to the full truth. Fouda told his viewers about the whistle-blowing memo from the F.B.I. Agent Coleen Rowley, who exposed grievous lapses in the handling of the terrorist suspect Zacarias Moussaoui, and a memo from an F.B.I. agent in Phoenix, who pointed out, before Sept. 11, that a suspicious number of Arabs were learning to fly planes in America. Fouda then asked, ''Was Al Qaeda simply the knife edge in the grip of someone somewhere?'' He cut to a follower of Lyndon Larouche who speculated that the attacks were engineered by ''intellectuals in the Brzezinski crowd and . . . the special warfare crowd in the Pentagon,'' with Al Qaeda being used to do the dirty work.
Fouda ended his program by speaking directly to the camera from a street in New York. ''Through this investigation, we were able to dispel doubt and ascertain the truth about those who wanted, who planned and who succeeded in delivering a severe slap to the U.S. administration,'' he said. But then he raised the possibility that officials in the United States ''did not actually object to receiving such a slap, in the hope they can push and bully anyone, anywhere with impunity.''
It seemed odd to conclude the program by shifting attention toward a supposed American role — especially since there is not a single mention in the documentary of the notion that the Muslim world needs to examine what went wrong and take responsibility for the mass murderers it nurtured. Was Fouda pulling his punches? Although he agrees, as most Arabs do, with Al Qaeda's political complaints about Israel's treatment of Palestinians and America's support for corrupt Arab regimes, he did not cheer the destruction of the World Trade Center or the bombing of a tourist-packed disco in Bali. He describes himself as a secular journalist and says he prefers living in London over Cairo; he seems to believe that fundamentalism is a problem, not an answer.
But the fact is that if you wish to remain popular in the mainstream media, you invite trouble by deviating too far from the views of your sources and audience. Harping on an unpopular truth is rarely a career-advancing or an audience-building move. Fouda delivered a bitter pill to his Arab audience simply by reporting that Al Qaeda carried out the 9/11 attacks; delivering another unpopular message, by focusing on what has gone wrong in the Arab world, might have been too much, particularly for his fundamentalist sources. It's easier to blame America.
Fouda practices the journalism of access, which is a widespread practice, but a journalist in need of access must remain in the good graces of the giver of access. And that sometimes leads to dangerous trade-offs. There is a price for playing the game, and Al Qaeda plays it well. Two months after Fouda's 9/11 report, Al Qaeda faxed him a six-page communique, announcing that it would devote more attention to fighting Israel. (This was just weeks before the attacks on Israeli tourists in Mombasa.) He had another global scoop, though he wasn't the only one to gain from it. By tossing occasional exclusives to Yosri Fouda, Osama bin Laden helps ensure that one of the most influential voices in the Arab media stays on the fence.
On an April day in London last year [2002], Yosri Fouda's cellphone rang, and a stranger introduced himself by saying, ''I'm a viewer of your show.'' He claimed to be in a position to ''provide something top secret'' and asked for Fouda's fax number. Then he hung up.
Fouda is a star reporter for Al Jazeera, which functions something like CNN for the Arab world. His monthly program, ''Top Secret,'' features reports that range from the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay to the exploitation of young camel jockeys in Qatar. He gets a stream of have-I-got-a-scoop-for-you offers, and most of them lead nowhere. But when he received, several days after the cellphone call, an anonymous three-page fax proposing a documentary for the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, he sensed that the call and the fax had come from Al Qaeda.
What do you do when Al Qaeda beckons? Fouda quietly asked his colleagues at Al Jazeera for advice, because if Al Qaeda was interested in talking with him, he was interested in talking with Al Qaeda, though he also wanted to stay alive.
Several days later the stranger called again.
''Are you ready to go to Islamabad?'' he asked.
''Yes, absolutely,'' Fouda replied.
