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Pentagon Makes Fighting Extremism Top Priority Seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Pentagon on Thursday officially named "the long war" against global extremism as its top priority and pledged to avert any conventional military threat from China or Russia through dialogue. The Defense Department, in a new national defense strategy, also emphasized the need to subordinate military operations to "soft power" initiatives to undermine Islamist militancy by promoting economic, political and social development in vulnerable corners of the world. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he hoped the change would help establish permanent institutional support for counterinsurgency skills...

Usually, when a journalist is censored in a Western nation, American news organizations respond with collective outrage. But as a major attack on press freedom unfolds in Canada, America’s mainstream media are silent. Neither the TV networks nor the major newspapers have reported on hearings last week at what amounts to a Stalinesque show trial in Vancouver, British Columbia. Mark Steyn, a Canadian journalist who now lives in New Hampshire and whose column appears in National Review magazine as well as several U.S. and Canadian newspapers, is facing charges before British Columbia’s Human Rights Tribunal. His crime? Spreading “hatred.” The...

Afghanistan to Ask NATO for Bigger Army Afghan officials will go to the NATO summit in Romania Thursday with a request: pay to increase our national Army by 40 percent. A bigger Army, Afghan officials argue, will allow the US and other coalition members to scale back in the coming years. This appeal comes amid pleas from the US and Canada for other NATO members to commit more to the Afghanistan mission, which many analysts say has floundered over the past year for lack of resources and a coherent strategy. France is expected to contribute another 1,000 forces and...

After months of quiet diplomacy, the Norwegian government has given up on efforts to send former terrorist-group leader Mullah Krekar back to his homeland. Krekar, who has been under an expulsion order after being determined a threat to Norway's national security, initially came to Norway as a refugee from Iraq in the early 1990s. It later emerged that he was the head of guerrilla group Ansar al-Islam and he repeatedly violated the terms of his asylum by travelling back to northern Iraq to lead guerrilla activities. Krekar is the only person in Norway ever to have been sentenced to deportation...

Still in Control Pervez Musharraf was calm, confident and—despite a flurry of rumors—not about to announce his resignation. Instead, the Pakistani president's "concession" to his troubled nation was an announcement that he would allow Britain's Scotland Yard to help local law enforcement agencies with their investigation into last week's assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. Speaking in a nationally televised address two hours after Pakistan's election commission announced the postponement of the ballot to Feb. 18, six weeks later than had been scheduled, Musharraf was notably deferential in his remarks about Bhutto, often invoking her "martyrdom" and extolling...

U.S. to Offer Turkey Help on PKK The U.S. is to offer Turkey a package of measures to dissuade Ankara from mounting a large-scale military incursion into Iraq to attack PKK Kurdish guerrillas, who have killed scores of Turkish soldiers in recent weeks. Ahead of a meeting in Washington on Monday between President George W. Bush and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister, U.S. officials said Ankara would have to get concrete American help to combat the PKK, which has bases in northern Iraq from where it frequently launches attacks into Turkey. “Erdogan has to go back with the...

Mullah Krekar is designated as an international terrorist with links to Al Qaeda. Yet in Norway, European politically correct legal principles protect his 'safety' while he continues to use the internet to urge killing and war. Discuss Mullah Krekar is designated as an international terrorist with links to Al Qaeda. Yet in Norway, European politically correct legal principles protect his "safety" while he continues to use the internet to urge killing and war. Mullah Krekar was born as Najmuddin Faraj Ahmad in the village of Olaqloo Sharbajer, Sulaimania in Kurdish northern Iraq on July 7, 1956. He has been living...

Mullah Krekar linked to pro al-Qaida sites The web site Dorbeen.com, which is linked to pro al-Qaida web sites, is registered in the name of the wife of controversial mullah Krekar. A photo of mullah Krekar is accompanied by an email address and his wife's phone number on the web site. Dorbeen.com is an Islamist news portal that reports on American setbacks in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as linking to sympathizers of the al-Qaida terrorist organization. Despite Dorbeen.com being registered in his wife's name, Krekar told an Oslo court last month that he "in the name of God, did...

Mullah Krekar wore out his welcome in Norway long ago, but the former leader of a suspected terrorist organization is still fighting to remain in the country after first coming here as a refugee 16 years ago. And now he thinks he deserves an apology from the Norwegian state for ill treatment. Mullah Krekar, who led what the US claims is a terrorist organization, feels he's been badly treated by Norway. Krekar appeared in an Oslo city court on Wednesday to describe his current life in virtual house arrest. He claimed that he never goes out, with the exception of...

