Hamid Mir – Nobody can deny that there are more than 6300 terrorist attacks after 9/11 all over the world in which Muslims were involved. It does not mean that all the Muslims are terrorists.

The fact is that in all these 6300 terrorist attacks more Muslims were killed than non-Muslims. In most of the cases attackers and victims were all Muslims. Dargai is the recent example where one Muslim suicide bomber killed more than 43 Pakistan Army soldiers. All of them were Muslims. The tragedy of Dargai indicates that Islamic radicals are becoming a threat not only for non-Muslim invaders in Muslim countries, but they have become a threat for the Muslim allies of the West in the war against terror inside the Muslim countries.

Islam is a solution and extremism is a problem
However the Muslim allies of the West, like General Pervaiz Musharraf, are very unlucky. On one side, their friends like George W. Bush have always praised their efforts in the war against terror, but on the other side Western writers like Robert Spencer are creating an impression that the real problem is not radical Islamism: but Islam as such. Robert Spencer claimed that Islam is a violent religion, which orders Muslims to kill all the Jews and Christians, he is also alleging that the Holy Quran allows Muslims to lie and so Muslims should change the Quran. Robert Spencer is wrong. Islam allows Muslim men to marry Jewish and Christian women, without changing their religion. What does it mean? Islam is a tolerant religion. Robert Spencer cannot deny the fact that Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) himself struck a peace-deal with Jews of Medina, if our Prophet could have a peace-deal with Jews, we can also have a peace deal with Jews and Christians.

I don’t understand why some Western writers are trying to impose a radical form of Islam on all the Muslims.I am not a Muslim scholar, but – for me – Islam is very simple, and according to my understanding, Islam is not violent, it is peaceful. Islam says that the blood of an innocent non-Muslim is equal to the blood of a Muslim. The Quran speaks for truth, there is no permission in the Quran for lying. Robert Spencer cannot malign Islam with wrong facts and figures. He cannot mix-up real Islam with extremism.

Islam is a solution and extremism is a problem, so Islam and extremism are two different things. I believe that the presence of the Muslims and existence of Mosques in America and the West provides the biggest security for the American non-Muslims. That is the reason Al Qaeda wants Muslims to leave America, because if there were another attack in America, bigger than 9/11, a lot of Muslims would also be killed and that attack could give a bad name to Al Qaeda. I think that there was no big terrorist attack inside America after 9/11, primarily because of millions of Muslims living there, and in spite of the fact that Al Qaeda wants them to leave America, they are not leaving.

There are several other reasons for a delay of the WMD attack, called “American Hiroshima” and announced by Al Qaeda, but one important reason is that millions of Muslims are still present in America.

How I got in touch with Osama bin Ladin
Before going into the details of the al-Qaeda-conceived “American Hiroshima” plan, I would like to tell you something about Osama bin Ladin. A number of people around me are interested in one simple question: how I got in touch with the most wanted person in the world? I still believe that it was one of my columns, written against the Taliban, which put me face to face with Osama bin Ladin. I remember that only a few days after the capture of Kabul by the Taliban militia in September 1996, I was traveling with the then Prime Minister of Pakistan Ms. Benazir Bhutto to cover her visit to Britain and the United States.

I raised a question: If the US thinks that Osama is a terrorist, then why it is supporting the Taliban, who are protecting Osama?”

She delivered a lecture on the situation in the South Asia at the International Institute of Strategic Studies, in London. In her speech she supported the Taliban. The Student Militia (the Taliban) captured Kabul on 26th of September and, on the 30th of September 1996, Ms. Benazir Bhutto was trying to convince her Western audience in London that the Taliban phenomenon was indigenous and that Pakistan was not covertly supporting them. When she finished her lecture, a Pakistani human-rights activist, Asma Jahangir, stood up and asked: “The Taliban are closing down schools for girls in Afghanistan and you are supporting them, how can you claim to be a champion of women’s rights?”

After coming back to Pakistan, I wrote a column (on 8th October 1996), in an Urdu “Daily Pakistan”, entitled: “Why the US is supporting the Taliban?” I quoted three British newspapers in my column: the Observer, the Sunday Times and the Independent that had clearly accused in their reports that Americans were secretly supporting the Taliban, who were also protecting Osama bin Ladin. Tim Mac Grick filed a report from Kabul, published on 6th October 1996 in the Independent. The report said that both the US and Pakistan were supporting a group, which was involved in human-rights violations in Afghanistan. Referring to the report in my column, I raised a question: “If the US thinks that Osama is a terrorist, then why it is supporting the Taliban, who are protecting Osama?”

My hard-hitting column on the Taliban was published in a paper which was very popular in the Pushtoon-dominated North West Frontier Province (NWFP) of Pakistan. A few days after that, some Taliban officials contacted me and expressed their desire that I should meet their leader Mullah Mohammad Omar in Kandahar. I was not interested to meet Mullah Omar at that time, because the political situation in Pakistan was heading towards a dramatic change. According to my sources, President Farooq Leghari was conspiring to oust Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and I was more interested in the political developments inside Pakistan. (Benazir was finally removed on November 6, 1996.)

Then came another surprise. The US Assistant Secretary of State Mrs. Robin Raphael, speaking in a closed-door UN session in New York on November 16, 1996 bluntly explained: “The Taliban control more than two-third of the country, they are Afghan, they are indigenous, and they have demonstrated staying power. The real source of their success has been the willingness of many Afghans, particularly Pashtoons, to tacitly trade unending fighting and chaos for a measure of peace and security, even with several social restrictions. It is not in the interest of Afghanistan or any of us here that the Taliban be isolated.”

I was surprised that Robin Raphael was not bothered by the “social restrictions” the Taliban imposed in Afghanistan. To know more about student rulers, I decided to visit Afghanistan and to meet Mullah Omar. I contacted some Taliban officials through a prominent Pakistani religious leader Maulana Sami ul Haq and I reached Kandahar next month.

I met Mullah Omar, Mullah Ghaus and lot of other Taliban leaders in Kandahar. Most of them complained about my column of the 8th October in the “Daily Pakistan” and about what I said that Radio Tehran declared them “American Agents” by quoting my column. I still remember the words of Mullah Omar echoing in my ears. He said: “If we were American agents then why we could have good relations with their big enemy Sheikh Osama?” I asked: “Where is he” and Mullah Omar simply answered, “Sheikh is living in Jalalabad.” I asked then: “if you were not American agents, why didn’t you arrange my meeting with Osama bin Ladin and if he said that you were protecting him, then the world would come to know about the reality and I would also write that you were not working for Americans.”

Mullah Omar was sitting on ground; after hearing my words he stood up in happiness, clapped his hand like kids do, and gave instructions to contact Maulvi Younas Khalis in Jalalabad for arranging my meeting with Osama bin Ladin.

In February 1997, a Taliban delegation had flown to the Unocal Corporation headquarters at Sugarland, Texas, for a whirlwind of corporate hospitality. I again contacted Taliban officials in Kandahar and I asked them: while their relations with Americans were still developing, how could they refute the charges that they were part of the American agenda?

The reaction of the Taliban forced me to realize, for the first time, the simmering differences within the Taliban ranks. Many Taliban leaders openly criticized Mullah Ghaus for his engagement with the Americans. In March 1997, some Arabs and Afghans in Islamabad contacted and informed me that I would see their “Sheikh” soon in Afghanistan, but they instructed me to keep quiet. I noticed that some of their Pakistani collaborators started monitoring my daily movements. After a few days of espionage activities, one night they came to my office in Melody Market, Islamabad and told me to get ready to go with them next morning.