He flew to Pakistan and was passed, secretly, from one Qaeda operative to another. It was the sort of cloak-and-dagger intrigue that led, months earlier, to the kidnapping and murder of the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Fouda fared immeasurably better — he was trundled to a safe house, where he met Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, chief of Al Qaeda's military committee, who confirmed that he was the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. Also present was Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who was introduced as the coordinator of the attacks and who had lived in Hamburg with Mohamed Atta, leader of the hijackers. Fouda's hosts were among the most-wanted terrorists in the world. Mohammed alone was worth $25 million in bounty money from the U.S. government.
If you want to explore the intricate dance that takes place between a journalist trying to get a story and a terrorist trying to disseminate a message, and if you want to delve into the unusual relationship between Al Jazeera and Al Qaeda, you can do no better than examining Fouda's odyssey to Karachi. I visited Fouda in London, where he has lived for the last 12 years and where he works from Al Jazeera's bureau on the bank of the Thames opposite Parliament. Although he is just a face in the crowd as he walks to the tube station next to Big Ben, he is rock-star famous in London's Arab neighborhoods. Throughout the Arab world, in fact, he carries the celebrity of Geraldo Rivera and the cachet of Bob Woodward.
Fouda is a chameleon. He wears a banker's suit on important occasions but otherwise prefers a leather jacket; in Karachi, he wore a shalwar kameez, the pajamalike outfit favored by Pakistanis. He mixes easily at both mosques and pubs. He is, in this way, an excellent journalist, because he can pretend to be all things to all people, including a friend to terrorists.
''If you want to keep your access, if you want to remain useful, you have to keep your impartiality,'' Fouda told me. ''It's no use if I came on my program and said, 'The bastard sat in front of me and said this and that.' Then you have blown every chance you may have to talk with them again and with other groups. Yes, put things in context, but keep yourself on the fence.''
--
The mysterious caller told Fouda to fly from Islamabad to Karachi and check into a $30-a-night hotel there. The caller, who appeared to be an Arab, furtively visited Fouda at the Karachi hotel and told him to leave by a back door and take a taxi to another part of the sprawling city. There, Fouda met another Qaeda contact, exchanged a password and drove with him to a crowded square, where the contact told him to take a motorized rickshaw to an address where another operative was waiting. After giving a different password — it was ''Lahore'' (another city in Pakistan) — Fouda was driven out of the city, and eventually his contact pulled up to a car parked by the side of the road.
Fouda was transferred to the other car, where two Qaeda escorts taped cotton patches over his eyes. He was not searched, nor was he asked if he had a weapon. The trust worked both ways. As the car drove aimlessly outside Karachi, so that Fouda would lose his bearings, he sat in the back seat and told his escorts that he would have shut his eyes even if he hadn't been blindfolded; he did not want them to think he might be interested in knowing the whereabouts of the ''brothers'' he was being taken to interview.
''I would be considered, as far as they were concerned, more on their side,'' Fouda noted as we ate breakfast at a hotel. He was dressed in a conservative blue suit, smoking one Marlboro after another and sipping a cup of coffee. He spoke precisely, as though narrating someone else's journey. ''I had a strong feeling that they would actually care about my safety so that I would come back and do the program that they wanted. I made sure that I gave them the feeling that I am all theirs.''
This is standard operating procedure for many journalists — make your sources think you are on their side. Smile sympathetically. Nod approvingly. Laugh at their jokes. Sometimes this behavior is genuine, sometimes contrived. It is one of the oddities of journalism that although reporters are always trying to convey the full truth in what they report, with some sources they may not convey the full truth of their opinions and feelings.
After half an hour or so, the car stopped, and Fouda was led into a building and up four flights of stairs. He was pulled into an apartment, and when his blindfold was removed, Fouda heard someone say: ''It is O.K. You can open your eyes now.'' He did, and standing in front of him and saying hello with a smile was Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who addressed him as ''Brother Yosri.'' Moments later, as he walked deeper into the apartment, Fouda was greeted, warmly, by Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who was sitting amid several laptops and cellphones.
''Recognize us yet?'' Khalid Shaikh Mohammed asked.