The Norwegian defense attorney for terror suspect Mullah Krekar said he was unaware of an alleged US military plan to kidnap his client three years ago. Norwegian politicians claim they also were left in the dark. We knew that there was a threat of kidnapping in 2003, but the evaluation of something resembling a military action is new to me," attorney Brynjar Meling told newspaper Dagbladet on Friday. Meling was responding to a report in the international magazine Newsweek that US officials at the Pentagon considered sending special forces to Oslo to seize Krekar, who recently landed on both US...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Three undercover CIA officers arrived in Norway in the spring of 2003 as part of a possible secret operation targeting for rendition an Islamic militant living in Oslo known as Mullah Krekar, The Washington Post reported. Citing lawyers and unnamed European investigators, the newspaper said shortly after the agents arrived, Krekar received a warning from an anonymous Norwegian official that Krekar, then head of a Kurdish insurgent group, was a CIA target and should watch his back. The spies left Norway by the end of the summer, the report said. If the CIA was planning to abduct...

Iraqi Ansar Al-Islam Commander Mullah Krekar in Norway: "No Peace Between West & Islam Until Islamic Caliphate is Re-established; Bin Laden & Al-Zawahiri are Good People; Muslims in Europe Increase Like Mosquitoes – By 2050 Europe Will Be 30% Muslim" In the aftermath of the controversy over the cartoons of Islam's Prophet Muhammad, the Internet edition of the Norwegian daily Dagbladet interviewed Kurdish Iraqi Islamist Mullah Krekar. In it, Krekar expounded his views on relations between Islam and the West. Krekar, whose real name is Najm Al-Din Faraj Ahmad, came to Norway as a refugee in 1991, where he established...

Immigration officials in Norway have granted temporary residence permission to the mother-in-law of Mullah Krekar, the country's most controversial refugee who faces deportation himself. Mullah Krekar is considered a threat to Norway's national security, yet his mother-in-law was just granted residence permission last fall The case, reported in newspaper VG on Tuesday, has stunned and angered politicians, and bewildered many other would-be immigrants who've struggled with their own efforts to secure residence permission for themselves or their families. For them, the permission won by Krekar's family seems to defy logic, and all the rules. Officials at immigration agency UDI (Utlendingsdirektoratet)...

ALBANY -- The spiritual leader of an Albany mosque repeatedly called a phone number in Syria that an FBI report indicates had been used to gather terrorist intelligence for Osama bin Laden, according to classified documents unsealed late Tuesday in U.S. District Court. The FBI report, which was based on information from a confidential informant, was among several once-secret documents that federal authorities say raise questions about Yassin Aref's connections to terrorist organizations across the Middle East. Aref, 35, a Kurdish refugee who moved to Albany with his family in 1999, is in jail without bond while awaiting trial on...

Norway's most controversial refugee, Mullah Krekar, told an Oslo newspaper on Monday that there's a war going on between "the West" and Islam. He said he's sure that Islam will win, and he also had praise for suspected terrorist leader Osama bin Laden. "We're the ones who will change you," Krekar told Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet in his first interview since an uproar broke out over cartoons deemed offensive to Muslims. "Just look at the development within Europe, where the number of Muslims is expanding like mosquitoes," Krekar said. "Every western woman in the EU is producing an average of 1.4...

Norway's most controversial refugee, Mullah Krekar, told an Oslo newspaper on Monday that there's a war going on between "the West" and Islam. He said he's sure that Islam will win, and he also had praise for suspected terrorist leader Osama bin Laden. "We're the ones who will change you," Krekar told Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet in his first interview since an uproar broke out over cartoons deemed offensive to Muslims. "Just look at the development within Europe, where the number of Muslims is expanding like mosquitoes," Krekar said. "Every western woman in the EU is producing an average of 1.4...

Brescia and Naples, 18 Nov. (AKI) - The three Algerians detained on Tuesday in the Italian cities of Brescia and Naples were planning a massive terror attack - "on a ship as big as the Titanic, packed with explosives" - that aimed to kill "at least 10,000 people", as well as an attack on "Italian citizens and interests" in Tunisia, according phone conversations between the three men, which Italian anti-terror police say they intercepted after al-Qaeda's deadly 7 July attacks on London and on the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh. In their tapped phone conversations, Yamine Bouhrama, Mohamed...

Twisting the Al-Qaida Connection Posted by Mithridate Ombud on November 28, 2005 - 15:22. Robyn Blumner, former ACLU Director and current St. Petersburg Times columnist retreads this old leftist tire: Fox News gives its audience what it wants, too. That's why, in 2003, a survey from the Program on International Policy Attitudes found that 67 percent of its loyal viewers believed the fallacy that Saddam Hussein was connected to al-Qaida, whereas only 40 percent of those who relied on print media were confused on that point. Welcome to the "informed" electorate of a newspaper-free world. It's already starting to give...

Iraq's Justice Minister is seeking Mullah Krekar's extradition, claiming he's wanted for alleged crimes committed in Iraq. Justice Minister Abdel Hussein Shandal told TV 2 Nettavisen on Friday that Mullah Krekar "is an Iraqi citizen and should appear in court" for alleged crimes in the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq. "We're building a democratic state, and he will have the right to defend himself and have an attorney," Shandal said. Shandal also claimed that Krekar wouldn't face the death penalty if he's sent to Iraq. He also promised that Krekar would not be extradited to any other countries if he...

Former Ansar Al-Islam leader mullah Krekar compared his goal for Kurds with the establishment of the state of Israel as he testified in his trial to overturn a decision to expel him from Norway. Laywer Brynjar Meling (right) and mullah Krekar during a pause in proceedings at Oslo's Court of Appeals. On Thursday morning mullah Krekar began his explanation of why he should not be sent out of the country. Before beginning his testimony the mullah kissed the Koran and said that Norwegian authorities were justified in their investigation but explained that he felt a victim of religious persecution. "I...

Mullah Krekar to be expelled Controversial mullah Krekar, former leader of Ansar al-Islam, will be expelled from Norway, on the instructions of Minister of Local Government and Regional Development Erna Solberg. Solberg instructed the Immigration Appeals Board (UNE) to uphold the decision to expel Krekar on the grounds of national security. "This is something we have been waiting for for some time. For my client and me it is neither new nor surprising that the UNE has received instructions from the ministry," said Krekar's legal counsel, Brynjar Meling. The ruling means that Krekar now loses his asylum status, travel documents,...

>Are these picures all of the same guy? I thought, I'd ask what FReepers thought of this? The guy to the right and left is the spiritual leader of Ansar Al Islam... The picture in the middle was found on an Al Qaeda computer in Afghanistan. Is the guy in the middle the same as in the two other pictures?

Saddam, the ATM of Al Qaeda By Christopher S. Carson FrontPageMagazine.com | November 15, 2004 The Report of the 9/11 Commission has been digested, and the news media outlets have seized upon it as confirmation of their view that al Qaeda is a kind of purely stateless entity that never had "operational links" with rogue states like Iraq. Somehow, goes the thrust of the Report, Osama bin Laden was for years able to finance, train and supply an international terrorist corporation that had ongoing jihad operations in fifty countries - by himself, on no more than a $30 million personal...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The Ansar al-Sunnah Army has emerged from its roots as a little known militant group operating in northern Iraq to become the country’s deadliest terror network, capable of carrying out spectacular strikes like last week’s suicide bombing at a U.S. base and virtually eclipsing al-Qaida’s cell in the war-torn nation. Unlike al-Qaida, Ansar al-Sunnah is believed to be made up mainly of Iraqis, and its apparent strategy of targeting only Americans and those viewed as collaborating with them — Iraqi security forces and Kurds — may have increased its support, in contrast to other groups that have...

OSLO (AFP) - The founder of radical Islamist group Ansar al-Islam was questioned in Oslo by German police ahead of the arrests in Germany of three men suspected of plotting to attack visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allaiwi. German police interrogated Mullah Krekar in Oslo early last week and he is thought to be linked to at least one of the men arrested on Friday on suspicion of planning attacks during Allawi's visit, the Norwegian daily VG reported Sunday. All three have been ordered held over their alleged membership of Ansar al-Islam, described by German authorities as a foreign terrorist...

ARIS, April 29 - How much weight does a bearded mullah carry in a freewheeling liberal society like Norway's? The country's well-known Muslim comic, Shabana Rehman, decided to find out Tuesday when she lifted the founder of Iraq's Ansar al-Islam terrorist group off the ground before a startled audience. "If a small woman like me can lift him up, he can't be dangerous," Ms. Rehman said Thursday by telephone from northern Norway. The cleric, known as Mullah Krekar, did not find the stunt funny. He went up smiling but was sputtering with rage by the time Ms. Rehman set him...

An appeal court has ordered the Dutch government to pay increased compensation to the ex-leader of an Islamist group detained without trial. Mullah Krekar is a former leader of Ansar al-Islam, a group alleged to have links with al-Qaeda. He was arrested as he passed through Amsterdam's Schiphol airport, en route from Iran to his home in Norway. The court said he should be paid $52,600 after he was wrongfully detained for four months. He was originally awarded $5,900 last August, which included legal costs, but that was increased after his lawyer claimed the Dutch government had treated his client...

Eight of the ten surveyed claimed that people have become more sceptic towards immigrants due to the Mullah Krekar case. The negative attitude is evident nation wide. (Scanpix)The national survey was conducted by telephone interviews in the end of March by Opinion AS on behalf of Nordiske TV Dager in connection with this year’s media festival opening in Bergen in May. According to a press release sent out by the media festival, the answers are so overwhelmingly negative that there is no longer any doubt that people in Norway believe the Krekar case has created fear of immigrants and increased...

A Norwegian court has ordered the founder of an Islamic militant group to remain in custody for another four weeks. Mullah Krekar, head of the Kurdish group Ansar al-Islam, was charged last December with plotting the murder of his political rivals in northern Iraq. "The accused, with reasonable grounds, can still be suspected of illegal acts," a court statement said. US officials say Ansar al-Islam may be behind Sunday's suicide bombings in northern Iraq, which killed 56 people. The US also suspects the group has links to the al-Qaeda network. The Iraqi Kurdish mullah has repeatedly claimed he is no...

An Oslo city court ordered the release on Monday of Mullah Krekar, the controversial former leader of guerrilla group Ansar al-Islam. State prosecutors had arrested him Friday on charges tied to at least two suicide bombings. Krekar was charged under several paragraphs of Norway's criminal code linked to alleged murder attempts in Northern Iraq in the spring of 2002. Prosecutors had sought to keep Krekar in custody for at least four weeks, but the Oslo court claimed they lacked sufficient evidence. Prosecutors earlier vowed they'd appeal any release, and Krekar remained in jail Monday evening pending that appeal. They...

Denne artikkelen er hentet fra www.aftenposten.no Adressen til artikkelen er http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article.jhtml?articleID=700469 Oppdatert: 02.01.2004, kl 14:49 Mullah Krekar arrested Mullah Krekar, the controversial former leader of the Kurdish guerilla group Ansar al-Islam based in Northern Iraq, was arrested on Friday afternoon in his apartment in Oslo's central Toeyen district. Krekar will be charged with complicity in a suicide attack according to newspaper VG's web site. Citing "centrally placed sources", VG reported that Oekokrim had expanded charges against Krekar to include a suicide attack carried out by Ansar al-Islam in Northern Iraq. Oekokrim has gathered information via electronic surveillance that they...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Insurgents shot down a U.S. military helicopter west of Baghdad on Friday, killing one soldier, and attackers posing as journalists fired assault weapons and rocket-propelled grenades at American paratroopers guarding the burning aircraft, the military said. Elsewhere, Arab gunmen shot and killed a Kurd amid rising ethnic tensions in the northern, oil-rich city of Kirkuk, and a minor Baath party official was assassinated in an apparent revenge killing. An American tanker was set ablaze in a rebel attack, and coalition forces raiding a Sunni Muslim mosque arrested 32 suspected non-Iraqi Arab insurgents and seized an arms...

ANSAR SPOKESMAN: - Ansar al-Islam behind UN bombing Sources in Ansar al-Islam tell TV 2 Nettavisen that former members of the organisation allegedly are responsible for the UN bombing in Baghdad. Ansar al-Islam is divided. A number of the former members of the organisation, who were active while Mullah Krekar was the leader, have given up and gone home. However, a small group has seized control and is still active, Mullah Krekar’s brother Khalid Faraj Ahmad tells TV 2 Nettavisen. He emphasizes that he has no knowledge of the persons responsible for the recent car bombings in Iraq. - Ansar...

