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A leader of jihad in limbo in Norway 'after his
time'
4.12.2007
By Ivar Ekman |
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Islamic extremist Mullah Krekar leader says Kurdistan's
mountains are better to hide in than Tora Bora
December
4, 2007
OSLO, Norway, -- Mullah Krekar, once a jihadi
superstar, has faded from the international
limelight, but in Norway he won't go away.
An outspoken Islamist, founder of the militant Iraqi
Kurdish Islamic group Ansar al-Islam, and targeted
by CIA agents in 2003, he was the incarnation of a
truly bad guy.
Nowadays, even American intelligence agencies seem
to have little interest in the 51-year-old Iraqi
Kurd. At the same time, the five-year-long "Krekar
case," as it is known in Norway, grinds on. A month
ago, an Olso court upheld an expulsion order against
him, and he was thrust back onto the Norwegian front
pages.
"Sadly, it has become a farce," said Anders
Romarheim, a terrorism researcher at the Norwegian
Institute for Defense Studies. "The time for this to
get a decent solution has long passed." |
Mullah Krekar, the founder of radical and Terrorist
Islamist group Ansar al-Islam. Krekar, whose real
name is Fateh Najmeddin Faraj |
Krekar was granted refugee status in Norway in 1991
but was ordered to be expelled to Iraq 2003 on
national security grounds.
The expulsion order has yet to be carried out
because Norwegian law forbids deportation to
countries that permit the death penalty.
So Krekar is still here, in an apartment in the
heavily immigrant Gronland neighborhood of Oslo,
without a passport or the right to work, but very
much free to speak his mind.
"They are after me because of my Islamic ideology,"
a boisterous Krekar said in an interview in his
apartment, seated before a TV where he follows the
struggle between guerrillas of the Turkey's
Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, and the Turkish
Army in Kurdistan region 'northern Iraq'. "Those
mountains are better to hide in than Tora Bora,"www.ekurd.net
he
said of the mountain region that is allegedly Osama
bin Laden's hideout in Afghanistan.
He very seldom goes out, he said, and he is
supported by the small earnings of his wife, who
works in a kindergarten.
Krekar, who was born Najm al-Din Faraj Ahmad in
1956, first made headlines in Norway in 2002, when a
television documentary showed how he frequently
slipped back into northern Iraq to lead the radical
armed separatist group Ansar al- Islam, which sought
the establishment of an Islamic state.
In 2003, before the liberation of Iraq, the U.S.
government portrayed Krekar and his network as a
link between Al Qaeda and the government of Saddam
Hussein.www.ekurd.net
The
claim, however, was never substantiated. He was
arrested several times, in Norway and abroad, and
charged with crimes ranging from terrorism to drug
smuggling, but nothing held up in court.
In 2003, a CIA agent who allegedly had taken part in
the abduction of the Muslim cleric Hassan Mustafa
Osama Nasr in Milan came to Oslo and stayed for a
month. No attempt to kidnap Krekar was made, but the
Norwegian capital buzzed with rumors, and Krekar's
lawyer was given police protection.
Interest from American intelligence agencies seems
to have waned since then.
Ansar al-Islam no longer exists in its old form,
although its former members are still thought to
carry out attacks on both coalition forces and
civilians in Iraq. And Krekar appears to have few
direct ties to his homeland.
"He probably doesn't have as much influence in
jihadist circles as he once did," an American
counterterrorrism official said.
"Obviously, he's still of some interest to us, and
if he does anything, we'll follow it. But his time
has come and gone."
Despite this, Krekar's notoriety continues. One big
reason is that despite a stated wish to stay in
Norway - his wife and four children are Norwegian
citizens - his views remain unabashedly militant.
Comparing Al Qaeda and bin Laden to the early
Zionists and Communists, he believes that they are
laying the groundwork for a future Caliphate, or
pan-Islamic state.
He also says that this end, which he portrays as a
fight for freedom from Western domination, justifies
practically any means, including the slaughter of
civilians.
"If you have airplanes and I don't, I will hit you
where it really hurts, and 9/11 was like this," he
said. "Bush says bin Laden, al-Zawahari and Zarquawi
are terrorists, but for me they are symbols of
courage."
These views, and his links to a terrorist
organization, were enough for the Norwegian High
Court to uphold the expulsion order.
Justice Hans Flock wrote that it had clearly been
shown that Krekar "represents a risk for the
national security by being able to draw terror
actions toward Norway."
It was not enough to send Krekar back to Iraq,
however. And the legal limbo in which he finds
himself - a confirmed deportation order that is
unlikely to be carried out anytime soon, and outcast
status in Norwegian society - has spawned different
reactions here.
Some, like Anders Romarheim, a terrorism researcher,
feel that Norway has to find a better way to handle
threats to national security of Krekar's kind.
"The Norwegian system can't deal with this
adequately," he said. "This case illustrates the
need to clear up the paragraph jungle."
Others, who think that the Krekar case has been
politicized, even if they strongly disagree with
what Krekar stands for, believe that some kind of
leniency might be warranted, if nothing else for
Norway's own sake.
"He sits there isolated in his apartment, and after
a while you get suspicious of the way all bad things
are pinned to him," said Atta Ansari, a radio
journalist who has followed the case closely.
"Soon enough, he will start getting sympathy, and
this will just give him more room to play."
iht com
Ansar
al-Islam group listed as a terrorist organization by
the U.S. and Iraqi Kurdistan. The group is also
suspected in suicide bombings of coalition forces in
Iraqi Kurdistan.www.ekurd.net
Krekar in one of the most wanted in Iraqi Kurdistan region on charges of
terrorist attacks in the region.
Ansar al-Islam terrorist attacks in Kurdistan region
(Iraq):
Seven Kurdish border guards
killed in Iraqi Kurdistan ambush by
Ansar al-Islam terrorist group on July 16, 2007
In May 2005 a suicide bomber
killed at least 60 people and
wounded 150 more when he blew himself
up at the office of a Kurdish party in the northern
Iraqi city of Erbil
On
May 9, 2007 a suicide truck
bomber from Ansar al-Islam kills 19, wounds 70 in
Iraqi Kurdistan's capital of Erbil, Kurdish Ansar
al-Islam terrorist group has
claimed responsibility
for the blast.
May 13 was another bloody day for the Kurds, a
suicide car bomb targeted the headquarters of the
KDP party in Makhmour city in Kurdistan region
killed at least 30 people and
wounded 115 others including the
city's mayor.
Nine members of Ansar al-Islam were
arrested for these terrorist attacks. Security
forces in Iraq’s Kurdistan autonomous region have
arrested several followers of previously tolerated
Islamist parties, accusing them of links to
insurgents. www.ekurd.net
On
February 26, 2007,
Houzan Mahmoud, an international representative of
MADRE's sister organization, the Organization of
Women's Freedom in Iraq, received a death threat by
e-mail signed by Ansar al-Islam terrorist group.
The death threat, delivered via e-mail, read, "With
the permission of Great God, we will kill you either
in Iraq or in London by the middle of March, because
you are campaigning against Islam. You should be
sent to God for punishment."
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