I reached to Jalalabad in Afghanistan the same evening and I met Osama bin Ladin for the first time. I spent my first night in his cave and, next morning, when he was proposing a grand alliance between Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and China against US imperialism in his interview, I was completely confused. I was thinking if the Taliban were implementing any American agenda, then why this man was terming America as an “evil”?

If Pakistan was supporting the Taliban to minimize the Iranian influence in Afghanistan, then why this dangerous guest of the Taliban was proposing an anti-American alliance in the region, which included Iran? If the Americans were aware that the Taliban forces were protecting Osama, then why they were supporting them? Who was using whom? Nobody can deny the fact that the American administration ignored the rise of the Taliban and protected them to protect the US oil concerns.

Just weeks before the 9/11 attacks, US Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca met Taliban officials in Islamabad, in July 2001. She announced aid for the Taliban, worth 43 million dollars in food and shelter. When Christina Rocca announced that aid, I asked several of my American friends: why the US was unable to understand the strong ties between Mullah Omar and Osama bin Ladin? I got no satisfactory answer from any one of them.

Al Qaeda’s nuclear ambitions
I came to know about the nuclear ambitions of Al Qaeda in May 1998 when I traveled to Afghanistan again and I saw a Ukrainian scientist present in the ranks of Al Qaeda. I also met two black Americans around bin Ladin in Kandahar. At that time Osama bin Ladin was not willing to speak about his nuclear plans. I spent two days with him and confronted him on a question: how can he justify the killing of all the Americans in the light of Islamic teachings because in Islam the blood of an innocent non-Muslim is equal to the blood of a Muslim. My interview with him was very long. Actually it became a hot debate, and finally I told him that I cannot summarize this whole conversation in one newspaper interview and I would write a book now.

In the next three years, the presence of the Ukrainian scientist and of the two black Americans around OBL was a matter of great confusion for me. I was thinking that if OBL wants to kill all the Americans, including Muslims, then why two black American Muslims joined him? I tried to find out answers to these questions and I delayed my book.

Just one day before my third interview with Osama bin Ladin in Afghanistan, in November 2001, I met an Al Qaeda operator Yousaf in a Kabul hideout, where I was asked to wait. Yousaf was talking about the use of nuclear materials inside America. At that time Kabul was under intense US bombing. I also lost the hope of my own survival, I wrote a letter to my wife and apologized for my blunder of visiting Afghanistan during war times, but there were no means of sending that letter to Pakistan.

Then I noticed that Yousaf wrote something on a piece of paper and handed over to one Chechen fighter. He asked him to deliver that message as soon as possible to some fellow fighters in America and make it sure that they should not be panicked if any of our important leaders were martyred, they had to follow the instructions of Jaffer.I requested from the Chechen fighter that he carry my letter with him and just post it after entering inside Pakistan but he said “sorry” to me in a broken English, because he was not going to Pakistan, he was going to Iran.

Anyhow, the next day I was sitting in front of Osama bin Ladin and that was the time when Osama clearly admitted that he has nuclear weapons as means of deterrence. Within a few minutes after his disclosure, Dr. Ayman al Zawahri told me that it was not difficult to buy some suitcase nukes from Russian underworld just for few hundred million dollars.

After my last meeting with Osama bin Ladin, I have traveled to Afghanistan again and again. I also visited Iran, I visited Russia and I traveled in the mountains of Chechnya, I visited Uzbekistan, Syria, Lebanon and also I went to India, just to investigate about the nuclear capabilities of Al Qaeda.I got lots of information about the smuggling of enriched uranium and about the purchase of some suitcase nukes by Al Qaeda from Moscow. I interviewed one Chechen leader who told me that they had smuggled three suitcase nukes from Russia to Georgia, and from Georgia to Italy. At least two of the suitcase nukes were finally smuggled inside America with the help of Italian underworld.

I interviewed one Chechen leader who told me that they had smuggled three suitcase nukes from Russia to Georgia, and from Georgia to Italy. At least two of the suitcase nukes were finally smuggled inside America with the help of Italian underworld.

Certainly some Pakistani scientists were also in contact with Al Qaeda, but an Egyptian “brigade” of Al Qaeda scientists tested a dirty bomb in the mountains of Kunar in 2000, without the help of Pakistanis, and that was the reason an Egyptian scientist lost his eyesight due to radiation.

Two attacks on America and the role of Iran
This is very important. Al Qaeda planned two attacks against America,one was implemented on 9/11 and the second was not yet implemented.A total of 42 fighters had been trained for attacking America, 19 of them were used and killed on 9/11, and the remaining 23 are still at large. These 23 “death lovers” are hiding somewhere in America. These 23 people are the real threat to America. It is also a fact that more than 8000 fighters were trained by Al Qaeda in Afghanistan during 1996-2001.Many of them are also hiding in America and in different European countries. They may try to attack with some dirty bombs and maybe with some suitcase nuclear bombs. The threat is real, not only for America but for all the allies of America, including Pakistan.

Just a few days back, 5000 Pakistani tribals threatened Musharraf by suicide attacks in the Pakistani tribal area of Bajour, which is only 300 kilometers away from the Capital Islamabad. This suicide terrorism is the product of the Iranian intelligence in the Muslim world. Iranians gave the lesson of suicide bombings to Hezbollah in Lebanon in the early 80’s; Al Qaeda learned it from Hezbollah and then spread it from Iraq to Afghanistan.

In my opinion, the biggest failure in the war against terror is a possible victory of Iran in Iraq, in Afghanistan and in Lebanon. Today the elected PM in Iraq is a follower of Ayatollah Sistani, who is being dictated by Iranians.Today Iranians are helping the Taliban in Afghanistan and they are using Hezbollah in Lebanon. There is no check on Iran and this is the biggest failure in the war against terror. Iranians are playing double games everywhere, they are controlling some government ministers in Iraq and they are also using Al Qaeda in Iraq.

Now they are trying to organize a new Hezbollah in Afghanistan. It is no more a secret in Afghanistan that Iran is providing money and weapons to the Taliban. Some very high ranking Afghan security officials admitted to me that even Russians are using the Taliban against NATO forces in Afghanistan, but they cannot expose Iran and Russia because they have a strong lobby inside the Afghan government.

Afghanistan is becoming a new battlefield between Iran and America.
Russia is on the Iranian side, while more than 37 countries are standing with America. The problem is that the American allies like Pakistan are confused. The majority of the Pashtun population in Pakistan is with the Taliban, because they are facing bad law and order situation in their neighboring areas, after the fall of the Taliban regime. Even then Pakistan is helping America.

Since the war against terror has been started, after 9/11, and the Taliban regime was dismanteled, there are bomb blasts in two Pakistani provinces every second or third day, which are not reported here in America. We believe that Indians are using Afghanistan to create disturbance in Pakistan. This situation has created misunderstandings between the Pakistani and Afghani governments, which is very unfortunate.

Many people here think that Pakistan will become a dangerous country without Musharraf. Some people think that the Pakistani nuclear weapons will go into the hands of the Taliban and they will attack America.

When this question was asked to Musharraf recently, he said that according to the constitution the Chairman of the Senate will become the caretaker President, the parliament will elect a new President in three months and his political allies will run the government smoothly.

Nobody can steal our nuclear weapons because they are coded. The Taliban cannot decode them. Our nuclear weapons are India-specific, their range is between 1500 to 2000 kilometers. America is far away from Pakistan and nobody here has a delivery system capable to explode these missiles in America.

There is also another misconception. Many people in the Muslim countries think that America is not fighting a war against terror but it is fighting against Islam. Anti-Americanism is becoming a political culture in the South Asia and the Middle East. I have two examples. President George W. Bush visited India and Pakistan early this year. Thousands of radical Muslims and Hindu Communists marched against America the day Bush landed in India. Same was the case in Lebanon.