The atmosphere was friendly. Fouda placed his hand on a Koran and swore not to divulge information that would help anyone catch his most-wanted hosts. For 48 hours, Fouda lived with Mohammed and bin al-Shibh, sharing tea and takeout meals with them and listening as they explained how they plotted the 9/11 attacks. They said that they had decided that the time had come to take responsibility for a day of mayhem that they were quite proud to have organized. The decision to select Fouda as the messenger was made, they said, by bin Laden himself, apparently a fan of ''Top Secret.''
The apartment had scarcely any furnishings. They sat and slept on the floors. There was no television, and the windows had metal bars. Mohammed had several cellphones he constantly used for text messaging — he was as dexterous as a Japanese teenager. Bin al-Shibh was frequently working at his laptops and copying data onto disks. When he wasn't talking with them, Fouda behaved as nonchalantly as possible, not wanting to appear too interested in their secretive work. Fouda and the two Qaeda men prayed together, five times a day, which is not Fouda's habit.
At one point, bin al-Shibh brought a gray suitcase into the room. Handing a cup of tea to Fouda, he said, nodding to the suitcase, ''Yes, it is my Hamburg souvenirs, and you are the first outsider to have a look.'' He placed his ''souvenirs'' on the floor, including a ''how to fly'' textbook and flight-simulator CD's that had been used by Atta. Bin al-Shibh showed Fouda, on one of his computers, his last e-mail exchange with Atta; to evade detection, Atta had pretended to be a young man in America chatting online with his girlfriend in Germany, using code words — two high schools and two universities'' — for the targets of the coming attacks. (The fourth target, Fouda was told, was the Capitol Building.)
Fouda's desire not to offend his fundamentalist hosts ran into a stumbling block: he is a heavy smoker, but smoking is viewed as un-Islamic. He meekly asked permission to light up, and this prompted bin al-Shibh to deliver the sort of anticigarette lecture that teenagers get from parents. Fouda readily agreed it was a horrible habit that he should not indulge in, but until he gathered the strength to quit, might he have a smoke? Because the authors of 9/11 had an interest in not alienating their chosen messenger — the confidence game works both ways — they granted his wish. Fouda shifted to a spot closer to a balcony and savored his Marlboro.
--
Yosri Fouda was born 38 years ago in an Egyptian village, the son of a doctor. He earned a master's in television journalism from the American University in Cairo and won a scholarship to work on a Ph.D. in Britain, but he left school to take a producing job at the British Broadcasting Corporation's Arabic-language television service, reporting from the Balkans alongside veteran BBC journalists. After the Arabic service collapsed in 1996, Fouda agreed to work for Al Jazeera in London. ''He has an image as the Arab world's leading investigative journalist, not that there's a lot of competition for the title,'' says Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Fouda's program about his Karachi journey, broadcast for the anniversary of the attacks, ran nearly two hours. It began with Mohamed Atta's father saying, agitatedly, that his son had not taken part in the attacks on Sept. 11, and that he was either in jail somewhere in America or had been killed to keep him silent. Atta's father was expressing a viewpoint that remains widespread in the Arab world — that Israel and perhaps America were behind the whole thing, and that Al Qaeda and 19 Arab men were not involved.
Fouda demolished that notion. He laid out, in careful and well-produced detail, the preparations by Atta and other hijackers from Al Qaeda, drawing on the information provided in Karachi by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Ramzi bin al-Shibh (who was arrested in Karachi, apparently coincidentally, soon after the broadcast).
But something funny happened on the way to the full truth. Fouda told his viewers about the whistle-blowing memo from the F.B.I. Agent Coleen Rowley, who exposed grievous lapses in the handling of the terrorist suspect Zacarias Moussaoui, and a memo from an F.B.I. agent in Phoenix, who pointed out, before Sept. 11, that a suspicious number of Arabs were learning to fly planes in America. Fouda then asked, ''Was Al Qaeda simply the knife edge in the grip of someone somewhere?'' He cut to a follower of Lyndon Larouche who speculated that the attacks were engineered by ''intellectuals in the Brzezinski crowd and . . . the special warfare crowd in the Pentagon,'' with Al Qaeda being used to do the dirty work.
