Bill Clinton Worked Hand in Glove with Al Qaeda

Some things posted that appear to be well researched still must be questioned. The piece below, does require some verification, but the citations mentioned give rise to accuracy. I reached out to another for a cleared eyed assessment, and the response was that it appears to be accurate. Then having read the book ‘Ghost Wars’ by Steve Coll, a few years back the contents of this posting once again appears accurate. Then, taking a deeper dive, there is more proof that the article below is in fact accurate.

When researching the Third World Relief Agency, claims made appear to support Professor Choussudovky’s article.

In all honesty, there is a reason for reservation on this, so comments are invited.

Fair warning includes, the model that Clinton used during his term was dusted off and Barack Obama is using it today with regard to Iraq and Syria.

So here we go:

Bill Clinton Worked Hand in Glove with Al Qaeda: “Helped Turn Bosnia into Militant Islamic Base”

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky

Known and documented, since the Soviet-Afghan war, recruiting Mujahideen (“holy warriors”) to fight covert wars on Washington’s behest has become an integral part of US foreign policy.

A 1997 Congressional document by the Republican Party Committee (RPC), while intent upon smearing President Bill Clinton, nonetheless sheds light on the Clinton administration’s insidious role in recruiting and training jihadist mercenaries with a view to transforming Bosnia into  a “Militant Islamic Base”.

In many regards, Bosnia and Kosovo (1998-1999) were “dress rehearsals” for the destabilization of the Middle East (Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen). 

With regard to Syria, the recruitment of jihadists (according to Israeli intelligence sources) was launched prior to 2011 under the auspices of NATO and the Turkish High command in liaison with the Pentagon. 

The RCP report reveals how the US administration – under advice from Clinton’s National Security Council headed by Anthony Lake –  “helped turn Bosnia into a militant Islamic base” leading to the recruitment through the so-called “Militant Islamic Network,” of thousands of Mujahideen from the Muslim world: 

Perhaps most threatening to the SFOR mission – and more importantly, to the safety of the American personnel serving in Bosnia – is the unwillingness of the Clinton Administration to come clean with the Congress and with the American people about its complicity in the delivery of weapons from Iran to the Muslim government in Sarajevo. That policy, personally approved by Bill Clinton in April 1994 at the urging of CIA Director-designate (and then-NSC chief) Anthony Lake and the U.S. ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith, has, according to the Los Angeles Times (citing classified intelligence community sources), “played a central role in the dramatic increase in Iranian influence in Bosnia.

(…)

Along with the weapons, Iranian Revolutionary Guards and VEVAK intelligence operatives entered Bosnia in large numbers, along with thousands of mujahedin (“holy warriors”) from across the Muslim world. Also engaged in the effort were several other Muslim countries (including Brunei, Malaysia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Turkey) and a number of radical Muslim organizations.

For example, the role of one Sudan-based “humanitarian organization,” called the Third World Relief Agency, has been well documented. The Clinton Administration’s “hands-on” involvement with the Islamic network’s arms pipeline included inspections of missiles from Iran by U.S. government officials… the Third World Relief Agency (TWRA), a Sudan-based, phoney humanitarian organization … has been a major link in the arms pipeline to Bosnia. … TWRA is believed to be connected with such fixtures of the Islamic terror network as Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman (the convicted mastermind behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing) and Osama Bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi émigré believed to bankroll numerous militant groups. [Washington Post, 9/22/96] emphasis added

The Republican Party Committee report quoting official documents as well as US media sources confirms unequivocally the complicity of the Clinton Administration with several Islamic fundamentalist organisations including Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda.

What was the ultimate purpose of this report?

The Republicans wanted at the time to undermine the Clinton Administration. However, at a time when the entire country had its eyes riveted on the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the Republicans no doubt chose not to trigger an untimely “Iran-Bosniagate” affair, which might have unduly diverted public attention away from the Lewinsky scandal.

The Republicans wanted to impeach Bill Clinton “for having lied to the American People” regarding his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. On the more substantive “foreign policy lies” regarding covert operations involving the recruitment of “Jihadists” in the Balkans, Democrats and Republicans agreed in unison, no doubt pressured by the Pentagon and the CIA not to “spill the beans”. Clinton’s support of “jihadist” terrorist organizations in Bosnia and Kosovo was a continuation of the CIA sponsored recruitment of Mujahideen implemented throughout the 1980s in Afghanistan, under the helm of the CIA.

The “Bosnian pattern” described in the 1997 Congressional RPC report was then replicated in Kosovo. Among the foreign mercenaries fighting in Kosovo (and Macedonia in 2001) were Mujahideen from the Middle East and the Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union as well as “soldiers of fortune” from several NATO countries including Britain, Holland and Germany.

Confirmed by British military sources, the task of arming and training of the KLA had been entrusted in 1998 to the US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) and Britain’s Secret Intelligence Services MI6, together with “former and serving members of 22 SAS [Britain’s 22nd Special Air Services Regiment], as well as three British and American private security companies”. (The Scotsman, Glasgow, 29 August 1999)

The US DIA approached MI6 to arrange a training programme for the KLA, said a senior British military source. `MI6 then sub-contracted the operation to two British security companies, who in turn approached a number of former members of the (22 SAS) regiment. Lists were then drawn up of weapons and equipment needed by the KLA.’ While these covert operations were continuing, serving members of 22 SAS Regiment, mostly from the unit’s D Squadron, were first deployed in Kosovo before the beginning of the bombing campaign in March. (ibid)

While British SAS Special Forces in bases in Northern Albania were training the KLA, military instructors from Turkey and Afghanistan financed by the “Islamic jihad” were collaborating in training the KLA in guerilla and diversion tactics. (Truth in Media, April 2, 1999)

Bin Laden had visited Albania himself. He was one of several fundamentalist groups that had sent units to fight in Kosovo, … Bin Laden is believed to have established an operation in Albania in 1994 … Albanian sources say Sali Berisha, who was then president, had links with some groups that later proved to be extreme fundamentalists. (Sunday Times, London, 29 November 1998, emphasis added).

Below is the complete text of the RPC congressional document, which confirms that the Clinton administration was collaborating with Al Qaeda. The actions taken by the Clinton administration were intended to create ethnic and factional divisions which eventually were conducive to the fracturing of the Yugoslav Federation.

In retrospect,  the Obama Administration’s covert support of the ISIS in Syria and Iraq bears a canny resemblance to the Clinton administration’s support of the Militant Islamic Base in Bosnia and Kosovo. What this suggests is that US intelligence rather than the White House and the State Department determine the main thrust of US foreign policy, which consists in supporting and financing “Jihadist” terrorist organizations with a view to destabilizing sovereign countries. 

Michel Chossudovsky, September 13, 2015

Note: the original Congressional document published by the office of Senator Larry Craig (ret) is no longer available

*      *      *

Help Turn Bosnia into Militant Islamic Base

Republican Party Committee, US Congress, September 1997

“‘There is no question that the policy of getting arms into Bosnia was of great assistance in allowing the Iranians to dig in and create good relations with the Bosnian government,’ a senior CIA officer told Congress in a classified deposition. ‘And it is a thing we will live to regret because when they blow up some Americans, as they no doubt will before this … thing is over, it will be in part because the Iranians were able to have the time and contacts to establish themselves well in Bosnia.”‘

“Iran Gave Bosnia Leader $ [“Iran Gave Bosnia Leader $ 500,000, CIA Alleges: Classified Report Says Izetbegovic Has Been ‘Co-Opted,’ Contradicting U.S. Public Assertion of Rift,” Los Angeles Times, 12/31/96. Ellipses in original. Alija Izetbegovic is the Muslim president of Bosnia.] “‘If you read President Izetbegovk’s writings, as I have, there is no doubt that he is an Islamic fundamentalist,’ said a senior Western diplomat with long experience in the region. ‘He is a very nice fundamentalist, but he is still a fundamentalist. This has not changed. His goal is to establish a Muslim state in Bosnia, and the Serbs and Croats understand this better than the rest of us.”‘ [“Bosnian Leader Hails Islam at Election Rallies,” New York Times, 9/2/96]

Introduction and Summary

In late 1995, President Bill Clinton dispatched some 20,000 U.S. troops to Bosnia-Hercegovina as part of a NATO-led “implementation force” (IFOR) to ensure that the warning Muslim, Serbian, and Croatian factions complied with provisions of the Dayton peace plan. [NOTE: This paper assumes the reader is acquainted with the basic facts of the Bosnian war leading to the IFOR deployment. For background, see RPC’s “Clinton Administration Ready to Send U.S. Troops to Bosnia, “9/28/95,” and Legislative Notice No. 60, “Senate to Consider Several Resolutions on Bosnia,” 12/12/95] Through statements by Administration spokesmen, notably Defense Secretary Perry and Joint Chiefs Chairman General Shalikashvili, the president firmly assured Congress and the American people that U S. personnel would be out of Bosnia at the end of one year. Predictably, as soon as the November 1996 election was safely behind him, President Clinton announced that approximately 8,5 00 U.S. troops would be remaining for another 18 months as part of a restructured and scaled down contingent, the “stabilization force” (SFOR), officially established on December 20, 1996.

SFOR begins its mission in Bosnia under a serious cloud both as to the nature of its mission and the dangers it will face. While IFOR had successfully accomplished its basic military task – separating the factions’ armed forces – there has been very little progress toward other stated goals of the Dayton agreement, including political and economic reintegration of Bosnia, return of refugees to their homes, and apprehension and prosecution of accused war criminals. It is far from certain that the cease-fire that has held through the past year will continue for much longer, in light of such unresolved issues as the status of the cities of Brcko (claimed by Muslims but held by the Serbs) and Mostar (divided between nominal Muslim and Croat allies, both of which are currently being armed by the Clinton Administration). Moreover, at a strength approximately one-third that of its predecessor, SFOR may not be in as strong a position to deter attacks by one or another of the Bosnian factions or to avoid attempts to involve it in renewed fighting: “IFOR forces, despite having suffered few casualties, have been vulnerable to attacks from all of the contending sides over the year of the Dayton mandate. As a second mandate [Dayton mandate. As a second mandate [i.e., SFOR] evolves, presumably maintaining a smaller force on the ground, the deterrent effect which has existed may well become less compelling and vulnerabilities of the troops will increase.” [“Military Security in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Present and Future,” Bulletin of the Atlantic Council of the United States, 12/18/96]

The Iranian Connection

Perhaps most threatening to the SFOR mission – and more importantly, to the safety of the American personnel serving in Bosnia – is the unwillingness of the Clinton Administration to come clean with the Congress and with the American people about its complicity in the delivery of weapons from Iran to the Muslim government in Sarajevo.

That policy, personally approved by Bill Clinton in April 1994 at the urging of CIA Director-designate (and then-NSC chief) Anthony Lake and the U.S. ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith, has, according to the Los Angeles Times (citing classified intelligence community sources), “played a central role in the dramatic increase in Iranian influence in Bosnia.”

Further, according to the Times, in September 1995 National Security Agency analysts contradicted Clinton Administration claims of declining Iranian influence, insisting instead that “Iranian Revolutionary Guard personnel remain active throughout Bosnia.” Likewise, “CIA analysts noted that the Iranian presence was expanding last fall,” with some ostensible cultural and humanitarian activities “known to be fronts” for the Revolutionary Guard and Iran’s intelligence service, known as VEVAK, the Islamic revolutionary successor to the Shah’s SAVAK. [[LAT, 12/31/96] At a time when there is evidence of increased willingness by pro-Iranian Islamic militants to target American assets abroad – as illustrated by the June 1996 car-bombing at the Khobar Towers in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, that killed 19 American airmen, in which the Iranian government or pro-Iranian terrorist organizations are suspected [“U.S. Focuses Bomb Probe on Iran, Saudi Dissident,” Chicago Tribune, 11/4/96] – it is irresponsible in the extreme for the Clinton Administration to gloss over the extent to which its policies have put American personnel in an increasingly vulnerable position while performing an increasingly questionable mission.

Three Key Issues for Examination

This paper will examine the Clinton policy of giving the green light to Iranian arms shipments to the Bosnian Muslims, with serious implications for the safety of U.S. troops deployed there. (In addition, RPC will release a general analysis of the SFOR mission and the Clinton Administration’s request for supplemental appropriations to fund it in the near future.) Specifically, the balance of this paper will examine in detail the three issues summarized below:

  1. The Clinton Green Light to Iranian Arms Shipments (page 3): In April 1995, President Clinton gave the government of Croatia what has been described by Congressional committees as a “green light” for shipments of weapons from Iran and other Muslim countries to the Muslim-led government of Bosnia. The policy was approved at the urging of NSC chief Anthony Lake and the U.S. ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith. The CIA and the Departments of State and Defense were kept in the dark until after the decision was made.
  2. The Militant Islamic Network (page 5): Along with the weapons, Iranian Revolutionary Guards and VEVAK intelligence operatives entered Bosnia in large numbers, along with thousands of mujahedin (“holy warriors”) from across the Muslim world. Also engaged in the effort were several other Muslim countries (including Brunei, Malaysia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Turkey) and a number of radical Muslim organizations. For example, the role of one Sudan-based “humanitarian organization,” called the Third World Relief Agency, has been well documented. The Clinton Administration’s “hands-on” involvement with the Islamic network’s arms pipeline included inspections of missiles from Iran by U.S. government officials.
  3. The Radical Islamic Character of the Sarajevo Regime (page 8): Underlying the Clinton Administration’s misguided green light policy is a complete misreading of its main beneficiary, the Bosnian Muslim government of Alija Izetbegovic. Rather than being the tolerant, multiethnic democratic government it pretends to be, there is clear evidence that the ruling circle of Izetbegovic’s party, the Party of Democratic Action (SDA), has long been guided by the principles of radical Islam. This Islamist orientation is illustrated by profiles of three important officials, including President Izetbegovic himself; the progressive Islamization of the Bosnian army, including creation of native Bosnian mujahedin units; credible claims that major atrocities against civilians in Sarajevo were staged for propaganda purposes by operatives of the Izetbegovic government; and suppression of enemies, both non-Muslim and Muslim.