I saw thousands of pro-Hezbollah Shia and Sunni Muslims, including Christians, shouting against Condoleezza Rice in Beirut during the recent Lebanon-Israel war. US Secretary of State tried her best to prove that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization and that Israel is fighting against terrorism, but the people of the most modern and most liberal country of the Middle East, Lebanon, were not ready to listen to American government. This war further strengthened the relations between Islamic militants and Christian leftists. President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez openly supported Hezbollah and became a popular figure in many Muslim countries. What does it mean?

Anti-Americanism is not religious, it is mainly political.
The last Lebanon war increased anti-Americanism in Pakistan and Afghanistan and you can see sudden increase in suicide attacks against Western troops after the war in Lebanon. I must say that anti-Americanism in our part of the world is not increasing because the Americans are really bad people. I think most of the Americans are very simple and innocent people, Muslims are still treated better in America, than in the many Muslim countries, freedom and democracy is the real strength of the American society. I think that actually America is facing an image problem.

For example, Palestinians can get American citizenship even today, but they are not welcome in many Arab countries, then why America is not popular among most of the Palestinians? I think the Americans need a serious debate on that question.

Britain is called “mother of democracy,” but today British Muslim women are facing some new laws, of which they think they are not democratic. Muslim women are not feeling comfortable even in France. As for as America is concerned, Muslims are not facing any problems here in practicing Islam. Then why many Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq believe that the American war against terrorism is a “Crusade”, a Christian war against Islam? Who is responsible for that misunderstanding?

Weak US strategy.
First of all, Americans depended on warlords and drug smugglers, after the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan. That is why today Afghanistan is the world’s largest producer of opium. The most significant strategic miscalculation was the US invasion of Iraq, without stabilizing Afghanistan first. There is a perception in the Muslim world that the US attacked Iraq not for the (non-existent) WMDs but for oil. Dismantling of the administration and the Army in Iraq further deteriorated the situation. The UN proposed a government of technocrats in Iraq, but Paul Bremer imposed a corrupt person like Ahmed Chellabi as the new PM of Iraq, a man who was actually an Iranian agent. Iranians provided safe passage to Al Qaeda for entering into Iraq and that’s how Al Qaeda got an opportunity to establish new training camps there.

Conspiracy therories about 9/11.
Many Muslims still don’t believe that Osama bin Ladin is responsible for the 9/11 attacks. There are many books written (like “9/11 The Big Lie” by Thierry Meysson) in the West and also some films produced in the West, denying the official version of the US government on 9/11. This “conspiracy theories” are very popular in the Muslim world. Many people tell, without any hesitation, that 9/11 was a “Jewish conspiracy” against the Muslims.

US support for authoritarian regimes.
Many Muslims don’t like America for its support of autocratic governments in the Middle East. President Bush is proud for liberating Iraq and Afghanistan from their repressive regimes, but why not liberate Saudi Arabia, why not Egypt and why not Qatar?

Lack of unity.
The allied countries in the war against terrorism are not united. Spain and the Philippines have pulled out their troops from Iraq. On the other side, the Pakistani and Afghani governments are accusing each other for playing double games. They couldn’t still agree on how to stop the illegal cross-border movement. You will be surprised to know that even today there is no international border between the two countries. People can cross the border without any documents. The ultimate beneficiary is Al Qaeda.

What are the possible solutions?

1-First of all, we have to prove that this war on terror is not a clash of two civilizations, that it is not the war between Islam and the West, and it is really a war against terrorism. World leaders, like John Howard of Australia, should not support the controversial statements of Pope Benedict XVI about the Prophet of Islam. We need to promote a real inter-faith dialogue.

2-Secondly, try to engage popular militant movements like Hamas and Hezbollah in dialogue. At least these two organizations still believe in democracy. Dialogue is very important. When you start a dialogue after lot of failures and casualties, you cannot have a good bargain. This is the case in the North Wazirastan. There, the Pakistani forces struck a deal with the Taliban, after more than 650 casualties on both sides .But now the Taliban fighters have an upper hand in the deal.

3-America should try to increase the role of the UN, at least in Iraq. If the UN forces can take over Southern Lebanon from Hezbollah, then why not in Iraq. US troops can operate under the command of the UN, and the number of Asian and African troops must be increased in eventual UN forces deployed to Iraq. The success in Iraq can lead international community to bring peace in Afghanistan, on the same lines. I know that a lot of Americans have negative thinking about the UN, but they have no other option than to strengthen the UN.

4-The NATO forces in Afghanistan (ISAF) and the Pakistani forces in their own tribal areas must avoid killing innocent civilians. Try to understand their tribal culture, if you kill one innocent among them, they will kill at least ten on your side in revenge, by becoming suicide bombers. Most of the suicide bombers in Afghanistan and Pakistan were those who wanted to take revenge on the security forces. There is no international border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. We need a proper border in the North- West of Pakistan, but also the same border in the South of Afghanistan to stop the Iranian interference.

5-The US Government must launch an aggressive public campaign in the Muslim countries for improving the image of the United States there. On the other hand, more and more Islamic scholars should be invited to the US for improving the image of the Muslims.

6-And finally, America must withdraw its support from the repressive Muslim regimes and must promote real democracy in our part of the world. We want democracies with independent judiciary and with free press. Freedom and democracy is the real strength of America, we need the same thing in our societies. Promoting real democracy is the ultimate solution, the only way to defeat terrorism. Now in Afghanistan you have a vibrant parliament, but without independent judiciary and with no free press. Injustice, illiteracy and poverty create terrorism. We have to defeat injustice, illiteracy and poverty, while defeating terrorism.

In the end I must say that America should secure its border with Mexico. This 2000 kilometers loose border is the biggest route of Al Qaeda infiltration into America. Al Qaeda has transferred their weapons and suicide bombers inside America via the Mexican border, there is no use of asking common passengers to take of their boots off in all of the American airports until the Mexican border is not properly sealed.

This paper was presented in a symposium in Las Vegas organized by America’s Truth Forum in November 2006

Muslims ordered to leave the United States: Next Attack Imminent

Harald Haack – Pompös und majestätisch steht es in Hamburg, das Gebäude des Oberlandesgerichts, als könne ihm nichts anhaben. Doch in Wirklichkeit kocht und brodelt es um ihn herum. Der Grund: Der 7. Strafsenat sieht keinen Grund den als Terrorhelfer verurteilten Mounir al-Motassadeq wieder in Haft zu nehmen, solange nicht das neue Strafmaß, wie vom Bundesgerichtshof in Karlsruhe entschieden, vom Oberlandesgericht festgesetzt wurde. Bundesanwälte, Nebenkläger und Politiker wittern aber Fluchtgefahr und befürchten eine Blamage, falls Motassadeq, wie von ihnen erwartet, untertauchen und sich damit der deutschen Justiz entziehen sollte.