Fouda ended his program by speaking directly to the camera from a street in New York. ''Through this investigation, we were able to dispel doubt and ascertain the truth about those who wanted, who planned and who succeeded in delivering a severe slap to the U.S. administration,'' he said. But then he raised the possibility that officials in the United States ''did not actually object to receiving such a slap, in the hope they can push and bully anyone, anywhere with impunity.''
It seemed odd to conclude the program by shifting attention toward a supposed American role — especially since there is not a single mention in the documentary of the notion that the Muslim world needs to examine what went wrong and take responsibility for the mass murderers it nurtured. Was Fouda pulling his punches? Although he agrees, as most Arabs do, with Al Qaeda's political complaints about Israel's treatment of Palestinians and America's support for corrupt Arab regimes, he did not cheer the destruction of the World Trade Center or the bombing of a tourist-packed disco in Bali. He describes himself as a secular journalist and says he prefers living in London over Cairo; he seems to believe that fundamentalism is a problem, not an answer.
But the fact is that if you wish to remain popular in the mainstream media, you invite trouble by deviating too far from the views of your sources and audience. Harping on an unpopular truth is rarely a career-advancing or an audience-building move. Fouda delivered a bitter pill to his Arab audience simply by reporting that Al Qaeda carried out the 9/11 attacks; delivering another unpopular message, by focusing on what has gone wrong in the Arab world, might have been too much, particularly for his fundamentalist sources. It's easier to blame America.
Fouda practices the journalism of access, which is a widespread practice, but a journalist in need of access must remain in the good graces of the giver of access. And that sometimes leads to dangerous trade-offs. There is a price for playing the game, and Al Qaeda plays it well. Two months after Fouda's 9/11 report, Al Qaeda faxed him a six-page communique, announcing that it would devote more attention to fighting Israel. (This was just weeks before the attacks on Israeli tourists in Mombasa.) He had another global scoop, though he wasn't the only one to gain from it. By tossing occasional exclusives to Yosri Fouda, Osama bin Laden helps ensure that one of the most influential voices in the Arab media stays on the fence.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Hirabah versus Jihad
Rescuing Jihad from The al Qaeda Blasphemy
By Jim Guirard
By Jim Guirard
Over two months ago, with little or no comment or praise—either then or later—from the Bush Administration, the West Europeans, the media, the foreign policy experts or the Muslim-American community, the traditionally soft-on-terrorism Saudi Arabian government did a rather remarkable thing.
Its harsh condemnation of the May 12, 2002 suicide bombings in Riyadh contained unprecedented Islamic religious frames of reference—charging al Qaeda terrorists with not only a secular and ideological crime but with a heinous and mortal sin against Allah, as well.
According to Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz: “This is because the Saudi people, will not permit a deviant few to shed the blood of the innocent which God almighty, in his infinite wisdom and justice has sanctified.”
The Saudi chief-of-state went on to proclaim: “As revealed in the Holy Qur’an, ‘He who kills a resident living in peace among you will never breathe the air of Heaven.’ “ And he concluded: “These messages, which do not require any interpretation, provide clear evidence that the fate of these murderers is damnation on earth and the fury of Hell in the thereafter.”
By repeatedly injecting the element of Hellfire into the picture, the Saudis were at least for the moment rejecting the pseudo-religious, Wahhabi-supported language of so-called “Jihadi martyrdom.” Mindlessly parroted by all too many Westerners and Muslims alike, this is the patently false mantra which paints a highly seductive picture of so-called Jihad (Holy War) by so-called mujahiddin (holy warriors) and shuhada or shahiddin (martyrs), supposedly on their way to Paradise.
On its face, the Saudi assault on this al Qaeda scam implies that if Osama bin Laden and his suicidal killers are not waging a truly holy “Jihad,” they must be waging unholy war, instead. Indeed, according to the Crown Prince, it is warfare so unholy and so evil as to be leading its fomenters into eternal Hellfire—the Islamic term for which is Jahannam.