The Clinton Green Light to Iranian Arms Shipments

Both the Senate Intelligence Committee and the House Select Subcommittee to Investigate the United States Role in Iranian Arms Transfers to Croatia and Bosnia issued reports late last year. (The Senate report, dated November 1996, is unclassified. The House report is classified, with the exception of the final section of conclusions, which was released on October 8, 1996; a declassified version of the full report is expected to be released soon.) The reports, consistent with numerous press accounts, confirm that on April 27, 1994, President Clinton directed Ambassador Galbraith to inform the government of Croatia that he had “no instructions” regarding Croatia’s decision whether or not to permit weapons, primarily from Iran, to be transshipped to Bosnia through Croatia. (The purpose was to facilitate the acquisition of arms by the Muslim-led government in Sarajevo despite the arms embargo imposed on Yugoslavia by the U.N. Security Council.) Clinton Administration officials took that course despite their awareness of the source of the weapons and despite the fact that the Croats (who were themselves divided on whether to permit arms deliveries to the Muslims) would take anything short of a U.S. statement that they should not facilitate the flow of Iranian arms to Bosnia as a “green light.”

The green light policy was decided upon and implemented with unusual secrecy, with the CIA and the Departments of State and Defense only informed after the fact. [“U.S. Had Options to Let Bosnia Get Arms, Avoid Iran,” Los Angeles Times, 7/14/96] Among the key conclusions of the House Subcommittee were the following (taken from the unclassified section released on October 8):

  • “The President and the American people were poorly served by the Administration officials who rushed the green light decision without due deliberation. full information and an adequate consideration of the consequences.” (page 202)
  • “The Administration’s efforts to keep even senior US officials from seeing its ‘fingerprints’ on the green light policy led to confusion and disarray within the government.” (page 203)
  • “The Administration repeatedly deceived the American people about its Iranian green light policy.” (page 204)

Clinton, Lake, and Galbraith Responsible

Who is ultimately accountable for the results of his decision – two Clinton Administration officials bear particular responsibility: Ambassador Galbraith and then-NSC Director Anthony Lake, against both of whom the House of Representatives has referred criminal charges to the Justice Department. Mr. Lake, who personally presented the proposal to Bill Clinton for approval, played a central role in preventing the responsible congressional committees from knowing about the Administration’s fateful decision to acquiesce in radical Islamic Iran’s effort to penetrate the European continent through arms shipments and military cooperation with the Bosnian government.” [“‘In Lake We Trust’? Confirmation Make-Over Exacerbates Senate Concerns About D.C.I.-Desipate’s Candor, Reliability,” Center for Security Policy, Washington, D.C., 1/8/97]

His responsibility for the operation is certain to be a major hurdle in his effort to be confirmed as CIA Director: “The fact that Lake was one of the authors of the duplicitous policy in Bosnia, which is very controversial and which has probably helped strengthen the hand of the Iranians, doesn’t play well,” stated Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Shelby. [“Lake to be asked about donation,” Washington Times, 1/2/97]

For his part, Ambassador Galbraith was the key person both in conceiving the policy and in serving as the link between the Clinton Administration and the Croatian government; he also met with Imam Sevko Omerbasic, the top Muslim cleric in Croatia, “who the CIA says was an intermediary for Iran.” [“Fingerprints: Arms to Bosnia, the real story,” The New Republic, 10/28/96; see also LAT 12/23/96] As the House Subcommittee concluded (page 206): “There is evidence that Ambassador Galbraith may have engaged in activities that could be characterized as unauthorized covert action.” The Senate Committee (pages 19 and 20 of the report) was unable to agree on the specific legal issue of whether Galbraith’s actions constituted a “covert action” within the definition of section 503(e) of the National Security Act of 1947 (50 U.S.C. Sec. 413(e)), as amended, defined as “an activity or activities … to influence political, economic, or military conditions abroad, where it is intended that the role of the United States Government will not be apparent or acknowledged publicly.”

The Militant Islamic Network

The House Subcommittee report also concluded (page 2):

“The Administration’s Iranian green light policy gave Iran an unprecedented foothold in Europe and has recklessly endangered American lives and US strategic interests.” Further – ” … The Iranian presence and influence [” … The Iranian presence and influence [in Bosnia] jumped radically in the months following the green light. Iranian elements infiltrated the Bosnian government and established close ties with the current leadership in Bosnia and the next generation of leaders. Iranian Revolutionary Guards accompanied Iranian weapons into Bosnia and soon were integrated in the Bosnian military structure from top to bottom as well as operating in independent units throughout Bosnia. The Iranian intelligence service [intelligence service [VEVAK] ran wild through the area developing intelligence networks, setting up terrorist support systems, recruiting terrorist ‘sleeper’ agents and agents of influence, and insinuating itself with the Bosnian political leadership to a remarkable degree. The Iranians effectively annexed large portions of the Bosnian security apparatus [known as the Agency for Information and Documentation (AID)] to act as their intelligence and terrorist surrogates. This extended to the point of jointly planning terrorist activities. The Iranian embassy became the largest in Bosnia and its officers were given unparalleled privileges and access at every level of the Bosnian government.” (page 201)

Not Just the Iranians

To understand how the Clinton green light would lead to this degree of Iranian influence, it is necessary to remember that the policy was adopted in the context of extensive and growing radical Islamic activity in Bosnia. That is, the Iranians and other Muslim militants had long been active in Bosnia; the American green light was an important political signal to both Sarajevo and the militants that the United States was unable or unwilling to present an obstacle to those activities – and, to a certain extent, was willing to cooperate with them. In short, the Clinton Administration’s policy of facilitating the delivery of arms to the Bosnian Muslims made it the de facto partner of an ongoing international network of governments and organizations pursuing their own agenda in Bosnia: the promotion of Islamic revolution in Europe. That network involves not only Iran but Brunei, Malaysia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan (a key ally of Iran), and Turkey, together with front groups supposedly pursuing humanitarian and cultural activities.

For example, one such group about which details have come to light is the Third World Relief Agency (TWRA), a Sudan-based, phoney humanitarian organization which has been a major link in the arms pipeline to Bosnia. [“How Bosnia’s Muslims Dodged Arms Embargo: Relief Agency Brokered Aid From Nations, Radical Groups,” Washington Post, 9/22/96; see also “Saudis Funded Weapons For Bosnia, Official Says: $ 300 Million Program Had U.S. ‘Stealth Cooperation’,” Washington Post, 2/2/96] TWA is believed to be connected with such fixtures of the Islamic terror network as Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman (the convicted mastermind behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing) and Osama Binladen, a wealthy Saudi emigre believed to bankroll numerous militant groups. [WP, 9/22/96] (Sheik Rahman, a native of Egypt, is currently in prison in the United States; letter bombs addressed to targets in Washington and London, apparently from Alexandria, Egypt, are believed connected with his case. Binladen was a resident in Khartoum, Sudan, until last year; he is now believed to be in Afghanistan, “where he has issued statements calling for attacks on U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf.” [on U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf.” [WP, 9/22/96])

The Clinton Administration ‘s “Hands-On ” Help

The extent to which Clinton Administration officials, notably Ambassador Galbraith, knowingly or negligently, cooperated with the efforts of such front organizations is unclear. For example, according to one intelligence account seen by an unnamed U.S. official in the Balkans, “Galbraith ‘talked with representatives of Muslim countries on payment for arms that would be sent to Bosnia,’ … [would be sent to Bosnia,’ … [T]he dollar amount mentioned in the report was $ 500 million-$ 800 million. The U.S. official said he also saw subsequent ‘operational reports’ in 1995 on almost weekly arms shipments of automatic weapons, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, anti-armor rockets and TOW missiles.” [TNR, 10/28/96] The United States played a disturbingly “hands-on” role, with, according to the Senate report (page 19), U.S. government personnel twice conducting inspections in Croatia of missiles en route to Bosnia. Further –

“The U.S. decision to send personnel to Croatia to inspect rockets bound for Bosnia is … subject to varying interpretations. It may have been simply a straightforward effort to determine whether chemical weapons were being shipped into Bosnia. It was certainly, at least in part, an opportunity to examine a rocket in which the United States had some interest. But it may also have been designed to ensure that Croatia would not shut down the pipeline.” (page 21)

The account in The New Republic points sharply to the latter explanation: “Enraged at Iran’s apparent attempt to slip super weapons past Croat monitors, the Croatian defense minister nonetheless sent the missiles on to Bosnia ‘just as Peter [i.e., Ambassador Galbraith] told us to do,’ sources familiar with the episode said.” [episode said.” [TNR, 10/28/96] In short, the Clinton Administration’s connection with the various players that made up the arms network seems to have been direct and intimate.

The Mujahedin Threat

In addition to (and working closely with) the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and VEVAK intelligence are members of numerous radical groups known for their anti-Western orientation, along with thousands of volunteer mujahedin (“holy warriors”) from across the Islamic world. From the beginning of the NATO- led deployment, the Clinton Administration has given insufficient weight to military concerns regarding the mujahedin presence in Bosnia as well as the danger they pose to American personnel. Many of the fighters are concentrated in the so-called “green triangle” (the color green symbolizes Islam) centered on the town of Zenica in the American IFOR/SFOR zone but are also found throughout the country.

The Clinton Administration has been willing to accept Sarajevo’s transparently false assurances of the departure of the foreign fighters based on the contention that they have married Bosnian women and have acquired Bosnian citizenship — and thus are no longer “foreign”! or, having left overt military units to join “humanitarian,” “cultural,” or “charitable” organizations, are no longer “fighters.” [See “Foreign Muslims Fighting in Bosnia Considered ‘Threat’ to U.S. Troops,” Washington Post, 11/30/95; “Outsiders Bring Islamic Fervor To the Balkans,” New York Times, 9/23/96; “Islamic Alien Fighters Settle in Bosnia,” Pittsburgh PostGazette, 9/23/96; “Mujahideen rule Bosnian villages: Threaten NATO forces, non-Muslims,” Washington Times, 9/23/96; and Yossef Bodansky, Offensive in the Balkans (November 1995) and Some Call It Peace (August 1996), International Media Corporation, Ltd., London. Bodansky, an analyst with the House Republican Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, is an internationally recognized authority on Islamic terrorism.] The methods employed to qualify for Bosnian citizenship are themselves problematic: “Islamic militants from Iran and other foreign countries are employing techniques such as forced marriages, kidnappings and the occupation of apartments and houses to remain in Bosnia in violation of the Dayton peace accord and may be a threat to U.S. forces.” [“Mujaheddin Remaining in Bosnia: Islamic Militants Strongarm Civilians, Defy Dayton Plan,” Washington Post, 7/8/96]

The threat presented by the mujahedin to IFOR (and now, to SFOR) – contingent only upon the precise time their commanders in Tehran or Sarajevo should choose to activate them has been evident from the beginning of the NATO-led deployment. For example, in February 1996 NATO forces raided a terrorist training camp near the town of Fojnica, taking into custody 11 men (8 Bosnian citizens – two of whom may have been naturalized foreign mujahedin and three Iranian instructors); also seized were explosives “built into small children’s plastic toys, including a car, a helicopter and an ice cream cone,” plus other weapons such as handguns, sniper rifles, grenade launchers, etc. The Sarajevo government denounced the raid, claiming the facility was an “intelligence service school”; the detainees were released promptly after NATO turned them over to local authorities. [“NATO Captures Terrorist Training Camp, Claims Iranian Involvement,” Associated Press, 2/16/96; “Bosnian government denies camp was for terrorists,” Reuters, 2/16/96; Bodansky Some Call It Peace, page 56] In May 1996, a previously unknown group called “Bosnian Islamic Jihad” (Jihad means “holy war”,) threatened attacks on NATO troops by suicide bombers, similar to those that had recently been launched in Israel. [“Jihad Threat in Bosnia Alarms NATO,” The European, 5/9/96]

Stepping-Stone to Europe

The intended targets of the mujahedin network in Bosnia are not limited to that country but extend to Western Europe. For example, in August 1995, the conservative Paris daily Le Figaro reported that French security services believe that ,Islamic fundamentalists from Algeria have set up a security network across Europe with fighters trained in Afghan gerrilla camps and [[in] southern France while some have been tested in Bosnia.” [[(London) Daily Telegraph, 8/17/95]

Also, in April 1996, Belgian security arrested a number of Islamic militants, including two native Bosnians, smuggling weapons to Algerian guerrillas active in France. [in France. [Intelligence Newsletter, Paris, 5/9/96 (No. 287)] Finally, also in April 1996, a meeting of radicals aligned with HizbAllah (“Party of God”), a pro-Iran group based in Lebanon, set plans for stepping up attacks on U.S. assets on all continents; among those participating was an Egyptian, Ayman al- Zawahiri, who “runs the Islamist terrorist operations in Bosnia- Herzegovina from a special headquarters in Sofa, Bulgaria. His forces are already deployed throughout Bosnia, ready to attack US and other I-FOR (NATO Implementation Force) targets.” [“States- Sponsored Terrorism and The Rise of the HizbAllah International,” Defense and Foreign Affairs and Strategic Policy, London, 8/31/96 Finally, in December 1996, French and Belgain security arrested several would-be terrorists trained at Iranian-run camps in Bosnia.[“Terrorism: The Bosnian Connection,” (Paris) L’Express, 12/26/96]

The Radical Islamic Character of the Sarajevo Regime

Underlying the Clinton Administration’s misguided policy toward Iranian influence in Bosnia is a fundamental misreading of the true nature of the Muslim regime that benefited from the Iran/Bosnia arms policy.