Oberlandesgericht in Hamburg: Der 7. Strafsenat verärgert Terrorfahnder.
© Foto: Harald Haack

Doch zum gegenwärtigen Zeitpunkt scheinen sich jene, die ihn wieder hinter Gitter sehen wollen, als wütende Hetzer und Scharfmacher zu offenbaren. Motassadeq hatte seine Familie schon vor zwei Monaten zurück in die marokkanische Heimat geschickt – mit einem One-Way-Ticket. Dies wird als Grund für eine bevorstehende Flucht angesehen. Doch Motassadeqs Anwalt, gab bekannt, der Hamburger Rechtsanwalt Ladislav Anisic, sein Mandant wolle „sich weder absetzen noch der Verhandlung über sein Strafmaß entziehen“. In Hamburg sei sein Mandant bisher allen Auflagen der Gerichte nachgekommen und wolle dies auch künftig tun. Motassadeq habe bereits seit Wochen gewusst, dass ihm ein höheres Strafmaß drohe, auch das habe ihn nicht zur Flucht animiert, so Anisic. Seinem Mandaten drohen 15 Jahre Haft. Offenbar hat er sich damit abgefunden und erkannt, dass eine Flucht nach Marokko ihm in die Arme der CIA treiben werde und damit in eine tödliche Ungewißheit. 15 Jahre Haft sind zwar eine lange Zeit, doch in Deutschland wird diese Strafe wahrscheinlich sein Leben schützen – wenn nicht Mithäftlinge und Justizangestellte Selbstjustiz üben.

Das höchste deutsche Gericht hat das Urteil gegen den Marokkaner Mounir al-Motassadeq als mutmasslichen Helfer bei den Terroranschlägen vom 11. September 2001 verschärft. Neu wird ihm auch Beihilfe zum Mord angelastet.

Motassadeq, ein enger Freund des Hauptattentäters vom 11. September, Mohammed Atta, war im vergangenen Jahr vom Oberlandesgericht Hamburg lediglich wegen Mitgliedschaft in einer terroristischen Vereinigung verurteilt worden. Das Strafmass betrug sieben Jahre Haft.

Der deutsche Bundesgerichtshof (BGH), das höchste deutsche Gericht, sprach den 32-Jährigen nun zusätzlich der Beihilfe zum Mord in 246 Fällen für schuldig; das sind die Todesopfer, die in den von den Terroristen entführten Flugzeugen zu Tode kamen. Der BGH hatte bereits zuvor angedeutet, dass er der Ansicht sei, Motassadeq habe zumindest von den geplanten Flugzeugentführungen gewusst. Das Oberlandesgericht Hamburg muss nun ein neues Strafmass festsetzen.

Mit der Entscheidung hatte die Revision der Bundesanwaltschaft zum grossen Teil Erfolg. Es war bereits der zweite Revisionsprozess gegen den mutmasslichen Terrorhelfer. Im ersten Prozess war Motassadeq im Februar 2003 wegen Mitgliedschaft in der Terrorzelle und wegen Beihilfe zum Mord zu 15 Jahren Freiheitsstrafe verurteilt worden. Dieses Urteil hatte der BGH jedoch aufgehoben, weil US-Behörden Aussagen von inhaftierten Terrorverdächtigen nicht frei gegeben hatten. Im zweiten Prozess standen diese Aussagen dann zur Verfügung.

Seit Februar auf freiem Fuss
Motassadeq ist seit Februar auf freiem Fuss, er muss sich regelmässig bei der Polizei melden. Die Bundesanwaltschaft erwägte nach dem Urteil nach Angaben ihres Prozessvertreters, Motassadeq erneut in Haft nehmen zu lassen.

Anti-Semitism and Francophobic excesses are a daily routine

David Dastych with collaboration of Irena Elster, Paris – “What should the free world do while facing Islamist intimidation?” – wrote Robert Redeker, a French philosophy teacher and writer. His op-ed article, published by Le Figaro in Paris on September 19, 2006 resulted in many death-threats, directed at its author for his alleged “defamation of Islam and of Prophet Mohammed”. These threats must have been serious, because two months after the publishing Redeker is still hiding in his own country, under the protection of security services.

Cartoon by Zabuski

A short time after leaving his home in Toulouse, Robert Redeker wrote this dramatic letter to his friend, a well-known philosopher and human rights activist – Andre Glucksmann:

„I am now in a catastrophic personal situation. Several death threats have been sent to me, and I have been sentenced to death by organizations of the al-Qaeda movement. […] On the websites condemning me to death there is a map showing how to get to my house to kill me, they have my photo, the places where I work, the telephone numbers, and the death pronouncement. […] There is no safe place for me, I have to beg, two evenings here, two evenings there. […] I am under the constant protection of the police. I must cancel all scheduled conferences.

And the authorities urge me to keep moving. […] All costs are at my own expense, including those of rents a month or two ahead, the costs of moving twice, legal expenses, etc. It’s quite sad. I exercised my constitutional rights, and I am punished for it, even in the territory of the Republic. This affair is also an attack against national sovereignty – foreign rules, decided by criminally minded fanatics, punish me for having exercised a constitutional right, and I am subjected, even in France, to great injury.“

His situation didn’t change much after several weeks. Recently he wrote to his friends in Paris:

“I don’t have the right to put my nose outside. And this continues for almost four weeks. The man, who was acknowledged to be the author of threats against me, has been set free, under legal control. And I, his victim, I live under conditions of quasi-detention. I don’t have the right to leave, I am not free to do anything, except sending e-mails and telephoning. I do not even have the right to open the shutters. And one of the culprits is given freedom; he has the rights of which I have been deprived. It’s horrible to live.”

Pierre Rousselin, the editor in chief of Le Figaro, apologized on Al-Jazeera TV for the publication of the article. A number of Islamic countries, including Egypt, banned Le Figaro following the publication of Redeker’s piece. Mr Rousselin said the publication of the op-ed was a mistake. He said the article did not express the paper’s opinion. The article is no longer available on the Figaro website. But, ever since, it was reprinted, reposted or quoted in many countries, with positive or negative comments. We are posting herewith the full text of Mr. Redeker’s op-ed published in Le Figaro, as a supplement (below this article), for our Readers to make their own judgments on it.

Should we tolerate fanaticism, once more?
The Ministry for National Education did not grant any support to Mr. Redeker, an appointed high-school teacher. How long a time can one hide in his own country because of a gang of fanaticized terrorists, pursuing a citizen who simply has expressed his concern, after a wave of Islamist excesses following the lecture of pope Benedict XVI? Even if Mr. Redeker sharply criticized Islam in his article, should he pay by his head for this offence? Is France of today a country where free speech can be punished – against the law – by death? It’s absurd, but still true.

The case of Robert Redeker is not the first of its kind. Three years earlier, in September of 2003, Louis Chagnon, a Christian and a History teacher in the Georges Pompidou College in Courbevoie, became the object of harassment, and even of legal proceedings, following a lesson of history, when he dictated to his pupils the following words: “Mohammed changed into a robber and an assassin […] when he ordered the massacre of the third and last Jewish tribe of Medina, some 600 to 900 people of the Quaraizah, in May 627.” The parents of some of these pupils demanded from the Ministry of Education to lay off the teacher. This was only the beginning of a long series of harassments and vexations, during which one did not hesitate to call upon the administration, justice and to launch a press campaign against the history lecturer.

Louis Chagnon received the support of several French organizations and their Web sites, such as: laic.info, Primo-Europe, UPJF.org, and also of one of the top journalists of Le Figaro – Ivan Rioufol. There were no death-threats against him, so far, contrary to the case of Robert Redeker.

At the end of his Le Figaro article, Redeker concluded:

“As in the Cold War, where violence and intimidation were the methods used by an ideology hell bent on hegemony, so today Islam tries to put its leaden mantel all over the world. Benedict XVI’s cruel experience is testimony to this. Nowadays, as in these times, the West has to be called the “free world” in comparison to the Muslim world; likewise, the enemies of the “free world”, the zealous bureaucrats of the Koran’s vision, who swarm in the very center of the “free world”, should be called by their true name.”

