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| Europe |
| The making of a terrorist |
| 2004-05-06 |
| Revealing his identity could put him at risk, so he asked to be called Ahmed, instead of his real name. His resume includes a stint in an al Qaeda training camp. And what kind of things did he learn there? "I learned there is many ways to kill someone," he says. "You can kill someone with a pen, you can kill someone with a credit card," he told CBS News Correspondent Richard Roth. Ahmed is 29-years-old. He grew up in what he calls a ghetto of Algerian immigrants in the suburbs of Paris, and French authorities say the story of his enlistment in the cause of Islamic militants here is a modern classic. Muslim, but not devout, he'd been selling drugs and stealing cars when he was jailed. Alone and scared, Ahmed was an easy target for a recruitment process he calls smart and irresistible. In his case, he was approached by men he calls his "Muslim brothers." He was told, he recounts: "Look at the way the French people making us living. Look, your father is working like a dog. You have no money. You have no respect." The favorite enemies are the U.S. government and also the U.S. people and the Jews. On the day he got out of jail, his "Muslim brothers" led him to an apartment and a job in a bakery. And soon after, they had other work for him too: as a bagman, smuggling money and jewelry out of France into Belgium and Switzerland, and traveling by car and truck, eventually to Chechnya. "Probably some money that I carried was involved in something bad too," he says. When asked if that something might be a bombing, Ahmed says, "it's almost certain." He made no secret of his ambition for a bigger role in the movement that had become his family, and in January 2000, he says, that ambition was rewarded. He was sent from Paris to Ankara, then on to the Turkish city of Sansom to collect a forged passport that would foil government efforts to track a terrorist's travel. Ahmed went overland by bus through Iran into Afghanistan, to a mountain camp where scores of men were training. He says he spent six weeks in physical training, handling weapons, learning self-defense and how to kill. But it was hardly the picture portrayed in propaganda videos. There was little camaraderie. All that united the men was a notion they were part of what they called, "the movement.'" He says there was never a sign saying, "Welcome to camp al Qaeda.'' "My problem with al Qaeda ... I think it's like a brand," he says. "I think that al Qaeda is just an easy word to englobe very different movements." Back at work in Paris though, Ahmed began to have some doubt about where he was headed with his new training. It put him on a dangerous collision course with the men controlling him. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #3 I read the original, but I don't get the context of the story. Has Ahmed renounced terrorism? Is he helping authorities point out the baddies? CBS leaves us in limbo, which is why I just now change the channel when one of the big networks (plus BBC) start giving us stories that portray the "root causes" line. I remember the great ones like Cronkite, Huntley/Brinkley, HK Smith. Today's Arab press, which is cited so often by the US media as a reliable gauge of the level of Anti-US feeling out there, would have no problem editorializing to its viewership if an Arab version of Roth were to follow around some luny American Nazi nut-case. Contemplation of one's navel can only get one so far. |
| Posted by: Michael 2004-05-06 12:01:38 PM |
| #2 Spot on .com. The founding fathers of the Nazi party in Germany attracted to same bunch of malcontents and kooks. |
| Posted by: whitecollar redneck 2004-05-06 7:51:37 AM |
| #1 "you can kill someone with a credit card" My, now, ex-wife taught me this about 30 yrs ago. This does, indeed, ring true as a classic case. The cultists have long preyed upon this sort of person and the story adds yet another case confirming a pet theory that Islam is the classic bottom-feeder - and succeeds often by simply giving acceptance and direction to the lost and disillusioned. The equation is deceptively simple: those societies which are not inclusive, which do not actively promote assimilation as opposed to the cancerous policies of multiculturalism, are the most fertile grounds for creating such potential recruits. In the case of Izzoids who peddle hatred of Amerika and Jooos, these societies are, effectively, our enemies. That "Ahmed" didn't find fulfillment is the surprise here - indicating he didn't belong on the bottom with the losers. With different social policies, those that promote assimilation, "Ahmed" would never have been in the position to become fodder. France put him there, yet he initially bought into the hate the US / Joos BS... The need for approval, acceptance, and belonging overwhelmed his intellectual ability to discriminate between the rational and irrational. That it appears to have been a temporary insanity is the exception and notable aspect of this story. |
| Posted by: .com 2004-05-06 7:23:35 AM |