“The most dubious of all Bosniac [i.e., Bosnian Muslim] claims pertains to the self-serving commercial that the government hopes to eventually establish a multiethnic liberal democratic society. Such ideals may appeal to a few members of Bosnia’s ruling circles as well as to a generally secular populace, but President Izethbegovic and his cabal appear to harbor much different private intentions and goals.” [“Selling the Bosnia Myth to America: Buyer Beware,” Lieutenant Colonel John E. Sray, USA, U.S. Army Foreign Military Studies Office, Fort Leavenworth, KS, October 1995]

The evidence that the leadership of the ruling Party of Democratic Action (SDA), and consequently, the Sarajevo-based government, has long been motivated by the principles of radical Islam is inescapable. The following three profiles are instructive:

Alija Izetbegovic: Alija Izetbegovic, current Bosnian president and head of the SDA, in 1970 authored the radical “Islamic Declaration,” which calls for “the Islamic movement” to start to take power as soon as it can Overturn “the existing non- Muslim government…[Muslim government…[and] build up a new Islamic one,” to destroy non-Islamic institutions (“There can be neither peace nor coexistence between the Islamic religion and non-Islamic social institutions’), and to create an international federation of Islamic states. [The Islamic Declaration: A Programme for the Islamization of Muslims and the Muslim Peoples, Sarajevo, in English, 19901 Izetbegovic’s radical pro-Iran associations go back decades:

“At the center of the Iranian system in Europe is Bosnia-Hercegovina.” President, Alija Izetbegovic, . . . who is committed to the establishment Of an Islamic Republic in Bosnia- Hercegovina.” [“Iran’s European Springboard?”, House Republican Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, 9/1/92

The Task Force report further describes Izetbegovic’s contacts with Iran and Libya in 1991, before the Bosnian war began; he is also noted as a “fundamentalist Muslim” and a member of the “Fedayeen of Islam” organization, an Iran-based radical group dating to the 1930s and which by the late 1960s had recognized the leadership of the Ayatollah Khomeini (then in exile from the Shah). Following Khomeini’s accession to power in 1979, Izetbegovic stepped-up his efforts to establish Islamic power in Bosnia and was jailed by the communists in 1983. Today, he is open and unapologetic about his links to Iran:

“Perhaps the most telling detail of the [detail of the [SDA’s September 1, 1996] campaign rally … was the presence of the Iranian Ambassador and his Bosnian and Iranian bodyguards, who sat in the shadow of the huge birchwood platform…. As the only foreign diplomat [platform…. As the only foreign diplomat [present], indeed the only foreigner traveling in the President’s [only foreigner traveling in the President’s [i.e., Izetbegovic’s] heavily guarded motorcade of bulky four-wheel drive jeeps, he lent a silent Islamic imprimatur to the event, one that many American and European supporters of the Bosnian Government are trying hard to ignore or dismiss.” [trying hard to ignore or dismiss.” [NYT, 9/2/96]

During the summer 1996 election campaign, the Iranians delivered to him, in two suitcases, $ 500,000 in cash; Izetbegovic “is now ‘literally on their [on their [i.e., the Iranians’] payroll,’ according to a classified report based on the CIA’s analysis of the issue.” LAT, 12/31/96. See also “Iran Contributed $ [LAT, 12/31/96. See also “Iran Contributed $ 500,000 to Bosnian President’s Election Effort, U.S. Says,” New York Times, 1/l/97, and Washington Times, 1/2/97] Adil Zulfikarpasic, a Muslim co- founder of the SDA, broke with Izetbegovic in late 1990 due to the increasingly overt fundamentalist and pro-Iranian direction of the party. [See Milovan Djilas, Bosnjak: Adil Zulfikarpasic, Zurich, 1994]

Hassan (or Hasan) Cengic: Until recently, deputy defense minister (and now cosmetically reassigned to a potentially even more dangerous job in refugee resettlement at the behest of the Clinton Administration), Cengic, a member of a powerful clan headed by his father, Halid Cengic, is an Islamic cleric who has traveled frequently to Tehran and is deeply involved in the arms pipeline. [“Bosnian Officials Involved in Arms Trade Tied to Radical States,” Washington Post, 9/22/96] Cengic was identified by Austrian police as a member of TWRA’s supervisory board,

“a fact confirmed by its Sudanese director, Elfatih Hassanein, in a 1994 interview with (lazi Husrev Beg, an Islamic affairs magazine. Cengic later became the key Bosnian official involved in setting up a weapons pipeline from Iran…. Cengic … is a longtime associate of Izetbegovic’s. He was one of the co- defendants in Izetbegovic’s 1983 trial for fomenting Muslim nationalism in what was then Yugoslavia. Cengic was given a 10- year prison term, most of which he did not serve. In trial testimony Cengic was said to have been traveling to Iran since 1983. Cengic lived in Tehran and Istanbul during much of the war, arranging for weapons to be smuggled into Bosnia.” [WP, 9/22/961

According to a Bosnian Croat radio profile:

“Hasan’s father, Halid Cengic … is the main logistic expert in the Muslim army. All petrodollar donations from the Islamic world and the procurement of arms and military technology for Muslim units went through him. He made so much money out of this business that he is one of the richest Muslims today. Halid Cengic and his two sons, of whom Hasan has been more in the public spotlight, also control the Islamic wing of the intelligence agency AID [Agency for Information and Documentation]. Well informed sources in Sarajevo claim that only Hasan addresses Izetbegovic with ‘ti’ [second person singular, used as an informal form of address] while all the others address him as ‘Mr. President,”‘ a sign of his extraordinary degree of intimacy with the president.

[BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 10/28/96, “Radio elaborates on Iranian connection of Bosnian deputy defense minister,” from Croat Radio Herceg-Bosna, Mostar, in Serbo-Croatian, 10/25/96, bracketed text in original] In late 1996, at the insistence of the Clinton Administration, Hassan Cengic was reassigned to refugee affairs. However, in his new capacity he may present an even greater hazard to NATO forces in Bosnia, in light of past incidents such as the one that took place near the village of Celic in November 1996. At that time, in what NATO officers called part of a pattern of “military operations in disguise,” American and Russian IFOR troops were caught between Muslims and Serbs as the Muslims, some of them armed, attempted to encroach on the cease-fire line established by Dayton; commented a NATO spokesman: “We believe this to be a deliberate, orchestrated and provocative move to circumvent established procedures for the return of refugees.” [“Gunfire Erupts as Muslims Return Home,” Washington Post, 11/13/96]

Dzemal Merdan:

“The office of Brig. Gen. Dzemal Merdan is an ornate affair, equipped with an elaborately carved wooden gazebo ringed with red velvet couches and slippers for his guests. A sheepskin prayer mat lies in the comer, pointing toward Mecca. The most striking thing in the chamber is a large flag. It is not the flag of Bosnia, but of Iran. Pinned with a button of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran’s late Islamic leader, the flag occupies pride of place in Merdan’s digs — displayed in the middle of the gazebo for every visitor to see. Next to it hangs another pennant that of the Democratic Action Party, the increasingly nationalist Islamic organization of President Alija Izetbegovic that dominates Bosnia’s Muslim region…. Merdan’s position highlights the American dilemma. As head of the office of training and development of the Bosnian army, he is a key liaison figure in the U.S. [liaison figure in the U.S. [arm and train] program…. But Merdan, Western sources say, also has another job — as liaison with foreign Islamic fighters here since 1992 and promoter of the Islamic faith among Bosnia’s recruits. Sources identified Merdan as being instrumental in the creation of a brigade of Bosnian soldiers, called the 7th Muslim Brigade, that is heavily influenced by Islam and trained by fighters from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. He has also launched a program, these sources say, to build mosques on military training grounds to teach Islam to Bosnian recruits. In addition, he helped establish training camps in Bosnia where Revolutionary Guards carried out their work.” [“Arming the Bosnians: U.S. Program Would Aid Force Increasingly Linked to Iran,” Washington Post, 1/26/96, emphasis added]

General Merdan is a close associate of both Izetbegovic and Cengic; the central region around Zenica, which was “completely militarized in the first two years of the war” under the control of Merdan’s mujahedin, is “under total control of the Cengic family.” [“Who Rules Bosnia and Which Way,” (Sarajevo) Slobodna Bosna, 11/17/96, FBIS translation; Slobodna Bosna is one of the few publications in Muslim-held areas that dares to criticize the policies and personal corruption of the ruling SDA clique.] Merdan’s mujahedin were accused by their erstwhile Croat allies of massacring more than 100 Croats near Zenica in late 1993. [“Bosnian Croats vow to probe war crimes by Moslems,” Agence France Presse, 5/12/95]

The Islamization of the Bosnian Army

In cooperation with the foreign Islamic presence, the Izetbegovic regime has revamped its security and military apparatus to reflect its Islamic revolutionary outlook, including the creation of mujahedin units throughout the army; some members of these units have assumed the guise of a shaheed (a “martyr,” the Arabic term commonly used to describe suicide bombers), marked by their white garb, representing a shroud. While these units include foreign fighters naturalized in Bosnia, most of the personnel are now Bosnian Muslims trained and indoctrinated by Iranian and other foreign militants – which also makes it easier for the Clinton Administration to minimize the mujahedin threat, because few of them are “foreigners.”

Prior to 1996, there were three principal mujahedin units in the Bosnian army, the first two of which are headquartered in the American IFOR/SFOR zone: (1) the 7th Muslim Liberation Brigade of the 3rd Corps, headquartered in Zenica; (2) the 9th Muslim Liberation Brigade of the 2nd Corps, headquartered in Travnik (the 2nd Corps is based in Tuzla); and (3) the 4th Muslim Liberation Brigade of the 4th Corps, headquartered in Konjic (in the French zone). [Bodansky, Some Call It Peace, page 401 Particularly ominous, many members of these units have donned the guise of martyrs, indicating their willingness to sacrifice themselves in the cause of Islam. Commenting on an appearance of soldiers from the 7th Liberation Brigade, in Zenica in December 1995, Bodansky writes: “Many of the fighters … were dressed in white coveralls over their uniforms. Officially, these were ‘white winter camouflage,’ but the green headbands [bearing Koranic verses] these warriors were wearing left no doubt that these were actually Shaheeds’ shrouds.” [Some Call It Peace, page 12] The same demonstration was staged before the admiring Iranian ambassador and President Izethbegovic in September 1996, when white winter garb could only be symbolic, not functional. [[NYT, 9/2/96] By June 1996, ten more mujahedin brigades had been established, along with numerous smaller “special units’ dedicated to covert and terrorist operations; while foreigners are present in all of these units, most of the soldiers are now native Bosnian Muslims. [native Bosnian Muslims. [Some Call It Peace, pages 42-46]

In addition to these units, there exists another group known as the Handzar (“dagger” or 94 scimitar”) Division, described by Bodansky as a “praetorian guard” for President Izetbegovic. “Up to 6000-strong, the Handzar division glories in a fascist culture. They see themselves as the heirs of the SS Handzar division, formed by Bosnian Muslims in 1943 to fight for the Nazis. Their spiritual model was Mohammed Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem who sided with Hitler. According to LJN officers, surprisingly few of those in charge of the Handzars … seem to speak good Serbo-Croatian. ‘Many of them are Albanian, whether from Kosovo [the Serb province where Albanians are the majority] or from Albania itself.’ They are trained and led by veterans from Afghanistan and Pakistan, say LTN sources.” [“Albanians and Afghans fight for the heirs to Bosnia’s SS past,” (London) Daily Telegraph, 12/29/93, bracketed text in original]