One couldn’t say it better. Salman Rushdie, the Indian writer, against whom the Ayatollah Khomeini pronounced his death sentence in 1989, because of his novel “The Satanic Verses” – flees the assassins after seventeen years. In September of 2006, he came to visit Poland. At a press-conference in Warsaw, Rushdie joked: “I don’t wish anybody to be condemned to death by Khomeini. This said, I am still alive, which is not any more the case of Khomeini. Beware of the writers!” In October of this year, at an event organized by the Center for Inquiry in New York, Salman Rushdie spoke frankly on the ongoing debate in America and Western Europe over Islam and terrorism. Rushdie called for a reform movement in Islam including a re-interpretation of the Koran to take it away from the ‘literalists’.

“Douce France” [1]
In a modest 18th District [18e Arrondissement] of Paris, located not far from La Porte de la Chapelle, near a subway station of the same name, there’s still a high building, a banal communal house, called by local people “The Babel Tower”. In the early 1990s, it was cohabited by Frenchmen of various origins, religions and different colors of skin. On the ground floor, there was also a kind of club, which accommodated everyone. Not a poor man’s house, this Tower. The 18th district was also multicultural, populated by ordinary people, with many Arab and Chinese restaurants, Vietnamese shops, and a local market, from which emanated exotic fragrances.

“Douce France” [Sweet France] and its republican ideals: Freedom-Equality-Fraternity always attracted the immigrants from the whole world. The oldest among them, the Jews, completely integrated, regard themselves as French. The integration of the Moslems, mainly from North Africa, although they declare the French nationality, proceeds much more slowly, sometimes in opposition to the society and with feelings of alienation. Not every one of them had the chance of Zidane, and many of young Moslems yield to the influence of radical ideas. This brings about primitive reactions, like violence and vandalism (“I will burn Paris!”), sometimes extending to criminal actions. France of today lives through a difficult period of conflicts, witnessing the return of racialism, anti-Semitism, xenophobia and also the birth of…Francophobia. Strange but true, some French citizens are anti-French!

When looked at from abroad, these inter-ethnic conflicts and the absence of the integration of certain part of the French population is really astonishing.

This is France, where the Church is separated from the State by the laws of 1905, still valid, recently amended in 2001 and 2004, and prohibiting any discrimination on religious grounds, this France does not manage to observe her own laws. Today the population of France nears 63 million, of which only 12 per cent practice religion regularly. 64.3 per cent of Frenchmen are considered Catholic (but only 8 per cent of them are practicing), 27 per cent do not identify themselves with any religion, and 8.7 per cent are the believers of other religions. This last group is made up from 49.4 per cent of Moslems, and only 7 per cent of Jews (the statistics of 2004). In absolute figures, the French Moslems amount to 5 to 10 million [no exact figures are available] and the French Jews number about 600 thousand (60 per cent of them are the believers, but avoid religious practices). [2]

The religious demography of France does not provide any base for the explanation of conflicts between the Moslems and the Jews. The authorities try to make popular the mutual respect of the citizens of various origins and religions. The laws repress the racialist aggression, as well as the public negation of the crimes against humanity, such as the Shoah. When in March of 2004 the ostentatious wearing of religious symbols (as the Islamic scarf for women, the Jewish kippa, and the large Christian crosses) was interdicted in the country’s schools, only one religious group openly protested. There were protests of Moslem school-girls, but the action seemed to stop there. The media reported that, on 13 million of children and teenagers in the French schools, only 1,200 pupils (girls) were still wearing the Moslem scarf in school.

In July of 2004, the National Assembly passed a bill [3], authorizing the repression of the people exhibiting “deliberated acts of discrimination, hatred or violence directed against a definite individual or group of persons.” On the basis of this resolution, the imam Abdelkader Bouziane could be expelled from France, in October 2004, for having preached that husbands have the right to beat their wives. The same imam was known for cheating the French social aid office and pocketing over Euro 5,000 per month for his alleged children and divorced wives.

“I’ve killed a Jew, I will go to the Paradise!”
Until the mid-1990s, the Moslem anti-Semitism in France was a phenomenon either rare, or dissimulated. But the first in many years anti-Semitic crime, perpetrated on October 19, 2003, was really horrible. Sebastien Sellam, 21, an appreciated disc-jockey of a chic Paris club in the Champs-Elisees, the “Queen”, left his apartment and went down to the garage to take his car out and to drive to work. At this point, he was brutally attacked by his neighbor, a Moslem youth. The attacker sliced his throat with a knife and gouged out his eyes with a fork. Then he went up the steps to his door, his hands in blood, shouting: “Mum, I killed a Jew, I will go to Paradise!”

The family of the assassin was already known for their anti-Jewish opinions. The close relatives of the victim already had been already finding on the threshold of their door, cocks with their throat sliced – a traditional warning of assassination. The day of the crime, another Moslem, Mohammed Grib, assaulted Mrs. Chantal Piekolek (a 53 year-old French woman, married to a Jew), larding her with some 27 blows of a knife into her chest and neck. Except for a popular tabloid Le Parisien, these two horrible crimes did not draw any attention of the mainstream French media. The Police advised Sebastien’s family not to tell anybody that the crime was an anti-Semitic act.

Ilan Halimi had been dropped close to the railway tracks. Soon after, he died. The Police advised Sebastien’s family not to tell anybody that the crime was an anti-Semitic act.

It was only the second such crime, also committed against a Jew and discovered on February 13, 2006, which “deserved” the attention on the first pages of the print media, and which shocked the public opinion in France and in Europe. On this day, a woman found a Jewish youth, Ilan Halimi, atrociously mutilated and in agony, in a Southern suburb of Paris – Bagneux. He had been dropped close to the railway tracks. Soon after, he died.

Let’s recall the facts: about January 20, 2006, when a young woman invited Ilan to a rendez-vous. It was an ambush. The young man was kidnapped and then cruelly tortured during three weeks by an Arab-Black gang, calling itself “The Barbarians”. Their motives were presented as criminal: they held Ilan’s family to a Euro 1.0 million ransom. But it was just a pretext to avoid the accusation of an anti-Semite hate crime. The whole body of the victim was burned with cigarettes, with acid and was larded by blows of the knife. The leader of the group, Youssef Fofana, was caught by Police on the Ivory Coast, after having fled from France.

When arrested, he tried to justify his crime by telling the Police officers: “We caught him, because he was a Jew, and the Jews are rich” – a typical excuse, using an anti-Semitic stereotype. The Court of Justice finally confirmed the anti-Semitic motive of the crime. Twenty-three members of the “Barbarians” were arrested and brought to justice. Several high officials of the French Government attended the burial ceremony of Ilan Halimi in the Synagogue de la Victoire in Paris, together with representatives of Christian and Moslem religious communities.

On February 26, 2006, a procession of over 100,000 people was formed in Paris, in homage to Ilan. Photo © by Irena Elster

On February 23, 2006, a procession of over 100,000 people was formed in Paris, in homage to Ilan, and to express the protest against racialism and anti-Semitism. The family of the victim complained that the Police acted too slowly and that the anti-Semitic motives of the crime hardly found their way to be openly expressed. [4] Later on, the parents of the victim had been tormented by allegations of MRAP, a tendentious organization, which organized legal processes against many Jews and against the people who defended them. They also organized legal help to the assassins, in an abject way, with no respect to the parents of Ilan, who opposed them.

Islam buys the media
Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the President of OIC (Organization of the Islamic Conference) found a suitable way to counter the alleged anti-Islam campaign in the Western media. At a recent meeting of the OIC in Jeddah, in Saudi Arabia, he proposed: “The Moslem investors should invest money in the big international media organizations, which often generate sizable profits, in order to be able to influence their policy through the boards of directors.”

At the time of globalization and freedom of capital movement, it is not difficult to invest in the media. The Arab capital, particularly of the Saudis, has for a long time been present in the West, and France is one of these countries, where the Gulf States invest readily. The network of the interests between the Moslem countries and France is very vast. It includes many fields of commerce and industry.

The question is thus: up to what point the Arab and Moslem investments in the media can influence and endanger the traditional French moderation, tolerance and the respect for the free expression of opinions? In Paris there are rumors circulating according to which 45 per cent of the shares of the biggest French news service, the AFP, could already be in the hands of Saudi investors. In spite of its serious reputation, which AFP enjoys in the international media world, its information policy sometimes evokes suspicion [5].

For example, until recently, AFP avoided calling terrorists…by their true name: “terrorists”, inventing such euphemisms as “combatants”, “partisans” or “resistance movement”. One journalists told us the following anecdote: Some time ago, on a display boards in the corridors of the Agency, appeared a note authorizing the use of the word “terrorist”. But for how long? The press, particularly on the Left, shows much “comprehension” and sympathy toward the Islamists, while severely attacking the United States, Israel, liberalism and capitalism.

At the head of the list of such papers is the much respected daily Le Monde… It could eventually become Liberation, for which sales have dropped and which looks for ways to save itself. Caroline Fourest, a journalist of a popular satirical weekly Charlie-Hebdo (the newspaper which published the Danish caricatures and is facing legal action by Islamist organizations), expressed a concern that the financial contributions of Arab investors might influence the political direction of the French media. She remarked ironically [6]: “One thinks of a new Libe, a mix of Al-Manar and Islamo-gauchism”. As for the difficult financial standing of some papers – she added – it could be better to let them to collapse, than to yield to the diktats of the Gulf Countries.

Is the situation of the French media really so bad, that they would be ready to sell their freedom of expression for the Arab dinars? It is difficult to answer this question definitively, because the information about the Moslem financing of some French media generally remains secret [7]. On the other hand, there are no problems with the financial flow on the industrial markets, including the aeronautic and military ones. Recently, Mrs. Michele Alliot-Marie, the French Minister of Defense, signed a preliminary contract with Saudi Arabia for a nice amount of Euro 2.5 billion. France will deliver to Saudi Arabia 30 Fennec combat helicopters, ten NH-90 transport helicopters for the Navy, and at least two air-tankers Airbus A330-200. In 2007, there a new large sales contract for weapons and military equipment, worth Euro 4.0 billion is expected. When Ares speaks, the Muses keep silent! [8]

In an American cultural magazine Telos, one can read an article by Russell Berman, entitled: Freedom of Expression Disappears: France and Its New Repressions” [9]. In conclusion, the author wrote:

“Beyond a doubt, there is certainly a real and dangerous enemy of the West, ready to hijack planes and explode trains; but there is another enemy, a logic of fear and repression, which uses Islam as a pretext to develop a new culture of control. This is the retreat of the West: unless it becomes willing to defend its freedoms at home, it will surely not fight for them against an external enemy in the East because: liberty is indivisible.”

Not so “douce”, France
Probably thinking of his compatriots, General de Gaulle [10] said one day: “In general, intelligent people are not courageous, the courageous people are not intelligent.” “Douce France” [Sweet France] this ideal of the country, which attracted oppressed people from the whole world, does not exist any more. Perhaps, it never existed?

Another famous Frenchman, this time from the Left – Jean Paul Sartre, wrote: “No need for grill: the Hell is other people” [11]. Today, it is an other Left, still alive and naive, which is filled with enthusiasm for this “infernal alternative of Islam”, Islamism, just like before they were filled with admiration for “the true” communism of Stalin. And the extreme Right, that of Le Pen – or to the right from Le Pen – revives the nostalgia of Vichy and of Marshall Petain.

Between these two extremes, there live the normal, not so intelligent and not fairly courageous Frenchmen; those who fill the streets in protest against the miseries of France and of the contemporary world: racism, anti-Semitism, terrorism. It is they who still have the capacity to win the war against “The Caliphate” [12], proposed to them [or rather imposed on them], in France and in Europe, by bin Laden and other Jihadists. Oriana Fallaci [13] did not fear to denounce, high and strong, the violence, which imposes on our civilization the nostalgic fanatics, reborn from the distant Middle Ages. This is, perhaps the example for us to follow: He who retreats, will be defeated.

International journalist David M. Dastych writes for Poland’s acclaimed weekly, WPROST, the CFP and The Polish Panorama (Canada), Ocnus Net (Britain), FrontPageMagazine and The New Media Journal (USA), AXIS GLOBE (Israel), Agentura.ru (Russia), and runs his own DAVID’S MEDIA AGENCY. He can be reached at: david.dastych(at)aster.pl

This article was first published by: Canadafreepress.com & UPJF France

Footnotes to the article “Bitter France”:
[1] An allusion to a once famous song « Douce France » [Sweet France], composed in 1943 by Charles Trenet. The title of this article «  Bitter France » is also a bitter irony .
[2] International Religious Freedom Report, 2006, Released by the US Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labour.
[3] The Bill of July 28, 2004 : Loi du 28 juillet 2004  “Apart from the behavior contrary to the basic interests of the State, or linked to terrorist activity, or consisting of clear and deliberated acts of discrimination, hatred or violence directed against a definite individual or group of persons – nobody can be made the object of expulsion, also in view of hypotheses mentioned in the last verse of Article 25.”
[4]. See the book : Ilan Halimi, le canari dans la mine, éd. Yago/ Primo-Europe, 2006.
[5]. See a publication of the research by Atlantis Institute, of November 17, 2005, published by Proche-Orient.info « Le Paysage télévisuel arabe et sa diffusion par satellite ».
[6] See Caroline Fourest La tentation obscurantiste, Grasset, 2005.
[7] See, among others : „L’AFP occulte certaines informations, heureusement, l’Associated Press est là !“ (Medias-Ratings).
[8] Ares, the god of war dieu de la guerre, according to Greco-Roman mythology .
[9] Russell Berman, „Free Speech Fades Away: France and the New Repression„.
[10] See: Ch. de Gaulle, Citations  

[11]. In J.P. Sartre’s „Huis clos“.
[12] See: Caliphate, Highbeam Encyclopedia :
[13] Oriana Fallaci, see Wikipedia:

Supplement Robert Redeker’s article, published by Le Figaro, September 19, 2006

The orginal title : Face aux intimidations islamistes, que doit faire le monde libre?

What should the free world do while facing Islamist intimidation?

Robert Redeker – The reactions caused by Benedict XVI’s analysis of Islam and violence highlight the underhanded maneuver carried out by Islam to stifle what the West values more than anything, and which does not exist in any Moslem country: freedom of thought and expression.

Islam tries to impose its rules on Europe: opening of public swimming pools at certain hours reserved exclusively for women, ban on caricaturing this religion, demands for special diets for Muslim children in school cafeterias, struggle to impose the veil at school, accusations of Islamophobia against free spirits.

How can one explain the ban on the wearing thongs on Paris-Beaches (Paris-plages) this summer? The reasoning put forth was bizarre: women wearing thongs would risk “disturbing the peace”. Did this mean that bands of frustrated youths would become violent while being offended by displays of beauty? Or were the authorities scared of Islamist demonstrations by “virtue squads” near Paris-Beaches?

However, the authorization of the veil on the street is more disturbing to public peace than wearing a thong, because it invites complaints against the upholding the oppression of women .This ban represents an Islamization of sensibilities in France, a more or less conscious submission to the diktats of Islam. At the very least it is the result of the insidious Muslim pressure on the minds: even those who protested the introduction of a “Jean Paul II Square” in Paris would not be opposed to the construction of mosques. Islam is trying to force Europe to yield to its vision of humanity.