In this situation, three major questions need answering:
• First, will we Americans support and join in this new Saudi line of attack aV which relies not only on Western secular words but also on the language of the Qurfan to condemn al Qaeda suicide mass murderers as the Jahannam-bound evildoers and blasphemers they really are?
• Second, will Saudi Arabiafs intolerant and reactionary Wahhabi sect of Islam, which has been all too supportive of al Qaeda-style terrorism, quietly acquiesce in this new interpretation—or will it be attempting to undermine those who have spoken such religiously-powerful words? (Already, an indication of the latter seems evident in the Ministry of Information’s May 27 firing of the outspokenly anti-al Qaeda editor in chief of the provincial Al Watan daily newspaper.)
• Third, if we Americans fail to support this appropriate new Qur'anic condemnation of al Qaeda at a time when the Wahhabis are surely quite busy protesting and undercutting it, will the Saudi government be bold enough to repeat and to strengthen this message?
If Not “Jihad,” What Is It?
Only time will answer these inter-connected questions. But in order for any of us to begin changing the proper terminology for al Qaeda-style terrorism from holy to unholy and from godly to satanic, we urgently need to call it what it is—rather than carelessly calling it what it is not.
Although not in the typical Muslim's active vocabulary, this is the ancient word Hirabah—pronounced hee-RAH-bah. Not found in the Qur’an because it came later, its meaning in the Islamic Jurisprudence, the Fiqh, is that of “unholy war” and forbidden “war against society.”
Used in centuries past to condemn barbarians and brigands who would pillage, terrorize and decimate entire tribes and communities, renowned University of Michigan scholar Abdul Hakim (a.k.a. Sherman Jackson) reports that it became for a time “the most severely punished crime in Islam.”
In modern-day parlance, such wanton killing might best be called genocidal terrorism or crime against humanity. Its perpetrators are the “evildoers” (mufsidoon) of whom President George Bush speaks and the “deviants” (munharefoon) of whom Crown Prince Abdullah speaks.
In Islamic religious context, both of these words mean essentially the same thing. In effect, they are evildoers because of their willful deviancy from authentic Islam, and their deviancy consists of their ruthless and unIslamic evildoing. The words are two sides of the same coin.
Among other transgressions against the “peaceful and compassionate and just” Allah of the Qur'an, here are several of the most sinful—earning for their perpetrators what Crown Prince Abdullah calls “the wrath and curse of Allah” --
•Wanton killing of innocents and noncombatants, including many Muslims;
• Committing and encouraging others to commit suicide for the purpose of intimidation;
• Fomenting hatred and envy among communities, nations, religions and civilizations;
• Waging genocidal warfare against nations where Islam is freely practiced;
• Falsely defining all Christians and Jews (and many Muslims) as “infidels”—when authentic Islam calls them all “Children of the Book” (the Old Testament);
• Issuing unauthorized and un-Islamic fatwas (religious edicts), especially bin Laden’s illegitimate 1998 call to aggressive military “Jihad;”
• Misquoting and distorting passages of the Qur’an and the Islamic Jurisprudence, the Fiqh.
Confirming the blasphemous nature of such offenses and the Hellfire awaiting those who commit them, Executive Director Dr. Sayyid M.Syeed of the Islamic Institute of North America (ISNA) has explained in authoritative terms: “The Qur’an and the sayings of the Prophet emphatically distinguish the term Jihad from Hirabah, a destructive act of rebellion committed against God and mankind. Hirabah is an act of terrorism, a subversive act inflicted by an individual or a gang of individuals, breaking the established norms of peace, civic laws, treaties, agreements, moral and ethical codes.... Individuals and groups indulging in Hirabah are condemned as criminals, subjected to severe deterrent punishments under Islamic law and warned of far more punishment and humiliation in the life after life.”
Professor Akbar Ahmed, Chair of Islamic Studies at American University, confirms in equally expert fashion: “Properly understood, this is a war of ideas within Islam—some of them faithful to authentic Islam, but some of them clearly un-Islamic and even blasphemous toward the peaceful and compassionate Allah of the Qur’an.... As a matter of truth-in-Islam, both the ideas and the actions they produce must be called what they actually are, beginning with the fact that al Qaeda’s brand of suicide mass murder and its fomenting of hatred among races, religions and cultures do not constitute godly or holy “Jihad”—but, in fact, constitute the heinous crime and sin of Hirabah.”