Self-Inflicted Atrocities

Almost since the beginning of the Bosnian war in the spring of 1992, there have been persistent reports — readily found in the European media but little reported in the United States — that civilian deaths in Muslim-held Sarajevo attributed to the Bosnian Serb Army were in some cases actually inflicted by operatives of the Izetbegovic regime in an (ultimately successful) effort to secure American intervention on Sarajevo’s behalf. These allegations include instances of sniping at civilians as well as three major explosions, attributed to Serbian mortar fire, that claimed the lives of dozens of people and, in each case, resulted in the international community’s taking measures against the Muslims’ Serb enemies. (The three explosions were: (1) the May 27, 1992, “breadline massacre.” which was reported to have killed 16 people and which resulted in economic sanctions on the Bosnian Serbs and rump Yugoslavia; (2) the February 5, 1994, Markale “market massacre,” killing 68 and resulting in selective NATO air strikes and an ultimatum to the Serbs to withdraw their heavy weapons from the area near Sarajevo; and (3) the August 28, 1995 “second market massacre,” killing 37 and resulting in large-scale NATO air strikes, eventually leading to the Dayton agreement and the deployment of IFOR.) When she was asked about such allegations (with respect to the February 1994 explosion) then-U.N. Ambassador and current Secretary of State-designate Madeleine Albright, in a stunning non sequitur, said: “It’s very hard to believe any country would do this to their own people, and therefore, although we do not exactly know what the facts are, it would seem to us that the Serbs are the ones that probably have a great deal of responsibility.” [“Senior official admits to secret U.N. report on Sarajevo massacre,” Deutsch Presse-Agentur, 6/6/96, emphasis added]

The fact that such a contention is difficult to believe does not mean it is not true. Not only did the incidents lead to the result desired by Sarajevo (Western action against the Bosnian Serbs), their staging by the Muslims would be entirely in keeping with the moral outlook of Islamic radicalism, which has long accepted the deaths of innocent (including Muslim) bystanders killed in terrorist actions. According to a noted analyst: “The dictum that the end justifies the means is adopted by all fundamentalist organizations in their strategies for achieving political power and imposing on society their own view of Islam. What is important in every action is its niy ‘yah, its motive. No means need be spared in the service of Islam as long as one takes action with a pure niy’ Yah.” [Amir Taheri, Holy Terror, Bethesda, MD, 1987] With the evidence that the Sarajevo leadership does in fact have a fundamentalist outlook, it is unwarranted to dismiss cavaliery the possibility of Muslim responsibility. Among some of the reports:

Sniping:

“French peacekeeping troops in the United Nations unit trying to curtail Bosnian Serb sniping at civilians in Sarajevo have concluded that until mid-June some gunfire also came from Government soldiers deliberately shooting at their own civilians. After what it called a ‘definitive’ investigation, a French marine unit that patrols against snipers said it traced sniper fire to a building normally occupied by Bosnian [i.e., Muslim] soldiers and other security forces. A senior French officer said, ‘We find it almost impossible to believe, but we are sure that it is true.”‘ [“Investigation Concludes Bosnian Government Snipers Shot at Civilians,” New York Times, 8/l/951

The 1992 “Breadline Massacre”:

“United Nations officials and senior Western military officers believe some of the worst killings in Sarajevo, including the massacre of at least 16 people in a bread queue, were carried out by the city’s mainly Muslim defenders — not Serb besiegers — as a propaganda ploy to win world sympathy and military intervention…. Classified reports to the UN force commander, General Satish Nambiar, concluded … that Bosnian forces loyal to President Alija Izetbegovic may have detonated a bomb. ‘We believe it was a command-detonated explosion, probably in a can,’ a UN official said then. ‘The large impact which is there now is not necessarily similar or anywhere near as large as we came to expect with a mortar round landing on a paved surface.” [“Muslims ‘slaughter their own people’,” (London) The Independent, 8/22/92]

“Our people tell us there were a number of things that didn’t fit. The street had been blocked off just before the incident. Once the crowd was let in and had lined up, the media appeared but kept their distance. The attack took place, and the media were immediately on the scene.” [Major General Lewis MacKenzie, Peacekeeper: The Road to Sarajevo, Vancouver, BC, 1993, pages 193-4; Gen. MacKenzie, a Canadian, had been commander of the U.N. peacekeeping force in Sarajevo.]

The 1994 Markale “Market Massacre”:

“French television reported last night that the United Nations investigation into the market-place bombing in Sarajevo two weeks ago had established beyond doubt that the mortar shell that killed 68 people was fired from inside Bosnian [Muslim lines.” [people was fired from inside Bosnian [Muslim] lines.” [“UN tracks source of fatal shell,” (London) The Times, 2/19/94]

“For the first time, a senior U.N. official has admitted the existence of a secret U.N. report that blames the Bosnian Moslems for the February 1994 massacre of Moslems at a Sarajevo market…. After studying the crater left by the mortar shell and the distribution of shrapnel, the report concluded that the shell was fired from behind Moslem lines.”

The report, however, was kept secret; the context of the wire story implies that U.S. Ambasador Albright may have been involved in its suppression. [DPA, 6/6/961 For a fuller discussion of the conflicting claims, see “Anatomy of a massacre,” Foreign Policy, 12/22/94, by David Binder; Binder, a veteran New York Times reporter in Yugoslavia, had access to the suppressed report. Bodansky categorically states that the bomb

“was actually a special charge designed and built with help from HizbAllah [“Party of God,” a Beirut-based pro-Iranian terror group] experts and then most likely dropped from a nearby rooftop onto the crowd of shoppers. Video cameras at the ready recorded this expertly-staged spectacle of gore, while dozens of corpses of Bosnian Muslim troops killed in action (exchanged the day before in a ‘body swap’ with the Serbs) were paraded in front of cameras to raise the casualty counts.” [Offensive in the Balkans, page 62]

The 1995 “Second Market Massacre”:

“British ammunition experts serving with the United Nations in Sarajevo have challenged key ‘evidence’ of the Serbian atrocity that triggered the devastating Nato bombing campaign which turned the tide of the Bosnian war.” The Britons’ analysis was confirmed by French analysts but their findings were “dismissed” by “a senior American officer” at U.N. headquarters in Sarajevo. [“Serbs ‘not guilty’ of massacre: Experts warned US that mortar was Bosnian,” (London) The Times, 10/i/95 A “crucial U.N. report [(London) The Times, 10/i/95]

A “crucial U.N. report [stating Serb responsibility for] the market massacre is a classified secret, but four specialists – a Russian, a Canadian and two Americans – have raised serious doubts about its conclusion, suggesting instead that the mortar was fired not by the Serbs but by Bosnian government forces.” A Canadian officer “added that he and fellow Canadian officers in Bosnia were ‘convinced that the Muslim government dropped both the February 5, 1994, and the August 28, 1995, mortar shells on the Sarajevo markets.”‘

An unidentified U.S. official “contends that the available evidence suggests either ‘the shell was fired at a very low trajectory, which means a range of a few hundred yards – therefore under [a range of a few hundred yards – therefore under [Sarajevo] government control,’ or ‘a mortar shell converted into a bomb was dropped from a nearby roof into the crowd.”‘ [“Bosnia’s bombers,” The Nation, 10/2/95 ]. At least some high-ranking French and perhaps other Western officials believed the Muslims responsible; after having received that account from government ministers and two generals, French magazine editor Jean Daniel put the question directly to Prime Minister Edouard Balladur: “‘They [i.e., the Muslims] have committed this carnage on their own people?’ I exclaimed in consternation. ‘Yes,’ confirmed the Prime Minister without hesitation, ‘but at least they have forced NATO to intervene. “‘ [“No more lies about Bosnia,” Le Nouvel Observateur, 8/31/95, translated in Chronicles – A Magazine of American Culture, January 1997]

Suppression of Enemies

As might be expected, one manifestation of the radical Islamic orientation of the Izetbegovic government is increasing curtailment of the freedoms of the remaining non-Muslims (Croats and Serbs) in the Muslim-held zone. While there are similar pressures on minorities in the Serb- and Croat-held parts of Bosnia, in the Muslim zone they have a distinct Islamic flavor. For example, during the 1996-1997 Christmas and New Year holiday season, Muslim militants attempted to intimidate not only Muslims but Christians from engaging in what had become common holiday practices, such as gift-giving, putting up Christmas or New Year’s trees, and playing the local Santa Claus figure, Grandfather Frost (Deda Mraz). [“The Holiday, All Wrapped Up; Bosnian Muslims Take Sides Over Santa,” Washington Post, 12/26/96] hi general:

“Even in Sarajevo itself, always portrayed as the most prominent multi-national community in Bosnia, pressure, both psychological and real, is impelling non-Bosniaks [i.e., non- Muslims] to leave. Some measures are indirect, such as attempts to ban the sale of pork and the growing predominance of [to ban the sale of pork and the growing predominance of [Bosniak] street names. Other measures are deliberate efforts to apply pressure. Examples include various means to make nonBosniaks leave the city. Similar pressures, often with more violent expression and occasionally with overt official participation, are being used throughout Bosnia.” [“Bosnia’s Security and U.S. Policy in the Next Phase A Policy Paper, International Research and Exchanges Board, November 1996]

In addition, President Izetbegovic’s party, the SDA, has launched politically-motivated attacks on moderate Muslims both within the SDA and in rival parties. For example, in the summer of 1996 former Prime Minister Haris Silajdzic. (a Muslim, and son of the former imam at the main Sarajevo mosque) was set upon and beaten by SDA militants. Silajdzic claimed Izetbegovic himself was behind the attacks. [was behind the attacks. [NYT, 9/2/96] h-fan Mustafic, a Muslim who cofounded the SDA, is a member of the Bosnian parliament and was president of the SDA’s executive council in Srebrenica when it fell to Bosnian Serb forces; he was taken prisoner but later released. Because of several policy disagreements with Izetbegovic and his close associates, Mustafic was shot and seriously wounded in Srebrenica by Izetbegovic loyalists. [[(Sarajevo) Slobodna Bosna, 7/14/96]

Finally, one incident sums up both the ruthlessness of the Sarajevo establishment in dealing with their enemies as well as their international radical links:

“A special Bosnian army unit headed by Bakir Izetbegovic, the Bosnian president’s son, murdered a Bosnian general found shot to death in Belgium last week, a Croatian newspaper reported … citing well-informed sources. The Vjesnik newspaper, controlled by the government, said the assassination of Yusuf Prazina was carried out by five members of a commando unit called ‘Delta’ and headed by Ismet Bajramovic also known as Celo. The paper said that three members of the Syrian-backed Palestinian movement Saika had Prazina under surveillance for three weeks before one of them, acting as an arms dealer, lured him into a trap in a car park along the main highway between Liege in eastern Belgium and the German border town of Aachen. Prazina, 30, nicknamed Yuka, went missing early last month. He was found Saturday with two bullet holes to the head. ‘The necessary logistical means to carry out the operation were provided by Bakir Izetbegovic, son of Alija Izetbegovic,, who left Sarajevo more than six months ago,’ Vjesnik said. It added that Bakir Izetbegovic ‘often travels between Brussels, Paris, Frankfurt, Baghdad, Tehran and Ankara, by using Iraqi and Pakistani passports,’ and was in Belgium at the time of the assassination. Hasan Cengic, head of logistics for the army in Bosnia- Hercegovina, was ‘personally involved in the assassination of Yuka Prazina,’ the paper said.” [Yuka Prazina,’ the paper said.” [Agence France Presse, 1/5/94]

Conclusion

The Clinton Administration’s blunder in giving the green light to the Iranian arms pipeline was based, among other errors, on a gross misreading of the true nature and goals of the Izetbegovic regime in Sarajevo. It calls to mind the similar mistake of the Carter Administration, which in 1979 began lavish aid to the new Sandinista government in Nicaragua in the hopes that (if the United States were friendly enough) the nine comandantes would turn out to be democrats, not communists, despite abundant evidence to the contrary. By the time the Reagan Administration finally cut off the dollar spigot in 198 1, the comandantes — or the “nine little Castros,” as they were known locally — had fully entrenched themselves in power.

To state that the Clinton Administration erred in facilitating the penetration of the Iranians and other radical elements into Europe would be a breathtaking understatement. A thorough reexamination of U.S. policy and goals in the region is essential. In particular, addressing the immediate threat to U.S. troops in Bosnia, exacerbated by the extention of the IFOR/SFOR mission, should be a major priority of the of the 105th Congress.

RPC staff contact: Jim Jatras, 224-2946

Copyright Republican Party Committee of the US Congress,  1997

 

How the Internet/Hacking Could Affect You Personally

From NextGov:

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security have issued alerts about, in essence, the modern Internet.

Their public service announcements concern security risks posed by the so-called Internet of Things, or IoT, a situation where everyday objects connect to a network.

Researchers this summer proved that connected items can endanger people driving cars and wearing pacemakers. The Defense Department secretary last week mentioned the inventors of the Internet have been working on security fixes for IoT.

But until those technologies are rolled out, the FBI and DHS are offering some pointers.

First, the FBI names the following 10 things as examples of IoT devices:

  1. Automated devices that remotely or automatically adjust lighting or HVAC
  2. Security systems, such as security alarms or Wi-Fi cameras, including video monitors used in nursery and daycare settings
  3. Medical devices, such as wireless heart monitors or insulin dispensers
  4. Thermostats
  5. Wearables, such as fitness devices
  6. Lighting modules that activate or deactivate lights
  7. Smart appliances, such as smart refrigerators and TVs
  8. Office equipment, such as printers
  9. Entertainment devices to control music or television from a mobile device
  10. Fuel monitoring systems

Some of the potential horror stories depicted by the FBI:

  • Cyber criminals can take advantage of security gaps in the configuration of surveillance video cameras used by private businesses or built-in cameras on baby monitors. “Systems not properly secured can be located and breached by actors who wish to stream live feed on the Internet for anyone to see.”
  • Criminals can exploit unsecured wireless connections for “garage doors, thermostats and lighting,” among other automated systems. Those security holes can let crooks “remotely monitor the owner’s habits and network traffic,” as well as “easily exploit these devices to open doors, turn off security systems, record audio and video, and gain access to sensitive data.”
  • Unprotected home health care devices provide avenues for bad guys to glean personal or medical information stored there, as well as “possibly change the coding controlling the dispensing of medicines or health data collection.”
  • Monitoring systems on gas pumps that are connected to the Internet can be tampered with. Nefarious individuals could make the pump register incorrect levels, “allowing a refueling vehicle to dangerously overfill the tanks, creating a fire hazard.”

