Detroit Bomber Attended AlMaghrib Institute In Houston During 2008

The Christmas Bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, attended a Houston-based Islamic seminar in 2008, according to the Detroit Free Press. He was in Houston for 17 days.

With the caveat that I don't want to read too much into this, it's interesting to note that American Jihadist Daniel Maldonado was a member of the AlMaghrib Institute's Internet forum using his online handle of Daniel Aljughafi. At the time of his arrest, he had only made two posts to the site. Oddly, one of those posts has since disappeared.

Threads of interest on the AlMaghrib site include:

Is it permissible to call non-Muslims kaffirs (infidels)?

Discussion of apostates including whether it is permissible to kill them and under what circumstances

A now deleted thread praising the writings of Anwar Awlaki (vis Google cache, I have a copy if this expires)

List of posts mentioning Awlaki

UPDATE: Internet Haganah has an extremely good post which sheds further light on Maldonado's connections to AlMaghrib and AlMaghrib's connection to other points of extremist interest on the Web.

Labels: American-Jihadists, Anwar-Aulaqi, Daniel-Maldonado

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Intel: Awlaki Linked To Christmas Bombing

From the excellent Josh Meyer in the LA Times:

Intercepts and other information point to connections between terrorism suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and Anwar al Awlaki -- who also communicated with the accused U.S. Army gunman in last month's attack on Ft. Hood, Texas, that left 13 people dead.

Some of the information about Awlaki comes from Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian charged with attempting to detonate a hidden packet of PETN explosive aboard a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day, the officials said.

Under questioning by the FBI, Abdulmutallab has said that he met with Awlaki and senior Al Qaeda members during an extended trip to Yemen this year, and that the cleric was involved in some elements of planning or preparing the attack and in providing religious justification for it, officials said.

Other intelligence linking Awlaki to Abdulmutallab became apparent after the attempted bombing, including communications intercepted by the National Security Agency indicating that the cleric was meeting with "a Nigerian" in preparation for some kind of operation, according to a U.S. intelligence official.

Click here for the whole story.

Labels: American-Jihadists, Anwar-Aulaqi

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Investigators Look At Possible Link Between Detroit Bomber and Awlaki

From the New York Times:

A senior American counterterrorism official confirmed that American and allied authorities are looking closely into Mr. Abdulmutallab’s possible connections to radical elements in Yemen, including extremist figures on Jihadist Web sites like Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical cleric linked to Maj. Nidal M. Hasan, the suspect in the Fort Hood shootings last month. Investigators are trying to determine whether Mr. Awlaki may have motivated Mr. Abdulmutallab.

UPDATE: Some later stories have been downplaying this possibility, but I'm in a wait-and-see mode. The Detroit attack appears to be well in keeping with Awlaki's "leaderless jihad" philosophy in which individuals carry out attacks with minimal guidance from headquarters. It is, of course, a critical question as to what organizational affiliation Abdulmutallab had and how strong it was. If this attack turns out to have a strong Al Qaeda component, I will have a lot to say about what that means for the future of the war on terror.

Labels: American-Jihadists, Anwar-Aulaqi

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Anwar Awlaki Dead?

The government of Yemen seems to think that an air strike has killed Anwar Awlaki, the American citizen turned radical imam who was a spiritual leader to 9/11 hijackers, as well as Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hassan. The strike also supposedly killed a couple of important Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula leaders. There have been plenty of false reports in the last year, so we'll wait a while to see how this pans out. Another ambiguity awaiting clarification -- did the U.S. play a role in the strike? If so, that sends a powerful message about this administration's tolerance for those who support terrorism. We will see.

12/25 UPDATE: Awlaki is reportedly still alive. Some of the stories out of Yemen said that his house (or what was believed to be his house) was specifically targeted in the strike. That question is an interesting one for the reason cited above. It speaks to the Obama administration's tolerance for terrorist supporters, and perhaps also to their definition -- as in, was Nidal Hasan's shooting spree terrorism?

Labels: American-Jihadists, Anwar-Aulaqi, Nidal-Malik-Hasan

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

'Pakistan 5' Will Be Deported To U.S.

An update from Bloomberg:

"It's quite clear that the next step for these men is to be deported to their home country, America, but we will do so only after a full investigation is complete," Punjab province Home Minister Rana Sanaullah said today in a telephone interview from Lahore, the provincial capital.