As in the past with Communism, the West finds itself under ideological watch. Islam presents itself, like defunct Communism, as an alternative to the Western world. In the way of Communism before it, Islam, to conquer spirits, plays on a sensitive string. It prides itself on a legitimacy which troubles Western conscience, which is attentive to others: it claims to be the voice of the oppressed of the planet. Yesterday, the voice of the poor supposedly came from Moscow, today it originates in Mecca! Again, today, western intellectuals incarnate the eye of the Koran, as they have incarnated the eye of Moscow. They now excommunicate people because of Islamophobia, as they did before because of anti-communism.

This opening to others, specific to the West, is a secularization of Christianity that can be summarized thus: the other person must come before me. The Westerner, heir to Christianity, is that who exposes his soul bare. He runs the risk of being seen as weak. With the same ardor as Communism, Islam treats generosity, broadmindedness, tolerance, gentleness, women’s liberty and freedom of manners, democratic values, as marks of decadence. They are weaknesses that it seeks to exploit, by means of useful idiots, self-righteous consciences drowning in nice feelings, in order to impose the Koranic order on the Western world itself.

The Koran is a book of unparalleled violence. Maxime Rodinson states, in Encyclopedia Universalis, some truths that in France are as significant as they are taboo. On one hand: “Mohammed revealed in Medina unsuspected qualities as political leader and military chief (…) He resorted to private war, by then a prevalent custom in Arabia (….) Mohammed soon sent small groups of partisans to attack the Meccan caravans, thus punishing his unbelieving compatriots and simultaneously acquiring the booty of a wealthy man.”

There is more: “Mohammed profited from this success by eradicating the Jewish tribe which resided in Medina, the Quarayza, whom he accused of suspect behavior.” And: “After the death of Khadija, he married a widow, a good housewife, called Sawda, and in addition to the little Aisha, barely ten years old. His erotic predilections, held in check for a long time, led him to ten simultaneous marriages.”

A merciless war chief, plunderer, slaughterer of Jews and a polygamist, such is the man revealed through the Koran.

Oh, the Catholic Church is not above reproach. Its history is strewn with dark pages, for which it has officially repented. The Inquisition, the hounding of witches, the execution of the philosophers Giordano Bruno and Vanini, those wrong-thinking Epicureans, in the 18th century the execution of the knight of La Barre for impiety, do not plead in the church’s favor. But what differentiates Christianity from Islam is obvious: it is always possible to go back to true evangelical values, the peaceful character of Jesus as opposed to the deviations of the Church.

None of the faults of the Church have their roots in the Gospel. Jesus is non-violent. Going back to Jesus is akin to forswear the excesses of the Church. Going back to Mahomet, to the contrary, reinforces hate and violence. Jesus is a master of love, Mahomet is a master of hatred.

The stoning of Satan, each year in Mecca, is not only an obsolete superstition. It not only sets the stage for a hysterical crowd flirting with barbarity. Its imports anthropological. Here is a rite, which each Muslim is invited to submit to, that emphasizes violence as a sacred duty in the very heart of the believer.

This stoning, accompanied each year by the accidental trampling to death of some of the believers, sometimes up to several hundreds, is a rite that feeds archaic violence.

Instead of getting rid of this archaic violence, and thus imitating Judaism and Christianity (Judaism starts when it abandons human sacrifice, and enters civilization; Christianity transforms sacrifice through the Eucharist), Islam builds a nest for this violence, where it will incubate. Whereas Judaism and Christianity are religions whose rites spurn violence, by de-legitimizing it, Islam is a religion that exalts violence and hatred in its everyday rites and sacred book.

Hatred and violence dwell in the book with which every Muslim is brought up, the Koran. As in the Cold War, where violence and intimidation were the methods used by an ideology hell bent on hegemony, so today Islam tries to put its leaden mantel all over the world. Benedict XVI’s cruel experience is testimony to this. Nowadays, the West has to be called the “free world” in comparison to the Muslim world; likewise, the enemies of the “free world”, the zealous bureaucrats of the Koran’s vision, swarm in the very center of the free World.

News by Crif.org
French Minister of Interior Nicolas Sarkozy supports Robert Redeker
Answering a letter, written by the President of CRIF (The Council of Jewish Organizations in France) about the situation of Robert Redeker, the Minister of Interior Nicolas Sarkozy assured Mr. Roger Cukierman (President of CRIF) that he had issued instructions, necessary to improve the living conditions of the Professor of Philosophy [Robert Redeker], who remains under Police protection after death-threats against him.

Nicolas Sarkozy

At the same time The Number 2 of the Government [Mr.Sarkozy] reconfirmed his „atachment to the essential rights of every human being, such as freedom of thought, as well as his belief in freedom of expression, which are the basic values of our Republic.“

Source: crif.org
CRIF supports Redeker

David Johnston / The New York Times The Central Intelligence Agency has acknowledged for the first time the existence of two classified documents, including one signed by President George W. Bush, that have guided the agency’s interrogation and detention of terror suspects.

The CIA disclosed the existence of the documents in a letter Friday sent from the agency’s associate general counsel, John McPherson, to lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union.

The contents of the documents were not revealed, but one document, as described by the ACLU, is „a directive signed by President Bush granting the CIA the authority to set up detention facilities outside the United States and outlining interrogation methods that may be used against detainees.“

The second document, according to the group is a Justice Department legal analysis „specifying interrogation methods that the CIA may use against top Al Qaeda members.“

ACLU lawyers said they would now press for public disclosure of the contents of the documents.

„We intend to press for release of both of these documents,“ said Jameel Jaffer, a lawyer for the group said in a statement. „If President Bush and the Justice Department authorized the CIA to torture prisoners, the public has a right to know.“

A spokesman for the CIA declined to discuss the matter…Read it all @ The New York Times

US-Vize Cheney hält Folter für „selbstverständlich“
The Interrogation Documents:
Rumsfeld: Kriegsverbrechen auf höchster Ebene
Endlich: Rumsfeld in Berlin angezeigt
Vielen Dank Herr Rumsfeld – gehen Sie nun ins Gefängnis?
Background Brief on the case against Rumsfeld, Gonzales and others. Filed in Germany on November 14, 2006
US Army Report on Abuse of Iraqi Prisoners
The CIA’s Pain Project
The Birth of Soft Torture
Klageschrift gegen US-Verteidigungsminister Donald Rumsfeld, den ehemaligen CIA-Direktor George Tenet und andere US-Führungskräfte
US-Militärzeitungen wollen Rumsfelds Rücktritt
650 000 Iraker durch Kriegsfolgen gestorben
It’s worth it Baby!
The Lancet

Beirut – A group identifying itself as ‘Al Qaeda Lebanon’ issued a statement Sunday threatening ‘to destroy the corrupt cabinet that takes orders from the US administration.’

The typewritten statement by the previously unknown group was sent to the Christian Voice of Lebanon radio station

‘We have reached Lebanon and we will work on destroying this government and all the other agents. Let them know that we are after them, with God’s will,’ the statement said.

The statement came with the country in political crisis following the resignation of the five Shia ministers.

All belong to the pro-Syrian Amal and Shia Hezbollah groups. The government is headed Fouad Seniora, a member of the anti-Syrian majority in the country.

Zwölf Jahre nach dem Anschlag auf ein jüdisches Kulturzentrum hat ein argentinischer Richter gestern einen internationalen Haftbefehl gegen den früheren iranischen Präsidenten Akbar Haschemi Rafsandschani erlassen.