People using one of the above things, or other network-infused objects, are advised to:

  • Place the device on a separate protected network
  • Disable “Universal Plug And Play” settings that allow an item to automatically connect to another device on the Internet
  • “Consider whether IoT devices are ideal for their intended purpose”
  • Purchase IoT devices from manufacturers with a good track record on network security
  • When vendors make them available, update devices with security patches
  • Identify any passwords and Wi-Fi connections to the device and change the passwords; only allow the device to operate on a home network with a secured Wi-Fi router
  • When changing the password, do not use common words, simple phrases or passwords containing easily found personal information, such as important dates or pet names
  • Make sure patients prescribed medical devices capable of remote operation are informed about the risk they could be targeted

A military agency that gave birth to the Internet, and by default, IoT, has been researching patches, Defense Secretary Ash Carter says.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in 2011 launched a program to help make “the code behind the physical control systems of an airplane or self-driving car,” for instance, “become mathematically, provably unhackable,” Carter said at a future technology forum hosted by the agency.

“DARPA’s already made some of that source code openly available online – it can give the Internet of Things a critical foundation of cybersecurity, which it’s going to need,” he said.

By 2020 there will be 250 million Internet-connected vehicles on the road, according to Gartner. A Wired journalist a few months ago had private researchers remotely kill the transmission of a Jeep on a St. Louis highway — while he was sitting in the driver’s seat.

Meanwhile, University of South Alabama students demonstrated the fatal dangers of network-synched health devices by manipulating a pacemaker in a medical-grade human simulator, Motherboard reports.

“The simulator had a pacemaker so we could speed the heart rate up, we could slow it down,” said Mike Jacobs, director of the university’s simulations program. “If it had a defibrillator, which most do, we could have shocked it repeatedly. If it was the intent, we could definitely cause harm to the patient. It’s not just a pacemaker, we could do it with an insulin pump, a number of things that would cause life-threatening injuries or death.”

Some industry groups, such as CompTIA, expect federal agencies will try to contain privacy and security threats in the IoT by adapting regulations created for electronic health records, the digital collection of financial information, and other data-intensive activities.

Obama’s Iran Deal Leads to 5 Year Israel War Plan

The New Multi-year Plan of the IDF and the Agreement with Iran
The New Multi-year Plan of the IDF and the Agreement with Iran
The new Israel Defense issue No. 28 is making its way to subscribers and
stores. A first peek: Amir Rapaport’s column from the new issue, analyzing
current and future events in the region and the defense establishment
Amir Rapaport | 9/09/2015
http://www.israeldefense.co.il/en/content/new-multi-year-plan-idf-and-agreement-iran

Pursuant to the agreement: the “nuclear” agreement signed between the P5+1
and Iran in July 2015 is an event of historic proportions that will affect
the Middle East for decades. The top-priority assignment of the Israeli
intelligence services after the signing of the agreement is to deliver proof
that the Iranians are fooling the entire world.

It is safe to assume that all of the surveillance satellites and all other
intelligence gathering resources will attempt to pick up every speck of dust
or any irregularity in the local power consumption that might betray the
Iranians’ continued journey toward the bomb. The Iranians are no fools,
however. They will not risk anything during the 60-day interval until the
agreement is endorsed by the US Congress, with or without a veto by
President Barack Obama, remaining very cautious until the sanctions
currently imposed on them have been lifted.

What will they do a few months from now? Well, that is a completely
different story. The situation will change radically. It will happen fast,
as even if formally the sanctions are to be lifted gradually, in effect, the
whole world is already racing to do business with the Iranians. The sanction
regime is disintegrating very fast. The Russians are already planning arms
sales to Iran on the scale of US$ 30 billion, including their
state-of-the-art S-300 missile defense system. The Americans hope to make
money, too: the USA will sell arms and aircraft on the scale of dozens of
billions of dollars to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Emirates. It is reasonable
to expect that they will offer Israel an increase of their defense aid
package and a few new weapon systems as “compensation” for the arms reaching
the Arab countries and for the Iranian rearming.

Meanwhile, the ‘conventional’ arms race is just one result out of many
pursuant to the historic reconciliation agreement. A nuclear arms race is
expected to begin as well: Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey will estimate that
Iran would reach an atomic bomb sooner or later, and seek their own “Sunni
Bomb” as a counterweight to Iran’s “Shi’ite Bomb”.

The recent historic development was received as no surprise in Israel. The
Israeli defense establishment and political echelon had estimated in advance
that President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry would strive for an
agreement with Iran at any cost, and that the Iranians, too, will make that
assumption, so they would have no real reason to back down from any of their
basic stands in the negotiations.

The declaration that Israel is not bound by the agreement could hint to the
fact that Israel may continue to operate against the Iranian nuclear
program, whether by means of an overt attack or by covert operations, as
Israel may deem appropriate. In fact, Israel does not have a practical
option of staging an attack in Iran without engaging in a confrontation with
the entire world. Such an attack is not currently on the agenda, at least
not without undisputable proof that the Iranians are actually fooling the
entire world and are pressing on with their military nuclear program.

Israel has positioned itself as the leader of the campaign against the
agreement. This blurs the fact that the Iranian bomb threatens not just us
but the entire Middle East, with implications even as far as the Balkans and
the Caucasus (even there, an Iranian nuclear superpower is conceived as a
major threat). Moreover, the Israeli-Arab conflict is currently marginal
compared to the Sunni-Shi’ite conflict and the confrontations within the
Sunni community between ISIS and everyone they regard as “infidels”. Under
these circumstances, Iran’s rearming and evolving into a nuclear threshold
country with an international license is far from being an Israeli-only
concern.

The “Gideon” plan: regardless or pursuant to the nuclear agreement, the IDF
is preparing to implement a new long-term plan for the five-year period
beginning in 2016, under the codename “Gideon”.

If the “Gideon” plan is actually implemented, it will be the first
multi-year plan the IDF implements since the conclusion of the “Tefen” plan
in 2011. None of the plans prepared during the tenure of Lt. Gen. Benny
Gantz as IDF Chief of Staff were actually implemented, first and foremost –
because of the reduced defense budgets allocated by the Israeli government
in 2013 and 2014. The shortage of funding led the IDF to halt training
activities in 2014, just before Operation Protective Edge. The government
had known about this well in advance and authorized this default.

The “Gideon” plan should implement quite a few of the lessons derived from
Operation Protective Edge and transfer the IDF, within five years, into an
era where Iran is already regarded as a nuclear state and the enemies
surrounding us are organizations with no uniforms or permanent bases, but
with hundreds of thousands of high-precision rockets aimed at Israeli
population centers and strategic objectives. The primary scenario for which
the IDF is preparing is a multiple-theater confrontation, and the working
assumption is that it would be required to pass another power test in the
form of a war within the next few years.

Iran will not only become a nuclear state sooner or later, but will evolve
into a regional empire that pumps massive funding into the organizations it
supports, including Hezbollah. On the bright side – Egypt, Jordan and the
Gulf States will improve their relations with Israel as the threats imposed
by Iran and ISIS intensify.

The truth is that IDF has been engaged in an effort to adapt to the wars of
the present and the future for some time: since 1985, the number of tanks
was reduced by 75%, the number of aircraft was reduced by 50% and the number
of UAVs – Unmanned Airborne Vehicles – increased by 400%. The number of
reservists was cut down by hundreds of thousands. Soon, Israel will take
delivery of the fifth Dolphin-class submarine built by German shipyards, and
in two years’ time, a sixth submarine will be delivered. In December 2016,
the first F-35 future fighters will arrive in Israel, and next year IDF will
begin the process of adopting the David’s Sling missile defense system which
complements the Iron Dome system. The development of the Arrow-3 missile
system is in high gear and massive efforts are under way in an attempt to
find a solution to the subterranean tunnels – the most complex operational
challenge encountered by IDF during Operation Protective Edge.

Generally, the IDF has evolved into a technological war machine based on a
state-of-the-art communication network capable of linking resources in the
air, at sea and on land in real time in order to engage targets that pop up
even for a few seconds before they disappear (or before they are destroyed).
The number of heavy ground platforms is decreasing and some of the ground
formations are becoming more agile (and are also employing unmanned
vehicles, among other things).

As far as manpower is concerned, the “Gideon” plan includes a 6% reduction
of staff elements and command centers, along with a set command ratio of one
to five – for example, one Lieutenant-Colonel officer for every five Major
officers, with the intention of reducing the number of officers in IDF staff
and command elements. Chief of Staff Eizenkot also plans to reduce various
layouts that are not a part of the core of IDF activities, like the IDF
Corps of Education, IDF Rabbinate, IDF Radio and other layouts.
Additionally, the various units of the Artillery Corps will be reorganized
and several battalions and divisional artillery groups will be demobilized.
In their place, long-range precision rocket units are being established. The
number of Major-General officers in the IDF will be reduced by four.

Chief of Staff Eizenkot did not elaborate on it during his briefings, but
the IDF Ground Arm will be assigned a higher priority after years of having
been neglected in favor of the strict precedence assigned to the IAF and
Intelligence Directorate. The Chief of Staff is also determined to set up a
cyber warfare command within two years. Initially, it seems that three
Brigadier-General officers will be assigned to handle this activity – one
will be responsible for defensive operations on behalf of the C4I
Directorate, another will be responsible for offensive operations on behalf
of Intelligence Unit 8200 and a third officer will coordinate the entire
activity under the Deputy Chief of Staff. When the cyber warfare command is
established, the C4I Directorate will be reduced and the cyber warfare
activity will be taken out of Unit 8200, but would still remain within the
Intelligence Directorate.

As far as the IDF is concerned, the plan is moving ahead from the planning
stage to the implementation stage, but in the summer of 2015 it is not yet
clear whether the budget required in order to implement it will be found.
The ball is in the government’s court.

Syria: while world attention has been drawn to Iran this summer, in Syria it
appears that the civil war that has been raging there for the past four
years is approaching the moment of decision.

Over the last few months, Assad has sustained massive losses in territory
and personnel. Similarly, Hezbollah, fighting alongside the forces of the
Assad regime against the various rebel groups, has also sustained heavy
losses, with the number of Hezbollah combatants killed in action totaling
1,300 (higher than their death toll in the Second Lebanon War). The forces
of ISIS are consolidating their hold in Syria, along with secular and more
moderate rebel forces, and the war is gradually leaking into the territory
of neighboring Lebanon. All of the above notwithstanding, Assad appears to
be determined not to relinquish his throne. Israel’s objective, at this
point, is to prevent the Syrian civil war from seeping into Israeli
territory.

The relocation to the south: the summer of 2015 marks a serious development
in the plans of IDF regarding the relocation to southern Israel. This major
project has begun to materialize with the inauguration of the training base
complex located to the south of Beersheba.

Despite the massive size of the new complex, the induction of this element
has been a marginal move compared to the moves that are still on the
agenda – the relocation of all of the technological units of the IDF C4I and
Intelligence Directorates to the Negev. The next stage in the plan will be
the issuance of a solicitation for the construction of a new C4I campus in
the south. This tender will be issued by the end of 2015. When the
relocation of all of the IDF units to the south has been completed, within
5-7 years, IDF will benefit from new technological infrastructures. As far
as the southern region is concerned, the IDF will constitute a primary
anchor in the creation of a common technological environment, along with
academia and Israeli as well as multinational high-tech industries.

IMI: the most significant development in the defense industry sector has
been the tender for the privatization of IMI. This process has been gaining
momentum and information rooms have been opened recently for the benefit of
the 10 groups that remained in the race for IMI’s acquisition.

The tender is expected to be decided by the end of this year. This process
will change the face of the Israeli defense industry, in preparation for
another significant move – the offering of a substantial percentage of the
shares of IAI to the public (IPO).

In part from the Jerusalem Post:

‘Sunset clause’

Yet, more than any single enforcement standard or cap included in the deal, Israel believes the Achilles’ heel of the proposed agreement is its definitive end date – the sunset clause.

“You’ve not dismantled the infrastructure, you’ve basically tried to put limits that you think are going to be monitored by inspectors and intelligence,” said the official, “and then after this period of time, Iran is basically free to do whatever it wants.”

The Obama administration also rejects this claim. By e-mail, the senior US administration official said that, “‘following successful implementation of the final step of the comprehensive solution for its duration, the Iranian nuclear program will be treated in the same manner as that of any non-nuclear weapon state party to the NPT – with an emphasis on non-nuclear weapon.”

“That has in no way changed,” the American official continued, quoting the interim Joint Plan of Action reached last year.

But the treatment of Iran as any other signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty –189 countries are members, including Iran – would allow Tehran to ultimately acquire “an industrial-sized capability,” the Israelis say. “The breakout times [to a nuclear weapon] will be effectively zero.”