Mulla Krekar said he thinks Ansar al-Islam will respond to what they interpret as unmotivated attacks against them. In an interview with New York Times on Sunday, Paul Bremer, chief US civilian in Iraq, said that hundreds of members of the Ansar al-Islam have returned to Iraq to plan major terrorist actions, according to NTB. Mulla Krekar claims to no longer have any contact with Ansar al-Islam, but tells TV 2 he thinks there will be an attack from the organisation: «They might attack with grenades or with small bombs. I don't know», Krekar told TV 2. Asked if Ansar...

Norway charges Kurdish Islamist with terrorism OSLO, March 21 (Reuters) - The Iraqi Kurdish leader of Ansar al-Islam, accused by Washington of having ties to al Qaeda, was charged with terrorist offences on Friday in Norway, his lawyer said. Mullah Krekar was detained late on Thursday on the grounds he might flee the country while under police investigation into his links to Ansar al-Islam (Supporters of Islam), which Washington labels a terrorist group. "He has been charged with terrorism," his attorney Brynjar Meling told Reuters outside an Oslo courtroom where judges were considering whether there were sufficient grounds to keep...

Norway should have been included in a threat attributed to the al-Qaeda network broadcast on Al-Jazeera television on Wednesday. The hope of the authorities was that al-Qaeda simply got their geography wrong and did not mean to threaten Norway at all The threat from what is said to be the al-Qaeda network has baffled authorities and people here alike. Analysts are struggling to come up with any reasons why Norwegian embassies and interests abroad should be singled out for attacks from Muslim fundamentalists. Norway has traditionally been seen as a peacemaker in the Middle East and the country protested against...

- A U.S.-led assault on a compound controlled by an extremist Islamic group turned up a list of names of suspected militants living in the United States and what may be the strongest evidence yet linking the group to al-Qaida, coalition commanders said Monday. The cache of documents at the Ansar al-Islam compound, including computer discs and foreign passports belonging to Arab fighters from around the Middle East, could bolster the Bush administration's claims that the two groups are connected, although there was no indication any of the evidence tied Ansar to Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) as Washington...

Norwegian Court Releases Ansar Al-Islam Founder Wed April 2, 2003 03:30 PM ET OSLO (Reuters) - A Norwegian appeals court freed an Iraqi Kurdish founder of the Islamist group Ansar al-Islam on Wednesday, overturning an earlier ruling to keep him jailed during an anti-terror investigation, police said. Mullah Krekar, who has had refugee status in Norway since 1991 and denies any terror links, had been detained for almost two weeks since a lower court ruled that police could keep him jailed for a month. "He has been released by the court," a spokeswoman for Norway's Economic Crime Unit said after...

<p>Not for commercial use. Solely to be used for the educational purposes of research and open discussion.</p> <p>A former Canadian resident is a key commander and ideologue with Ansar al-Islam, a group the United States considers to be the terrorist link between Al Qaeda and Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, says a captured Ansar member.</p> <p>Ali and another Ansar prisoner interviewed by the Star, 20-year-old Didar Khaled Khedr, said two former Iraqi intelligence agents are among Ansar's leaders - Abu Zurbeh and Abu Wahil.</p>

OSLO, Feb 7 (Reuters) - An Islamic militant suspected by Washington of ties to both Baghdad and al Qaeda is becoming a hero to some in the Norwegian capital Oslo where he lives with his family as a refugee. Reviled by the United States but free because NATO-member Norway has been unable to find legal grounds to jail him, Mullah Krekar is sometimes cheered by well-wishers or stopped by autograph hunters in Oslo. His lawyer says he feels like the manager of a rock star. "I feel safe here in Norway," said Krekar, the founder of the Ansar al-Islam (Supporters...

Norway probes four refugees suspected of al-Qaeda links Monday, 26-Aug-2002 4:40AM      Story from AFP Copyright 2002 by Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet) </CLARI-ITEM HEADER>OSLO, Aug 26 (AFP) - Norway's intelligence agency PST has launched a probe into four refugees suspected of having links to the al-Qaeda network, Norwegian daily Verdens Gang reported Monday.One of the four being investigated at the request of British and US intelligence agencies is Mullah Krekar, a Kurd presumed to be the leader of the suspected bio-warfare group Ansar al-Islam, which is linked to al-Qaeda.The Norwegian Directorate of Immigration confirmed last week that Krekar has had...