Betroffen sind zudem acht weitere Personen. Staatsanwälte werfen der früheren Regierung Irans vor, hinter einem Bombenanschlag auf ein jüdisches Gemeindezentrum 1994 in Buenos Aires zu stecken.

Damals kamen 85 Menschen ums Leben, mehr als 200 weitere wurden verletzt. Trotz einer langwierigen Ermittlung wurde niemand wegen der Tat verurteilt.

Der Iran hat stets jegliche Beteiligung an dem Anschlag abgestritten. Die iranische Generalstaatsanwaltschaft kündigte an, wegen der geplanten Verhaftung Rafsandschanis möglicherweise rechtliche Schritte gegen die argentinischen Behörden einzuleiten. Rafsandschani war von 1989 bis 1997 iranischer Präsident.

Freunde im Gruselkabinett

Washington– Die US-Regierung will es gefangenen mutmasslichen Terroristen verbieten, über ihre Behandlung bei Verhören zu sprechen. In einer gerichtlichen Eingabe des Justizministeriums heisst es: „Die in geheimen CIA-Gefängnissen angewendeten Methoden bei Vernehmungen gehörten zu den wichtigsten zu schützenden Geheimnissen auf dem Gebiet der nationalen Sicherheit“ berichtete die „Washington Post“ am Samstag.

Danach argumentiert die Regierung im Einzelnen, dass eine Enthüllung der Methoden „extrem schweren Schaden“ anrichten könne. So könnten Terroristen „Gegentechniken“ zu den Methoden lernen und dadurch die Bemühungen der Regierung vereiteln, Informationen von ihnen zu erhalten. Vor diesem Hintergrund müssten die Gefangenen auch daran gehindert werden, mit ihren Anwälten über ihre Behandlung zu sprechen.

Dem Zeitungsbericht zufolge stammt die Eingabe vom 26. Oktober und wurde bei einem Bundesgericht in Washington eingereicht. Danach reagierte die Regierung damit auf den Dringlichkeitsantrag eines Anwalts, ihm Zugang zu seinem Mandanten Majid Khan zu gewähren. Khan gehört zu den 14 mutmasslichen Terroristen, die vor kurzem aus geheimen CIA-Gefängnissen in das US-Lager Guantánamo Bay (Kuba) verlegt wurden und von der Regierung als besonders gefährlich eingestuft werden.

„Harte Methoden“ rechtens
Nach Angaben des „Zentrums für Verfassungsrechte“, das den Anwalt mit Khans Vertretung beauftragt hat, wurde der Gefangene während seines dreijährigen CIA-Gewahrsams Folter-Praktiken ausgesetzt. Danach sollen Khan und Mithäftlinge unter anderem gezwungen worden, verseuchtes Wasser zu trinken, das zu heftigem Erbrechen geführt habe.

Wie die „Washington Post“ weiter berichtet, argumentiert die Regierung in ihrer Eingabe auch, dass die ehemaligen CIA-Gefangenen kein automatisches Recht auf Kontakte zu Anwälten hätten. Dabei wird auf ein kürzlich vom US-Kongress verabschiedetes Gesetz verwiesen, dass den Häftlingen den Zugang zu US-Gerichten verwehrt. Ein Bundesberufungsgericht prüft zur Zeit, ob diese Massnahme rechtens ist. Das Gesetz enthält auch Regelungen zu den Verhörpraktiken. Danach ist Folter verboten, aber „harte Methoden“ sind zulässig. Was darunter zu verstehen ist, wird in dem Gesetz nicht gesagt.

Dubai – Al-Qaeda has confirmed the death of a senior lieutenant to the movement’s chief Osama bin Laden, according to a video posted on the Internet today which also announced a coming „victory“ in Iraq.

An al-Qaeda leader who gave his name as Abu Yahia al-Libi said in the video that the Kuwaiti-born Omar al-Farouk had „fallen a martyr“ in Iraq, and detailed his career in militancy, which began in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The authenticity of the video could not be verified.

Farouk’s death on September 25 was announced by the British military, which said British forces killed a gunman who opened fire on them as they raided a house in the southern Iraqi city of Basra hunting for the militant, also known as Mahmud Ahmed Mohammed al-Rashid.

Farouk, who was 35 and also went by the name Mahmud Ahmed Mohammed al-Rashid, had been accused of leading the al-Qaeda Islamist network in Southeast Asia. Genetic tests on his remains proved his identity, the US-led coalition said last month.

Farouk was arrested in Indonesia in July 2002 at a time when he was allegedly planning attacks on Western embassies in Jakarta. On July 10 last year he managed to escape from a US airbase in Afghanistan.

Farouk’s escape along with three other suspects from Bagram air base was an embarrassment for US authorities, and the militant appeared on Arabic television in a video to brag about his flight.

He apparently made his way to Iraq, his parents‘ birthplace, where British troops tracked him down. In the video, Abu Yahia – a Libyan thought to be among those who escaped from Bagram with Farouk in July 2005 – also said signs were emerging of an al-Qaeda victory in Iraq.

„Your primary enemy (the United States) recognises with full humility that its entry into Iraq was a mistake… Persevere. The first signs of victory in Iraq are showing,“ he said. The other two militants to have escaped from Bagram are Saudi Arabian Mohammed al-Qahtani and Syrian Abdullah Hashemi.

It’s now out that the American security coordinator in the territories, General Keith Dayton, has been giving secret training to the Palestinian Presidential Guard. It’s part of his program to provide „support“ to the Palestinian Fatah faction in its internal struggle with Hamas.

The Americans are once again training tomorrow’s terrorists.

The initial training was conducted by American military instructors in a military camp near Jericho, for some 400 men. And now Dayton has asked the Quartet to put in place a program that will have Egyptian, British and perhaps even Jordanian instructors to train the force loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, helping it to grow to some 6,000 men.

Dayton seems to have managed to help his masters to forget the history of the Presidential Guard and its elite Force 17 unit, and is probably hoping that the Quartet will also have a spot of amnesia.
He has also sidestepped the conclusions of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank that, before the addition of more than 35,000 troops in the last 3 years, the Palestinian Security Services were overstaffed, out of control, and an insurmountable burden on the Palestinian economy. Of greater concern, though, is that Force 17 is well known for its involvement in terror activities.

In this context, the experience of previous US training efforts is of interest. Journalist Mathew Kalman revealed in the San Francisco Chronicle in early 2005 that as far back as 1998, the CIA spent tens of millions of dollars, contracting secret training for hundreds of Palestinian Security Service personnel, including members of Force 17.

Kalman managed to get hold of this „graduation picture“ of one of those courses. Look at the fellow kneeling fourth from the left in the front row. Kalman identified him as Raafat Bajali – a member of the terrorist Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, who was killed in a „work accident“, while making a bomb. Fortunately, he took fellow Al-Aksa terrorist Nedal Zedok with him.

And standing in the back row, second from the left, is Khaled Abu Nijmeh. He was one of Bethlehem’s most-wanted Palestinian militants in the city, suspected of involvement in a string of suicide bombings and shooting attacks against Israelis. In May 2002, he was one of 13 gunmen escorted from the Church of the Nativity siege in Bethlehem, flown to Cyprus and then to exile in Europe.

Several of his fellow deportees received their salaries from the Palestinian Security Service payroll. Nijmeh proudly told Kalman of his membership in Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades alongside his job as first sergeant in Palestinian General Intelligence. He was very pleased with the CIA training that helped him learn the trade. „I was not alone. Many Palestinian security people were trained by the Americans. We hope they will continue helping us.“
Well, now that our memories have faded a little, it seems that Nijmeh’s prayers are being answered. The Americans are once again training tomorrow’s terrorists.