Israel and world powers seek to maximize the amount of time they would have to identify non-compliance from a nuclear deal, should Iran choose to defy its tenets and build a bomb.

But in the deal under discussion in Vienna, Iran would be able to comply with international standards for a decade and, from Israel’s perspective, then walk, not sneak, into the nuclear club.

“You’ve not only created a deal that leaves Iran as a threshold nuclear power today, because they have the capability to break out quickly if they wanted to,” the Israeli official contended. “But you’ve also legitimized Iran as a military nuclear power in the future.”

From the moment this deal is clinched, Israel fears it will guarantee Iran as a military nuclear power. There will be no off ramp, because Iran’s reentry into the international community will be fixed, a fait accompli, by the very powers trying to contain it.

“The statement that says we’ve prevented them from having a nuclear weapon is not a true statement,” the Israeli official continued. “What you’ve said is, you’re going to put restrictions on Iran for a given number of years, after which there will be no restrictions and no sanctions. That’s the deal that’s on the table.”

Revisiting the use of force

Without an exit ramp, Israel insists its hands will not be tied by an agreement reached this week, this month or next, should it contain a clause that ultimately normalizes Iran’s home-grown enrichment program.

On the surface, its leadership dismisses fears that Israel will be punished or delegitimized if it disrupts an historic, international deal on the nuclear program with unilateral military action against its infrastructure.

By framing the deal as fundamentally flawed, regardless of its enforcement, Israel is telling the world that it will not wait to see whether inspectors do their jobs as ordered.

“Ten, fifteen years in the life of a politician is a long time,” the Israeli said, in a vague swipe against the political directors now scrambling in Vienna. “In the life of a nation, it’s nothing.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has threatened the use of force against Iran several times since 2009, even seeking authorization from his cabinet in 2011. Iran’s program has since grown in size and scope.

Islamic State’s suspected inroads into America, Current Threats

First there is the video threat from Iran:

Then we have the leader of al Qaeda with this published threat:

Reuters: Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri called on young Muslim men in the United States and other Western countries to carry out attacks inside there and urged greater unity between militants.

“I call on all Muslims who can harm the countries of the crusader coalition not to hesitate. We must now focus on moving the war to the heart of the homes and cities of the crusader West and specifically America,” he said in an audio recording posted online on Sunday, referring to nations making up the Western-led coalition in Iraq and Syria.

He suggested Muslim youth in the West take the Tsarnaev and Kouachi brothers, who carried out the Boston marathon bombings and Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris respectively, and others as examples to follow.

Then we have the existing cases in the United States.

The Islamic State’s suspected inroads into America

 For the full article and interactive map courtesy of the Washington Post, click here.

U.S. authorities have charged 64 men and women around the country with alleged Islamic State activities. Men outnumber women in those cases by about 5 to 1. The average age of the individuals — some have been charged, others have been convicted — is 25. One is a minor. The FBI says that, in a handful of cases, it has disrupted plots targeting U.S. military or law enforcement personnel.

 

12 New York
10 Minnesota
5 California
5 Illinois
4 North Carolina
4 New Jersey
3 Texas
3 Virginia
3 Missouri
2 Florida
2 Ohio
2 Massachusetts
2 Mississippi
1 Colorado
1 Pennsylvania
1 Wisconsin
1 Kansas
1 Georgia
1 Rhode Island
1 Arizona

New York

11 Pending

1 Convicted

Mufid A. Elfgeeh Rochester, N.Y.

Charged: Sept. 15, 2014 | Age when charged: 30

Elfgeeh encouraged two other people to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State and helped prepare them for the trip, according to the U.S. government. He also discussed the idea of shooting U.S. military members, saying he was thinking that he would “just go around and start shooting.” After he purchased two handguns with silencers and ammunition, the FBI says, he was arrested by members of the Rochester, N.Y., Joint Terrorism Task Force. Source.

Nihad Rosic Utica, N.Y.

Charged: Feb. 6, 2015 | Age when charged: 26

Rosic, a Bosnian native who became a naturalized citizen, is among six other Bosnian immigrants accused of sending money and military supplies to terror groups in Iraq and Syria. The government said that last July, he tried to board a flight from New York to Syria to join the fighting. Source.

Abdurasul Hasanovich Juraboev Brooklyn, N.Y.

Charged: Feb. 25, 2015 | Age when charged: 24

Juraboev made a posting on an Uzbek-language Web site propagating Islamic State theology, offering to kill the president of the United States if ordered by the Islamic State, according to the government. The indictment said he then planned to travel to Turkey and then Syria to wage jihad on behalf of the group. Source.

Akhror Saidakhmetov Brooklyn, N.Y.

Charged: Feb. 25, 2015 | Age when charged: 19

Saidakhmetov, a citizen of Kazakhstan, was arrested while trying to board a flight to Istanbul. The government alleges that he and Juraboev were planning to go to Syria to wage jihad on behalf of the Islamic State. Source.

Abror Habibov Brooklyn, N.Y.

Charged: Feb. 25, 2015 | Age when charged: 30

Habibov, who is Uzbeki, helped pay for Saidakhmetov’s effort to join the Islamic State, the government alleges. Source.

Noelle Velentzas Brooklyn, N.Y.

Charged: April 2, 2015 | Age when charged: 28

Velentzas and Asia Siddiqui were allegedly preparing an explosive device to detonate in the United States. According to the government’s complaint, Velentzas at one point pulled a knife from her bra and demonstrated how to stab someone to Siddiqui and an undercover police officer, saying, “Why we can’t be some real bad bitches?” Source.

Asia Siddiqui Brooklyn, N.Y.

Charged: April 2, 2015 | Age when charged: 31

Velentzas and Siddiqui were until recently roommates in an apartment in Queens. Siddiqui acquired multiple propane gas tanks, as well as instructions on how to turn them into explosive devices, according to the government. Source.

Dilkhayot Kasimov Brooklyn, N.Y.

Charged: April 6, 2015 | Age when charged: 26

The government alleges that Kasimov, together with Habibo, helped fund Saidakhmetov’s efforts to join the Islamic State, collecting more than $1,600 for him to use on his trip to Syria. Kasimov also encouraged other people to join the fight, according to the charges. Source.

Akmal Zakirov Brooklyn, N.Y.

Charged: June 8, 2015 | Age when charged: 29

Zakirov allegedly helped fund another person’s trip to join ISIS. Source.

Munther Omar Saleh Queens, N.Y.

Charged: June 16, 2015 | Age when charged: 20

Saleh, a college student in Queens studying electrical circuitry, allegedly planned to attack New York City landmarks on behalf of the Islamic State. The government said Saleh also translated Islamic State propaganda into English.

Fareed Mumuni Staten Island, N.Y.

Charged: June 17, 2015 | Age when charged: 21

Prosecutors allege Mumuni was part of a plot to detonate a presure-cooker bomb on behalf of the Islamic State. The government also says Mumuni stabbed an FBI agent with a kitchen knife when officials arrived at his home with a search warrant. Source.

Arafat M. Nagi Lackawanna, N.Y.

Charged: July 29, 2015 | Age when charged: 42

Nagi, the FBI alleges, pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. He also traveled to Turkey twice intending to meet with ISIS members, according to the government. Source.

Minnesota

9 Pending

1 Convicted

Abdiwali Nur Minneapolis

Charged: Nov. 24, 2014 | Age when charged: 20

According to the criminal complaint, Nur became “much more religious,” talking about how his family needed to pray more. He boarded a flight for Turkey and told someone on Facebook that he had gone “to the brothers.” Source.

Abdullahi Yusuf Minneapolis

Charged: Nov. 24, 2014 | Age when charged: 18

Yusuf was asssociated with a former Minnesota resident now believed to be fighting in Syria, according to the U.S. government. His parents didn’t know he had purchased a plane ticket to Istanbul. After his father drove him to school, he left for the airport, where FBI agents stopped him. Source.

Yusra Ismail St. Paul, Minn.

Charged: Dec. 2, 2014 | Age when charged: 20

Ismail, an ethnic Somali, was a shy Muslim woman who told her family she was going to a friend’s bridal shower, according to Minnesota Public Radio. Instead, she had stolen a friend’s passport and called days later to tell her family she was in Syria. “We hope she pops up randomly and tells us it was a prank,” a sister said to MPR. Source.

Hamza Naj Ahmed Minneapolis

Charged: Feb. 4, 2015 | Age when charged: 19

Ahmed was among a group of Minnesotans accused of trying to join the Islamic State. He was stopped at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York before he boarded a plane to Istanbul, said the FBI. Source.

Zacharia Yusuf Abdurahman Minneapolis

Charged: April 20, 2015 | Age when charged: 19

Abdurahman was part of a group of six Minnesota men who planned to travel to Syria in order to assist ISIS, the government alleges. Source.

Adnan Farah Minneapolis

Charged: April 20, 2015 | Age when charged: 19

Farah, who attempted to travel to Syria, told his mother that he wanted to study in China after high school and so he obtained a passport, which his parents then kept from him for fear he would disappear, according to government documents. Source.

Hanad Mustafe Musse Minneapolis

Charged: April 20, 2015 | Age when charged: 19

Musse, along with three others, attempted to reach Syria by first taking a Greyhound bus from Minneapolis to New York City, and then flying to Europe. Source.

Guled Ali Omar Minneapolis

Charged: April 20, 2015 | Age when charged: 20

Omar planned to leave the United States to join ISIS, the government alleges, and withdrew $5,000 in cash in the weeks up to his attempted departure. Source.

Abdirahman Yasin Daud Minneapolis

Charged: April 20, 2015 | Age when charged: 21

Daud was among the group of six Minnesota men trying to reach Syria to fight for ISIS. A witness called to testify on Daud’s behalf said she had known him since he was an eighth-grader and that he was “an extremely calm person” who always walked away from conflicts on the basketball court, according to Minnesota Public Radio. Source.

Mohamed Abdihamid Farah Minneapolis

Charged: April 20, 2015 | Age when charged: 21

Farah, together with a group of other Minnesota men, allegedly tried to reach Syria to join ISIS. Farah attempted to use a fake passport, saying, “The American identity is dead. Even if I get caught, I’m whatever … I’m through with America. Burn my ID,” according to the government. Source.

California

4 Pending

1 Convicted

Nicholas Teausant Acampo, Calif.

Charged: March 17, 2014 | Age when charged: 20

A student at a community college in Stockton, Calif., Teausant had been a member of the National Guard. The government alleges that he posted a message online: “Lol I been part of the army for two years now and I would love to join Allah’s army but I don’t even know how to start.” He later tried to get to Canada, thinking he was meeting someone who would help him get to Syria. Agents arrested him at the border. Source.

Adam Dandach Orange, Calif.

Charged: July 16, 2014 | Age when charged: 20

Dadanch, a U.S. citizen also known as “Fadi Fadi Dandach,” allegedly lied so that he could replace his passport after a family member took his original one to prevent him from traveling to Syria. He told FBI agents he was going to Syria to pledge his help to the Islamic State. Source.

Mohamad Saeed Kodaimati San Diego

Charged: April 23, 2015 | Age when charged: 24

Born in Aleppo, Syria, Kodaimati came to the United States around 2001 and later became a U.S. citizen, according to government documents. Prosecutors say he made false statements about his activites in Syria, claiming he did not know anyone who was a member of the Islamic State. Source.

Muhanad Badawi Anaheim, Calif.

Charged: May 22, 2015 | Age when charged: 24

Badawi and Elhuzayel allegedly used social media to discuss ISIS and their desire to die as martyrs. According to the government, Badawi let Elhuzayel use his credit card to buy a plane ticket to the Middle East. Source.

Nader Elhuzayel Anaheim, Calif.

Charged: May 22, 2015 | Age when charged: 24

Elhuzayel and Badawi discussed their support for the Islamic State, according to the FBI and Badawi is accused of purchasing a plane ticket for Elhuzayel to travel to the Middle East and fight for the Islamic State. Elhuzayel’s mother described her son to the Los Angeles Times as “a simple, gullible, nice kid.” Source.

Illinois

5 Pending

0 Convicted

Mohammed Hamzah Khan Bolingbrook, Ill.

Charged: Oct. 6, 2014 | Age when charged: 19

The government alleges a roundtrip ticket was purchased for Khan to travel from Chicago to Istanbul. A search at Khan’s home recovered multiple handwritten documents drafted by Khan and others expressing support for the Islamic State, the government says. Source.

Mediha Salkicevic Schiller Park, Ill.

Charged: Feb. 6, 2015 | Age when charged: 34

Salkicevic, a Bosnian native who immigrated to the United States and became a naturalized citizen, worked with others to transfer money to support ISIS fighters. She is married with four children. Source.

Jasminka Ramic Rockford, Ill.

Charged: Feb. 6, 2015 | Age when charged: 42

A Bosnian native who came to the United States and became a naturalized citizen was part of a group of accused of providing money and military equipment to Islamic State fighters. Source.

Hasan Rasheed Edmonds Aurora, Ill.

Charged: March 25, 2015 | Age when charged: 22

Edmonds was arrested while trying to fly to Cairo. The government alleges that he and his cousin Jonas planned for Hasan, a current member of the Illinois Army National Guard, to join ISIS. Jonas was then supposed to carry out an attack in the United States Source.

Jonas Marcel Edmonds Aurora, Ill.

