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Ansar al Islam: Terror Backbone in Iraq
Recent intelligence suggests the militants are well organized. One returning group of fighters from the militant Ansar al-Islam organization captured in the Kurdish region two weeks ago consisted of five Iraqis, a Palestinian and a Tunisian. Among their possessions were five forged Italian passports for a different group of militants they were apparently supposed to join, said Dana Ahmed Majid, the director of general security for the region.
| Damn. I was hoping they were out of business... |
Long gone are the bearded men in the short robes believed worn by the Prophet Muhammad that the Arabs who went to Afghanistan favored. Instead, the same practices that allowed the Sept. 11 attackers to blend into American society are evident. The fighters steal over Iraqâs largely unpoliced borders in small groups with instructions to go to a safe house where they can whisper a password to gain admittance and then lie low awaiting further instructions, say Iraqi security officials in northern Iraq and in Baghdad.
[Knock knock!]
"Mahmoud sent me!"
"Wot's da passwoid?"
"Slaughter."
"Hokay. Youse can come in." |
"They come across as civilians, they shave their beards and have clean-cut hair," said a senior security official in the Kurdish region.
More from Mullah Krekar:
Mullah Mustapha Krekar, the founding spiritual leader of Ansar al-Islam, said in an interview on Sunday with LBC, the Lebanese satellite channel, that the fight in Iraq would be the culmination of all Muslim efforts since the Islamic caliphate collapsed in the early 20th century with the demise of the Ottoman Empire. "There is no difference between this occupation and the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in 1979," he said from Norway, where he's safe he has political asylum. "The resistance is not only a reaction to the American invasion, it is part of the continuous Islamic struggle since the collapse of the caliphate," he said. "All Islamic struggles since then are part of one organized effort to bring back the caliphate."
| "That's cuz we miss the Sick Man of Europe..." |
Posted by: 11A5S 2003-08-13 |
