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One of al-Qaeda's founding leaders, Dr Fadl, has begun an ideological revolt against Osama bin Laden, blaming him for "every drop" of blood spilt in Afghanistan and Iraq. Sayyid Imam al-Sharif: The terrorist attacks on September 11 were both immoral and counterproductive, he writes

Aka Dr Fadl’s book is finished and will be exclusively printed in Egypt’s Al-Masri Al-Youm newspaper starting this week. According to Al-Masri Al-Youm, he will reveal new secrets about Jihad operations in Pakistan, Europe and Arab countries, but this seems more of an attempt (by the paper) to generate readership interest.

EDITOR'S NOTE — This is another story in an occasional series examining the fault lines within Islam between the forces of moderation and extremism. The consequences of this fight that shook America on Sept. 11, 2001, reverberate today, and the struggle for Islam may be the defining conflict of our era. LOS ANGELES — UCLA law professor Khaled Abou El Fadl has a scholarly manner and speaks in soft tones. But listen as he tells his story. A Kuwaiti native, he was fascinated by militant Islam as a young man, then evolved into a moderate champion of democracy and suffered...

"The disease of apologetics." That's what he calls it. "For a century, Muslims have seen their primary function as defending Islam. Not to honour Islam by critically engaging it and rethinking it and making sure that it remains viable and moral and humane, but to defend it. "They see their role primarily as marketing agents, as cheerleaders, offering the same old excuses, attributing the problems to culture or customs or colonialism or Orientalism."The speaker is Dr. Khaled Abou el-Fadl, professor of law at UCLA. The Kuwait-born and Egyptian-trained Arab scholar and prolific author has emerged as a prominent Muslim dissident...

How the CIA Funds Anti-Bush Propaganda By Bill Gertz The Washington Times | September 14, 2004 The CIA's Counterterrorist Center has spent more than $15 million in the past three years funding studies, reports and conferences produced by former Democratic administration officials and other critics of the Bush administration. The latest effort was a $300,000 grant by the CIA to the Atlantic Council for a study co-authored by Richard A. Clarke, the former counterterrorism official who wrote a best seller accusing the Bush administration of failing in the war on terrorism by invading Iraq.

Editor's note: Readers may also be interested in Moderate Islam or Fata Morgana? and freemuslims.org Speaks Out.There is good news to report: The idea that "militant Islam is the problem, moderate Islam is the solution" is finding greater acceptance over time. But there is also bad news, namely growing confusion over who really is a moderate Muslim. This means that the ideological side of the war on terror is making some, but only limited, progress.The good news: Anti-Islamist Muslims have found their voice since September 11. Their numbers include distinguished academics such as Azar Nafisi (Johns Hopkins), Ahmed al-Rahim (formerly...

It was an extraordinary coup: in the late 1990's, federal prosecutors sat down to interview their first major informer against Al Qaeda — Jamal Ahmed al-Fadl, a former payroll manager for Osama bin Laden who would become the government's chief witness in its first trial of Qaeda operatives. But it was followed by an extraordinary blunder: for two years, even as the authorities cloaked Mr. Fadl in the secrecy of the federal witness-protection program, keeping him in undisclosed locations and communicating with him in videoconferences through a special telephone hookup, many hours of those conversations were recorded on videotape. The...