Charged: March 25, 2015 | Age when charged: 29

Same as Hasan Edmonds. Source.

North Carolina

1 Pending

3 Convicted

Akba Jihad Jordan Raleigh, N.C.

Charged: April 1, 2014 | Age when charged: 21

The government accused Jordan of discussing with Brown their interest in traveling overseas to fight non-Muslims in either Syria or Yemen. The government alleged that Jordan served as a tactics instructor for Brown. Source.

Avin Marsalis Brown Raleigh, N.C.

Charged: April 1, 2014 | Age when charged: 21

Brown allegedly claimed to have a friend who had been hurt in Syria and wanted to join the fighting. He and Jordan planned to join ISIS in Syria, the government says. Source.

Donald Ray Morgan Rowan County, N.C.

Charged: Oct. 30, 2014 | Age when charged: 44

The U.S. government says Morgan tried at least once to travel from Lebanon to Syria to join the Islamic State. He also was charged with providing support in early 2014 to the militant group. Source.

Justin Nolan Sullivan Burke County, N.C.

Charged: June 22, 2015 | Age when charged: 19

Sullivan’s father tipped off authorities after noticing disturbing behavior from his son, according to NBC News. The FBI alleges Sullivan was plotting a terrorist attack inspired by ISIS and that he also wanted to kill his parents.

New Jersey

4 Pending

0 Convicted

Tairod Nathan Webster Pugh Neptune, N.J.

Charged: Jan. 16, 2015 | Age when charged: 47

Pugh, a U.S. Air Force veteran born and raised in the United States, attempted to travel to Syria and fight with the Islamic State, according to federal authorities. He appears to be the first U.S. military veteran known publicly to have tried to join ISIS. Source.

Samuel Rahamin Topaz Fort Lee, N.J.

Charged: June 18, 2015 | Age when charged: 21

Topaz, a U.S. citizen, allegedly planned a trip to the Middle East to join the Islamic State. A friend described two other individuals as “trying to recruit” Topaz and “preying” on his insecurities and “pain.” Source.

Alaa Saadeh Hudson County, N.J.

Charged: June 22, 2015 | Age when charged: 23

Saadeh, who was working full-time and finishing a business administration degree at Berkeley College, watched Islamic State propaganda videos with a few others and talked about traveling overseas to join the group, according to the FBI and the New Jersey Herald. He and his brother Nader, who was also charged, were born in North Bergen to Jordanian parents. Source.

Nader Saadeh Bergen County, N.J.

Charged: Aug. 10, 2015 | Age when charged: 29

Saddeh allegedly sent messages expressing his hatred for the United States and his interest in forming a small army with friends. The FBI said he researched flights to Turkey and received the name and number of an ISIS contact near the Turkey/Syria border who would help him reach militants. Source.

Texas

2 Pending

1 Convicted

Michael Todd Wolfe Austin

Charged: June 18, 2014 | Age when charged: 23

Wolfe was arrested trying to board a flight out of Houston, with the hope of eventually landing in Syria to join the Islamic State’s armed conflict, according to the U.S. government. He had been doing physical fitness training to prepare. Source.

Bilal Abood Mesquite, Tex.

Charged: May 15, 2015 | Age when charged: 37

An Iraqi-born naturalized U.S. citizen, Abood allegedly pledged allegiance to the leader of ISIS and then misled the FBI about his travels to Syria. Source.

Asher Abid Khan Spring, Tex.

Charged: May 25, 2015 | Age when charged: 20

Khan and a friend set out to reach Syria to join ISIS, but while en route, his family convinced him to turn around by telling him that his mother was critically ill. Source.

Virginia

1 Pending

2 Convicted

Heather Elizabeth Coffman Richmond

Charged: Nov. 14, 2014 | Age when charged: 29

Coffman, a mother living in Richmond, used social media to show her support for the Islamic State. According to court documents, she became romantically involved with a man whom she tried to help reach Syria to fight with the militant group. Source.

Reza Niknejad Woodbridge, Va.

Charged: June 10, 2015 | Age when charged: 18

Niknejad, with help from his friend Ali Shukri Amin, traveled to Syria to join the Islamic State and said to his mother after he left that he would “fight against these people who oppress the Muslims,” according to the FBI. Source.

Ali Shukri Amin Woodbridge, Va.

Charged: June 11, 2015 | Age when charged: 17

Amin, a suburban high school student who secretly ran a popular pro-Islamic State Twitter account, helped a friend get to Syria and join ISIS, according to court documents. Amin was born in Sudan and became a naturalized citizen early in his youth. Source.

Missouri

3 Pending

0 Convicted

Ramiz Zijad Hodzic St. Louis

Charged: Feb. 6, 2015 | Age when charged: 40

Ramiz Zjad Hodzic and his wife, Sedina, were Bosnian natives who immigrated to the United States as refugees. The two gathered money to purchase U.S. military uniforms and tactical gear, intending to transfer them to people fighting with ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Source.

Sedina Hodzic St. Louis

Charged: Feb. 6, 2015 | Age when charged: 35

Same as Ramiz Zjad Hodzic Source.

Armin Harcevic St. Louis

Charged: Feb. 6, 2015 | Age when charged: 37

Harcevic, a Bosnian native who immigrated to the United States and became a lawful permanent resident, was part of a group of calling themselves “Bosnian Brothers,” among other names, that contributed money people fighting for ISIS. Source.

Florida

1 Pending

1 Convicted

Miguel Moran Diaz Miami

Charged: April 2, 2015 | Age when charged: 45

Diaz called himself a “Lone Wolf” for ISIS, according to the FBI, and wanted to acquire a rifle and scratch “ISIS” into the shell casings. Source.

Harlem Suarez Key West, Fla.

Charged: July 27, 2015 | Age when charged: 23

Suarez, who was living with his parents, allegedly said he wanted to recruit others who wanted to join the Islamic State and discussed possibly launching terrorist attacks in Florida. Source.

Ohio

2 Pending

0 Convicted

Christopher Cornell Green Township, Ohio

Charged: May 7, 2015 | Age when charged: 20

A resident of the Cincinnati area, Cornell allegedly expressed support for ISIS and then plotted to attack the U.S. Capitol in a military-style assault. Source.

Robert C. McCollum Sheffield, Ohio

Charged: June 19, 2015 | Age when charged: 38

McCollum changed his name to Amir Said Abdul Rahman Al-Ghazi and began discussing Islamic extremism on social media, according to the FBI. In his postings, the government alleges, he spoke about carrying out terrorist attacks in the United States and said he would “cut off the head of his non-Muslim son if necessary.” Source.

Massachusetts

2 Pending

0 Convicted

David Wright Everett, Mass.

Charged: June 12, 2015 | Age when charged: 25

Wright and Nicholas Rovinski of Rhode Island allegedly conspired to attack and behead a man who had organized a conference in Garland, Tex., featuring cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad. Source.

Alexander Ciccolo Adams, Mass.

Charged: July 4, 2015 | Age when charged: 23

Ciccolo, allegedly a supporter of the Islamic State, spoke with another person about setting off explosive devices, such as a pressure cooker. His father, a Boston police captain, sent a tip to the FBI about his estranged son, according to the Boston Globe. Source.

Mississippi

2 Pending

0 Convicted

Jaelyn Delshaun Young Starkville, Miss.

Charged: Aug. 11, 2015 | Age when charged: 20

Young, a 2013 honors high school graduate, told undercover FBI agents that she wanted to join the Islamic State in Syria, saying “I just want to be there,” according to the FBI. The government says she and Dakhlalla were married and planned to travel to the Middle East using their honeymoon as a cover story. Source.

Muhammad Oda Dakhlalla Starkville, Miss.

Charged: Aug. 11, 2015 | Age when charged: 22

Dakhlalla, a 2015 Mississippi State University graduate, was the son of the imam at the Islamic Center of Mississippi in Starkville, according to the Associated Press. Dakhlalla planned to join the Islamic State along with Young. Source.

Colorado

0 Pending

1 Convicted

Shannon Maureen Conley Denver

Charged: April 9, 2014 | Age when charged: 19

Conley, a Muslim convert, told federal agents she wanted to use the American military training she gained from the U.S. Army Explorers to launch a holy war in the Middle East. She told federal agents she planned to go live with a Tunisian man who she met online and who claimed to be fighting for Islamic State. A nurse’s aide, Conley said she planned to become a housewife and a nurse at the man’s camp. Source.

Pennsylvania

1 Pending

0 Convicted

Keonna Thomas Philadelphia

Charged: April 3, 2015 | Age when charged: 30

Thomas, a mother in Philadelphia also known as “YoungLioness,” tried to travel overseas to join ISIS and martyr herself, according to the government’s charges. She communicated with an Islamic State fighter in Syria, who asked Thomas if she wanted to join. She responded, “that would be amazing…a girl can only wish.” Source.

Wisconsin

1 Pending

0 Convicted

Joshua Ray Van Haften Madison, Wis.

Charged: April 9, 2015 | Age when charged: 34

Van Haften told a number of people in person and over social media that he sympathized with ISIS and traveled to Turkey, intending to arrive in Syria to fight, according to the government. Source.

Kansas

1 Pending

0 Convicted

John T. Booker Jr. Topeka, Kan.

Charged: April 10, 2015 | Age when charged: 20

The government alleges that Booker tried to detonate a vehicle bomb at the Fort Riley military base in Kansas on behalf of ISIS. Source.

Georgia

0 Pending

1 Convicted

Leon Nathan Davis Augusta, Ga.

Charged: May 27, 2015 | Age when charged: 37

A convicted felon, Davis tried to board a flight to Turkey to allegedly join ISIS. He told the judge as he was being sentenced that he had been “brainwashed” by online radical Muslim propaganda, according to the Associated Press. Source.

Rhode Island

1 Pending

0 Convicted

Nicholas Rovinski Warwick, R.I.

Charged: June 12, 2015 | Age when charged: 24

Same as David Wright. Source.

Arizona

1 Pending

0 Convicted

Ahmed Mohammed El Gammal Avondale, Ariz.

Charged: Aug. 27, 2015 | Age when charged: 42

Gammal, an Arizona resident, allegedly helped a New York college student receive terrorist training in Syria.

SOURCE: Department of Justice. Swati Sharma and Julie Tate contributed to this report.

You Must Meet Sanafi al-Nasr, Saudi al Qaeda, Khorasan

Abstract: This article profiles Sanafi al-Nasr, a Saudi currently active with the Khorasan Group in Syria, whose ideological and personal animus toward the United States may influence the degree to which al-Qa`ida elements plot international terrorism from Syrian soil. He became active in al-Qa`ida’s Saudi chapter in the early 2000s and established himself as a prolific online writer. In 2007, he joined al-Qa`ida in the Afghanistan-Pakistan-Iran triangle where he learned from some of its top leaders and contributed to its media efforts and strategies. In April 2013, al-Nasr moved to Syria where he teamed up with Jabhat al-Nusra and emerged as a senior figure in the group.

Abd al-Muhsin `Abdallah Ibrahim al-Sharikh is a leading Saudi figure in the so-called Khorasan Group best known by his online moniker “Sanafi al-Nasr,” who has emerged as an important power broker and a strategic thinker in al-Qa`ida circles in Syria.[a] His growing influence is of significant concern because his writings reflect a deep-seated animus toward the United States that has both ideological and personal components. In the years after 9/11 one of his brothers was killed and two of his brothers were imprisoned by the United States. Even though al-Nasr has surfaced in media reports over the past year, this is the first comprehensive account of his jihadi trajectory.[1] The stage is set for al-Nasr to play an even more prominent role in the Khorasan Group. On July 21, 2015, the Pentagon announced the July 8 death of Mohsin al-Fadhli, the alleged leader of the group in an airstrike in northwest Syria.[2] A veteran Kuwaiti jihadi with ties to Usama bin Ladin, al-Fadhli had gone to Syria in 2013 after helping run an al-Qa`ida facilitation network in Iran in collaboration with al-Nasr.[3] If confirmed, al-Fadhli’s killing would be the latest in a series of losses for Syria-based al-Qa`ida elements previously located in the Khorasan region (Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran). However, a number of these operatives remain active inside Syria and are worth scrutinizing because of the potential threat they pose to the security of Western countries. In Syria, some al-Qa`ida delegates have high-ranking positions in Jabhat al-Nusra, testifying to the close relationship between the two groups. Even though Jabhat al-Nusra claims it has been ordered by al-Qa`ida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri not to mount external operations,[4] the number of foreign recruits available to al-Qa`ida in Syria, the group’s longstanding focus on the West, and intelligence suggesting that the Khorasan Group has engaged in plotting international terrorism,[5] make it vital to understand the Khorasan Group’s leaders and their profile, agenda, and priorities.