Eventual End of al Qaeda
Imagine, then, how difficult it will be for al Qaeda’s mufsidoon (evildoers) to inspire the suicidal zealotry of young Muslims—or to sustain the sympathies of their families, friends and faithful Muslims of any sort—once their forbidden Hirabah (Unholy War) and their tajdeef shaitaniyah (satanic blasphemy) against Allah and the Qur’an are widely recognized as such.
And imagine their own well-deserved terror—repeat, T-E-R-R-O-R—once they envision themselves spending eternity not in a virgin-filled Paradise but in a demon-filled Jahannam (Eternal Hellfire), instead.
At long last—but with virtually no acknowledgement or words of encouragement from us—the Saudi government, long viewed by many as part of the problem rather than part of the solution, has begun to paint this new true-to-Islam picture. Surely, it is high time that we, too, begin changing our language with reference to the al Qaeda scam of so-called “Jihadi martyrdom.”
For us to continue calling the al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah and other suicide mass murderers “Jihadists” (in effect, “holy warriors” and “martyrs” on their way to Paradise) makes no more sense than our pathetic decades-long mistake of calling the fascist-left Soviets, Maoists and Castroites “people’s democrats” and “liberationists” and “progressives.”
Lenin and Stalin called this American and West European practice of linguistic self-destruction “useful idiocy.” The late, great Senator Pat Moynihan complained of it as “semantic infiltration”—our tendency to use the language of our enemies in describing political reality. They were all correct.
Of equal importance to U.S. military might, the fundamental elements of truth-in-language and truth-in-Islam are best able to solve the long-term crisis—by gradually turning all faithful Muslims against the pseudo-Islamic blasphemy of bin Ladenism. Who, after all, are better able than properly motivated Muslims themselves to root out these deadly enemies of Islam from their midst?
In this context, their holy motivation in the Will of Allah would not be that of “saving America or the West” or “bringing criminals to justice” or even “promoting world peace” but of saving their own beloved religion from being perverted into nothing but a hate-filled perpetual killing machine.
Now that the Saudis have belatedly begun the process of demonizing The al Qaeda Blasphemy in Islamic religious terms, we can ill afford to stand by in ignorance and in silence—or to continue relying only on Western secular terms which mean little or nothing to “the Arab Street.”
Via The American MuslimThursday, December 27, 2007
Pakistan: Al-Qaeda claims Bhutto's death
Karachi, 27 Dec. (AKI) - (by Syed Saleem Shahzad) - A spokesperson for the al-Qaeda terrorist network has claimed responsibility for the death on Thursday of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
“We terminated the most precious American asset which vowed to defeat [the] mujahadeen,” Al-Qaeda’s commander and main spokesperson Mustafa Abu Al-Yazid told Adnkronos International (AKI) in a phone call from an unknown location, speaking in faltering English. Al-Yazid is the main al-Qaeda commander in Afghanistan.
It is believed that the decision to kill Bhutto, who is the leader of the opposition Pakistan People's Party (PPP), was made by al-Qaeda No. 2, the Egyptian doctor, Ayman al-Zawahiri in October.
Death squads were allegedly constituted for the mission and ultimately one cell comprising a defunct Lashkar-i-Jhangvi’s Punjabi volunteer succeeded in killing Bhutto.
Bhutto had just addressed a pre-election rally on Thursday in the garrison town of Rawalpindi when the bomb went off.
She had come to Rawalpindi after finishing a rapid election campaign, ahead of the January polls, in Pakistan's volatile North West Frontier Province (NWFP) where she had talked about a war against terrorism and al-Qaeda.
Reports say at least 15 other people were killed in the attack and several others injured.
As news of Bhutto's death spread throughout the country, there are reports that people have taken to the streets to protest the death of the leader of the PPP, which has the largest support of any party in Pakistan.