Labels: American-Jihadists, Jaish-E-Muhammad, Ramy-Zamzam, Waqar-Khan

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Americans in Pakistan: A Classic Case

On CNN's Situation Room, CNN correspondent Arwa Damon said Pakistani officials told her the five Americans arrested there this week "were not motivated by Islam" but were instead traveling to a combat zone to defend Muslims against "ongoing atrocities." The report also stated that they said attacking a Muslim anywhere in the world was the same attacking all Muslims.

I have no doubt this is an accurate quote of what Damon was told, but it's a tremendous misdirection to say that these young men were not motivated by Islam. The narrative of Muslim victimization -- and Muslim solidarity against victimization -- is the dominant theme of jihadi recruitment, and an important recurring theme in Islam generally and in jihadist thought specifically.

It's also one of the most important factors which leads Americans to jihad, as I will discuss at more length in my forthcoming book. Americans are especially responsive to the Muslim victimization theme, for a number of reasons including media consumption, American political dialogue and cultural principles.

If these young men said what is attributed to them (and I'm quite certain they did) that places squarely in the center of Islamic jihadist thought, and the American Jihadist theme -- not off to one side as this report suggests.

Labels: American-Jihadists, Jaish-E-Muhammad, Ramy-Zamzam, Waqar-Khan

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Five Americans In Pakistan Linked to Al Qaeda, Pak Officials Say

This from the Wall Street Journal:

Five young Americans detained in eastern Pakistan had developed contacts with al Qaeda operatives through the Internet and were on their way to North Waziristan to join a militant training camp, said a senior Pakistani intelligence official.

The story cited intelligence from the men's laptops.

Scores of radical Muslims from the West are believed to have received training in al Qaeda camps in recent years and have now been fighting on both sides of the border Afghanistan and Pakistan border. In September, Pakistani security forces arrested Mehdi-Muhammed Ghezali, a Swedish national and a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner, who was trying to go to Waziristan to join al Qaeda.

Labels: American-Jihadists, Jaish-E-Muhammad, Ramy-Zamzam, Waqar-Khan

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Would-Be American Jihadists Held in Pakistan

Five young men from Virginia were arrested in Pakistan on suspicion of trying to connect with jihadist groups there. According to a Pakistani newspaper and The Investigative Project on Terrorism, the five are named Ahmed Abdullah, Waqar Khan, Eman Hassan, Ramy Zamzam and Yasir (last name unknown).

The five were arrested just a couple weeks after leaving the U.S., at the home of Khalid Farooqi, a member of Jaish-e-Muhammad, according to the Pakistani paper. JEM is a jihadist group focused mainly on Kashmir. It's also connected to Lashkar-e-Tayiba, which has attracted American Jihadists in the past, and both groups are suspected of playing a role in the murder of Daniel Pearl by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

One of the group left behind a video which appeared to be expressing jihadist sentiments, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which held a press conference today to say it was assisting the investigation. In light of recent threats against American Muslim organizations by an Al Qaeda-linked forum, it will be interesting to see how the jihadists react to CAIR's collaborative role with law enforcement in this case.

Labels: American-Jihadists, Jaish-E-Muhammad, Ramy-Zamzam, Waqar-Khan

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

New charges in Chicago for alleged LeT member David Coleman Headley

This from this Justice Department this morning:

New federal charges filed today allege that a Chicago man, who was arrested in October for planning terrorist attacks against a Danish newspaper and two of its employees, also conducted extensive surveillance of targets in Mumbai for more than two years preceding the November 2008 terrorist attack on India’s largest city that killed approximately 170 people, including six Americans, and injured hundreds more.

The defendant, David Coleman Headley, a U.S. citizen, earlier this decade allegedly attended terrorism training camps in Pakistan maintained by Lashkar e Tayyiba (Lashkar), and conspired with its members and others in planning and executing the attacks in both Denmark and India, federal law enforcement officials announced today.

Also today, a criminal complaint was unsealed in federal court in Chicago charging Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed (Abdur Rehman), a retired major in the Pakistani military, with conspiracy in planning to attack the Danish newspaper and its employees. Another Chicago man, Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a Canadian citizen and native of Pakistan, was arrested in October on federal charges filed in Chicago relating to the Danish terrorism plot.

Through his attorneys, Headley has authorized the Justice Department to disclose that he is cooperating in the ongoing investigation of both the Danish and Indian terror plots. He has remained in federal custody without bond since he was arrested in Chicago on Oct. 3, 2009. No date has been set yet for his arraignment in U.S. District Court in Chicago.

I've been tied up working on the book for the last couple of weeks, but I'll have some updates on this story (including documents) and some other American jihadist cases within the next few days.

Labels: American-Jihadists, David-Coleman-Headly

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink