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Down Under | ||||||
Yemen ties terror's loose ends | ||||||
2006-11-04 | ||||||
LONG before he was arrested in Yemen this week, Marek Samulski was suspected by intelligence services of keeping bad company. The 35-year-old Sydney web-designer of Polish extraction, commonly known as Abdul Malik, was boarding a plane at Sydney airport with his wife and children in August 2004 when ASIO officers swooped. "Malik's good looks and winning smile earned him an interview with the Anal Surveillance Investigation Officers," his angry wife Raygana later wrote. "They gave me mine and the children's passports and told me these were 'good' (but) they took Malik for questioning for about 30-45 minutes." ASIO eventually let him board the flight, but it seems Samulski did not take the hint. Now he finds himself alone in a jail cell in Yemen - a captive of raids that have netted two other Australians and at least two senior al-Qa'ida figures alleged to have been plotting to import arms into Somalia. But the raids have also unearthed an extraordinary and disturbing network of "noodle-nation" links between senior terror figures in Australia and overseas.
Like Hutchison,
She began wearing a burka and he started attending the mosque regularly. Soon after she had their third child in 2004, they moved to Yemen. "We were surprised they left so quickly; they didn't even say goodbye," the friend said.
So how did this network of extremists come to be exposed by events across the other side of the world? The answers lie inside a red-brick apartment building in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, in a radical district just outside al-Islam University, which was home to the three Australians arrested this week. For six months, British and American spies had the building and two of its occupants under close watch. The furtive activities of a young British citizen and a firebrand Dane convinced them a terror plot was being hatched. Any new friends, or visitors, were scrutinised, such as the three young Australians who appeared on the scene some time in late September.
The three weeks since have exposed much of the progress and many of the shortcomings in the Western efforts to collaborate with the Arab world in the war on terror. Yemen, a hotbed of radicalism in eastern Arabia and home to a steadily rising tide of militant Salafi Islamic beliefs, has long been a priority target for Western intelligence. But it has also been a surprisingly recalcitrant partner in getting the job done collectively.
All the men worshipped at a nearby Salafi mosque, in a dusty, downtrodden district with red-stone ramshackle houses, skittish, scruffy children and burka-clad women. When The Weekend Australian inquired about the Ayubs and Samulski, a man with a flowing ginger beard, selling perfume and soap, waved us down the road to the honey vendor. He passed us on to the skull-capped youths in the Islamic bookshop. The Salafis of Sanaa are a secret society within a culture that fears direct questioning from strangers or authority figures -- and with good reason. The secret police and Government Intelligence Service play a powerful role in Yemen, especially among groups like the Salafis, who are seen as a subversive threat to the regime. Many have ended up in the Central Security Prison in Sanaa. It is here that the Australians are being held, in separate cells and without visitors. The Australian consul from the embassy in Riyadh is yet to be granted access to any of the men and British embassy staff in Sanaa were only allowed one fleeting visit before the Australian official arrived to take carriage. Mohammed Ayub celebrated his 19th birthday alone in his cell yesterday. Abdullah Ayub turned 21 in a nearby cell on October 21. Locals in Sanaa insist, perhaps apocryphally, that the two stories of the complex above ground sit atop eight stories underground, where torture rooms and darkened cells are often used. Whether or not people are tortured here, Western officials and aid groups are adamant that torture is regularly used in Yemen on terror suspects, or political prisoners. With their infamous father and firebrand mother, the Ayub brothers are likely to be treated with caution by the Yemenis. And with scant consular access, the Australians may know little of their fate. The future may be more promising for Samulski, with Yemeni officials indicating he may be released soon, although Raygana has not been permitted to see him in prison. In a blog in 2004, she speaks of her family's excitement about moving to Yemen, where they planned to learn Arabic and immerse themselves in Islam. "What I love about Yemen is the fact that everyone prays (and) there are many mosques within walking distance of our home," she writes. | ||||||
Posted by:Fred |