In the southern port city of Karachi, Bhutto's hometown, residents reportedly threw stones at cars and burnt tyres.
Via AKI, whoever they are. H/T to Konservo.
Comment:
Hmm... Now that I've looked into this, I'm extremely skeptical. The only news agencies reporting that Yazid was responsible are AKI and Asia Times Online, not exactly media giants. Both claim to have been contacted personally by Yazid. Why would he contact them and not, say, Al Jazeera, or the Associated Press, or some other group with actual readers? Furthermore, the Pakistani government is making contradictory claims (which, needless to say, are also suspect). I smell BS.
“We terminated the most precious American asset which vowed to defeat [the] mujahadeen,” Al-Qaeda’s commander and main spokesperson Mustafa Abu Al-Yazid told Adnkronos International (AKI) in a phone call from an unknown location, speaking in faltering English. Al-Yazid is the main al-Qaeda commander in Afghanistan.
It is believed that the decision to kill Bhutto, who is the leader of the opposition Pakistan People's Party (PPP), was made by al-Qaeda No. 2, the Egyptian doctor, Ayman al-Zawahiri in October.
Death squads were allegedly constituted for the mission and ultimately one cell comprising a defunct Lashkar-i-Jhangvi’s Punjabi volunteer succeeded in killing Bhutto.
Bhutto had just addressed a pre-election rally on Thursday in the garrison town of Rawalpindi when the bomb went off.
She had come to Rawalpindi after finishing a rapid election campaign, ahead of the January polls, in Pakistan's volatile North West Frontier Province (NWFP) where she had talked about a war against terrorism and al-Qaeda.
Reports say at least 15 other people were killed in the attack and several others injured.
As news of Bhutto's death spread throughout the country, there are reports that people have taken to the streets to protest the death of the leader of the PPP, which has the largest support of any party in Pakistan.
In the southern port city of Karachi, Bhutto's hometown, residents reportedly threw stones at cars and burnt tyres.
Via AKI, whoever they are. H/T to Konservo.
Comment:
Hmm... Now that I've looked into this, I'm extremely skeptical. The only news agencies reporting that Yazid was responsible are AKI and Asia Times Online, not exactly media giants. Both claim to have been contacted personally by Yazid. Why would he contact them and not, say, Al Jazeera, or the Associated Press, or some other group with actual readers? Furthermore, the Pakistani government is making contradictory claims (which, needless to say, are also suspect). I smell BS.
Monday, December 24, 2007
My question for Zawahri
In the glorious Qur'an, it says:
Samad Afridi
Ashraf Ahmad
Shabbir Ahmad
Umar Ahmad
Azam Ahsan
Ahmed Ali
Tariq Amanullah
Touri Bolourchi
Salauddin Ahmad Chaudhury
Abdul K. Chowdhury
Mohammad S. Chowdhury
Jamal Legesse Desantis
Ramzi Attallah Douani
SaleemUllah Farooqi
Syed Fatha
Osman Gani
Mohammad Hamdani
Salman Hamdani
Aisha Harris
Shakila Hoque
Nabid Hossain
Shahzad Hussain
Talat Hussain
Mohammad Shah Jahan
Yasmeen Jamal
Mohammed Jawarta
Arslan Khan Khakwani
Asim Khan
Ataullah Khan
Ayub Khan
Qasim Ali Khan
Sarah Khan
Taimour Khan
Yasmeen Khan
Zahida Khan
Badruddin Lakhani
Omar Malick
Nurul Hoque Miah
Mubarak Mohammad
Boyie Mohammed
Raza Mujtaba
Omar Namoos
Mujeb Qazi
Tarranum Rahim
Ehtesham U. Raja
Ameenia Rasool
Naveed Rehman
Yusuf Saad
Rahma Salie & unborn child
Shoman Samad
Asad Samir
Khalid Shahid
Mohammed Shajahan
Naseema Simjee
Jamil Swaati
Sanober Syed
Robert Elias Talhami
Michael Theodoridis
W. Wahid
Has Osama bin Laden undertaken to fast for ten years, as is required by the most generous interpretation of Qur'anic law?
And what of those killed in the current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? The suicide bombing tactics you use produce many civilian casualties. These are undeniably intentionally killed believers. Does this not mean that those who carry out such attacks, and those who facilitate them by such means as procuring the explosives and administering the organizations, are destined for hell?
Comment:
Now all I need to do is figure out how to submit it.
"It is not for a believer to take a believer's life except by mistake; and he who kills a believer by mistake should free a slave who is a believer, and pay blood-money to the victim's family unless they forego it as an act of charity. If he belonged to a community hostile to you but was himself a believer, then a slave who is a believer should be freed. In case he belonged to a people with whom you have a treaty, then give blood-money to his family and free a believing slave. But he who has no means (to do so) should fast for a period of two months continuously to have his sins forgiven by God, and God is all-knowing and all-wise. Any one who kills a believer intentionally will be cast into Hell to abide there for ever, and suffer God's anger and damnation. For him a greater punishment awaits." (4:92-3)On September 11, 2001, the following believers were killed:
Samad Afridi
Ashraf Ahmad
Shabbir Ahmad
Umar Ahmad
Azam Ahsan
Ahmed Ali
Tariq Amanullah
Touri Bolourchi
Salauddin Ahmad Chaudhury
Abdul K. Chowdhury
Mohammad S. Chowdhury
Jamal Legesse Desantis
Ramzi Attallah Douani
SaleemUllah Farooqi
Syed Fatha
Osman Gani
Mohammad Hamdani
Salman Hamdani
Aisha Harris
Shakila Hoque
Nabid Hossain
Shahzad Hussain
Talat Hussain
Mohammad Shah Jahan
Yasmeen Jamal
Mohammed Jawarta
Arslan Khan Khakwani
Asim Khan
Ataullah Khan
Ayub Khan
Qasim Ali Khan
Sarah Khan
Taimour Khan
Yasmeen Khan
Zahida Khan
Badruddin Lakhani
Omar Malick
Nurul Hoque Miah
Mubarak Mohammad
Boyie Mohammed
Raza Mujtaba
Omar Namoos
Mujeb Qazi
Tarranum Rahim
Ehtesham U. Raja
Ameenia Rasool
Naveed Rehman
Yusuf Saad
Rahma Salie & unborn child
Shoman Samad
Asad Samir
Khalid Shahid
Mohammed Shajahan
Naseema Simjee
Jamil Swaati
Sanober Syed
Robert Elias Talhami
Michael Theodoridis
W. Wahid
Has Osama bin Laden undertaken to fast for ten years, as is required by the most generous interpretation of Qur'anic law?
And what of those killed in the current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? The suicide bombing tactics you use produce many civilian casualties. These are undeniably intentionally killed believers. Does this not mean that those who carry out such attacks, and those who facilitate them by such means as procuring the explosives and administering the organizations, are destined for hell?
Comment:
Now all I need to do is figure out how to submit it.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Zawahiri invites media questions
People are invited to pose questions to al-Zawahiri in writing via the two websites before January 16 and both media organisations and individuals are welcome to take part, it said. Al-Zawahiri will then answer the questions "as much as he is able and at the soonest possible occasion".
It did not say whether the answers would be in writing or on video or audiotape. Al-Zawahri, a former eye surgeon born in Egypt, is second-in-command to Osama Bin Laden.
Media presence
Al-Zawahiri has become more prominent in the media than his leader in recent months, releasing at least 16 videos this year in comparison to four from Bin Laden. Last week al-Zawahiri released a video in which he said the British handover of security in Iraq's southern Basra province proved that fighters in Iraq are gaining the upper hand.
He also criticised the US-sponsored Middle East peace conference in a separate video earlier this month, calling it a "betrayal". Al-Zawahiri and Bin Laden are both thought to be in hiding along the Afghan-Pakistan border. The US, which has indicted him in relation to his alleged role in the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, is offering a $25 million reward for his capture.
Via Al Jazeera.
Comment:
I may well take him up on this. Any suggestions on what to ask?
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
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