Jihadi Family
Al-Nasr was born in the Saudi town of al-Shaqra in Riyadh province on July 12, 1985,[6] into a family with longstanding ties to the Arab-Afghan milieu in general and al-Qa`ida in particular. His father fought against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s and later encouraged his sons to engage in militancy,[7] as did the father’s now-deceased spouse.[b] Such activity earned the al-Sharikh the reputation for being a “mujahideen family” in a document found in 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaykh Muhammad’s hideout in March 2003.[8]

Raised in their parents’ house in Riyadh’s al-Shifa district, the seven al-Sharikh brothers lived in what a family acquaintance called “martyrs street.”[c] One of the elder brothers—`Abd al-Latif—paved the way for several of the others to join jihadi groups. He trained at Khalden camp in Afghanistan before fighting with the Saudi jihadi Ibn al-Khattab in Chechnya, where he was killed in 2000.[9] His jihadi connections appear to have assisted his younger brothers’ militant trajectory. In 2000, three of them (`Abd al-Rahman, `Abd al-Hadi, and `Abd al-Razzaq) used connections in their deceased brother’s social network to migrate to Afghanistan.[10] In Kandahar, the al-Qa`ida leadership groomed `Abd al-Hadi and `Abd al-Razzaq[d] to help with the organization’s work in the Arabian Peninsula.[11]

These plans were cut short when they were captured after the fall of the Taliban and sent to Guantanamo.[e] `Abd al-Rahman, for his part, died in a U.S. airstrike while defending the Kandahar airport in late 2001.[12]

Early Militant Activities
Al-Nasr, the youngest of the brothers, stayed behind in Saudi Arabia and was likely inspired by his elder brothers. He began his jihadi career with al-Qa`ida’s Saudi branch,[f] having developed ties to its membership, including its higher echelons. When asked about the branch’s late leader Yusuf al-Uyayri and others, al-Nasr once said: “All of them [were] my companions.”[13] Although not a senior operative, he provided logistics and financial assistance.[14] For instance, he helped shelter `Abdallah al-Rashud, a top ideologue in the Saudi offshoot.[g] Al-Nasr also reportedly plotted attacks inside the kingdom with his friend Salih al-Qa`rawi, who later became a field commander with the Levant-based Abdullah Azzam Brigades (AAB) before his arrest in 2012.[15]

During this period, the young Saudi jihadi also started to earn a reputation as a writer. He participated in Sahwist-affiliated [h] and later in popular jihadi internet networks [i] such as al-Hisba, where he posted numerous pictures and brief biographies about many jihadis.[16] An ardent supporter of al-Qa`ida in Mesopotamia and its later incarnations, al-Nasr summarized the content of their video materials[17] while scolding their detractors, including the Turkish administrator of a militant forum.[18] In May 2006, he issued a vitriolic warning about the Shi`a and their supposed entrenched “enmity [toward] Sunnis” and their expansionist plans, with a focus on Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province.[19]

Core Al-Qa`ida
In 2007, al-Nasr followed in his brothers’ footsteps and moved to the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. He left with Muhammad al-Mutlaq, a renowned writer in the digital jihadi sphere[j] better known as Qahir al-Salib. The pair flew to Bahrain on April 8, 2007,[k] and were smuggled into Iran’s Kish Island by Muhammad Ja`far Iqbal,[l] a Bahraini jihadi veteran. Before setting off for Pakistan, al-Nasr met the Egyptian senior al-Qa`ida operative Sayf al-`Adl in Zahedan.[20]

On arriving in Pakistan’s tribal areas, al-Nasr befriended a diverse array of muhajiroun (émigrés), although his inner circle seems to have largely comprised fellow Saudis. Among them was Abu Bashir al-Najdi, born `Abdallah al-Qahtani, an al-Qa`ida official killed in North Waziristan in November 2009.[21] Another close acolyte was `Abdallah `Azzam al-`Azdi (real name Mu`jab al-Zahrani), an al-Faruq camp alumnus who served as a senior leader responsible for new volunteers in Waziristan before his November 2008 death in Bannu, Pakistan.[22] Al-Nasr also reconnected with old acquaintances, such as Ikrima al-Najdi, whom he knew from Saudi Arabia.

Al-Nasr received mentoring from a number of prominent al-Qa`ida leaders. According to his friend Bilal al-Khorasani, who is currently in Syria, the Saudi jihadi was “brought up at the hands of Abu Yahya and `Atiyyatullah,” [n] two Libyan ideologues then in al-Qa`ida’s leadership. Al-Nasr himself acknowledged `Atiyyatullah’s influence by contending that the Libyan had left an indelible mark on him.[23] Further, al-Nasr learned from, among others, Abu al-Miqdaq al-Misri, a late member of al-Qa`ida’s Shura council; Abu al-Layth al-Libi, a now-deceased top leader; and Khalid al-Husaynan, a slain Kuwaiti theologian.

This lengthy association with senior al-Qa`ida leaders helped al-Nasr to gradually ascend through the group. The Saudi émigré served as a mulazim (lieutenant) for Abu Yahya al-Libi and, in Bilal al-Khorasani’s words, their close relation led the one “who worked with [al-Nasr to be] touched by a scent of Abu Yahya in him.”[24] His brother-in-arms further praised him as “a noble, shy, and well-behaved man” who, despite his seniority, “hated to be called emir.”[25]

There is little documentation of al-Nasr’s engagement in al-Qa`ida’s military efforts. He is said to have featured in an al-Sahab production showing rocket attacks in Paktika, a province in southeastern Afghanistan.[26] Al-Nasr also provided a vivid account of a multi-pronged attack he had been charged with filming in 2007.[27] This supports other sources in which he was characterized as one of the “media men of Qa`idat al-Jihad in Khorasan” by a fellow member of the organization.[n] Al-Nasr’s only other appearance in al-Qa`ida’s official media was his later article for the group’s magazine Tala`i’ Khorasan in which he addressed the issue of Saudi women in custody.[28]

Most of his output was featured on jihadi forums such as al-Hisba and al-Fallujah, two of the most preeminent online platforms at the time. Al-Nasr acted as an on-the-ground “reporter” for his online audience, feeding it with news on the latest arrivals or battles in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.[o] Also, he penned a number of eulogies retracing the life and death of recently slain Arab militants, including mid-level al-Qa`ida commanders such as Abu Tayyib al-Sharqi.[p] Finally, the Saudi jihadi provided forums with audiovisual materials from the region, such as recordings of foreign fighters singing anashid (hymns).[29]

Between Iran and Pakistan
In late 2008 or early 2009,[q] al-Nasr was dispatched to Iran, where according to the United Nations “he was appointed the Iran-based representative of al-Qa`ida to replace Yasin al-Suri, an al-Qa`ida operative who had been jailed by the Iranian authorities. From Tehran, he managed a facilitation network that transferred finances and fighters to Afghanistan and Pakistan.”[r]

The al-Sakina website reported that frictions between the group’s leaders and Salih al-Qar`awi, the later AAB field commander, resulted in al-Nasr’s promotion.[s] The article claims that during a June 2008 meeting in Waziristan, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, the then al-Qa`ida leader in Khorasan, enjoined al-Qar`awi to give bay`a (oath of allegiance) to Usama bin Ladin and that in return he would be handed control over the organization’s Persian Gulf file. He refused and al-Qa`ida instead appointed al-Nasr.

But his tenure was short-lived. Iranian authorities arrested him at some point during 2009 and only released him in May 2011. According to the United Nations, he then moved back to North Waziristan, where he continued to be involved in facilitation activities, and as of 2012, he had taken “charge of the finances of Al-Qaida core.” [t]

Despite taking on an increasingly senior role for al-Qa`ida, al-Nasr continued his written output, frequently publishing on the jihadi media house al-Ansar Mailing Group, which was also used by other al-Qa`ida figures.[30] It issued his 2011 essay “[What is required] Before al-Nafir,” followed by “[What is required] After al-Nafir.”[31] Aimed at providing guidance to would-be volunteers for jihad overseas, his work built on discussions with seasoned militants and his personal readings. He focused on physical preparation, “an essential pillar” of jihad, as well as the importance of listening to and obeying the emir and respecting local supporters of the cause.

Sometime in late 2012 or early 2013, al-Nasr returned to Iran, where he resumed a senior role in al-Qa`ida’s fighter and financing facilitation network. During this time he fostered a working relationship with the future alleged leader of the Khorasan Group. According to the United Nations, during this second spell in Iran he acted as the deputy in the network to Kuwaiti al-Qa`ida veteran Muhsin al-Fadhli.32 [u] In October 2012 the U.S. government stated:

The network uses Iran as a critical transit point and operates under an agreement between al-Qa`ida and the Iranian government. Under the terms of the agreement between al-Qa`ida and Iran, al-Qa`ida must refrain from conducting any operations within Iranian territory and recruiting operatives inside Iran while keeping Iranian authorities informed of their activities. In return, the Government of Iran gave the Iran-based al-Qa`ida network freedom of operation and uninhibited ability to travel for extremists and their families.“[33]

Syria
As early as 2012, al-Qa`ida elements began leaving Khorasan (Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran) and moving to Syria. The exodus reflected a process sanctioned by al-Qa`ida’s general command, as those involved were characterized as “the members of the Khorasan delegation sent by Shaykh Ayman al-Zawahiri.”[34] The group has long been adept at deploying trusted operatives to local subsidiaries to assist and keep them in line with its policies. It was no surprise that al-Zawahiri wanted to replicate this in Syria, especially since his Iraqi affiliate, with its history of brutality, had dispatched members of its own, under the cover of Jabhat al-Nusra.

According to the United Nations, al-Nasr left Iran and relocated to Syria in April 2013.[v] If al-Nasr’s Twitter feed is any indication, the timeline seems accurate. After joining Twitter in early January 2013, he barely mentioned the Syrian conflict and the material he posted related to actions in Afghanistan and Pakistan. A change occurred from mid-June, with later tweets clearly pointing to his presence in Syria. He began using the platform to reach out to senior Syria-based militant figures, informing his followers of his comrades “martyred” in Syria, and occasionally reporting what he witnessed. [w]

Operating in northern Syria, al-Nasr adopted the new alias Abu Yasir al-Jazrawi.[35] On account of their provenance, he and his associates were commonly referred to as the “brothers/mujahideen from Khorasan” in Syria’s militant circles.[36] They did not constitute a distinct group, but a mere extension of the Pakistan-based mother organization with specific instructions for implementation once in Syria. As al-Nasr related, “the organization Qa`idat al-Jihad asked all those who were sent to Syria to join Jabhat al-Nusra, except for two people [who were sent] to Ahrar al-Sham.”[37] Abu `Ubayda al-Maqdisi, the security chief who was in charge of dispatching al-Qa`ida members from Khorasan to Syria, even required an oath from operatives that they would team up with Jabhat al-Nusra.[x]

While some al-Qa`ida veterans assumed a public position in Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Nasr’s exact duties in the group remain less clear and seem to have shifted over time. He served in a combat role in and around north-western Idlib and Latakia provinces38 and, due to his years in Khorasan, was apparently appointed as Jabhat al-Nusra’s emir for al-Sahel in Latakia where his experience in mountain warfare was especially valuable. [39] [y] Al-Nasr’s military contribution is further underscored by the severe injuries he suffered from a tank shell during the first day of the al-Anfal battle in Latakia on March 21, 2014.[40]

More importantly for his ascension through the ranks was al-Nasr’s emergence as one of the top strategists for al-Qa`ida in Syria. According to a former al-Qa`ida member, al-Nasr distinguished himself “with strategic acumen and an ideologically driven approach to jihad throughout his career.”[z] Upon al-Nasr’s arrival in Syria, he headed a small al-Qa`ida council originally envisaged by Bin Ladin as offering guidance on “strategic policies and planning.”[aa] Combined with his description as “one of [Jabhat al-Nusra’s] top strategists”[41] by U.S. officials, it seems al-Nasr has been working as a senior advisor, this time with Jabhat al-Nusra’s emir Abu Muhammad al-Julani and his top aides,[bb] especially since his injuries in 2014.[42]

In that regard, al-Nasr, along with other Saudis and Jordanians, is alleged to have played a role in keeping Jabhat al-Nusra in al-Qa`ida’s orbit, even as some senior Jabhat al-Nusra figures pushed for a weaker relationship with the central leadership in Pakistan.[cc] Al-Nasr is also said to have participated in sidelining Jabhat al-Nusra’s former top religious official, Abu Mariyya al-Qahtani, who was dismissed in favor of the Jordanian Sami al-`Uraydi in the summer of 2014.[43] Conversely, al-Nasr apparently helped bolster the theological and judicial clout of the Jordanians Abu Qatada al-Filistini and Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi over Jabhat al-Nusra’s Legal Committee.[dd] Both of these men had influenced him since his youth. Al-Nasr also reportedly contributed to the deepening of the Syrian affiliate’s reach in the Levantine militant environment by helping it develop its “operational relationship” [ee] with the AAB.

It is unclear if al-Nasr had any operational role in the alleged plotting of international attacks by the Khorasan Group. Nevertheless, in the case of an overseas attack in the making, it is most likely that he was, at the very least, made aware of the preparations owing to his close working relationship with al-Fadhli, who headed external operations for al-Qa`ida Central in Syria.[44]

In any event, al-Nasr’s writings clearly showed that the Saudi had considerable motivation to target the West, especially the United States. Indeed, upon arriving in the Afghanistan/Pakistan/Iran region in 2007, al-Nasr recounted that what had captured his attention was the fate of jihadis in U.S. custody, citing the cases of “Shaykh `Umar `Abd al-Rahman (aka the blind sheikh) and our prisoners in Guantanamo.” He then added that “we will take revenge for our brothers with all our strength” by striking the “Americans who hurt my brothers in Cuba” and their “Pakistani agents.”[45] Besides his long involvement in al-Qa`ida, al-Nasr’s grievances were also certainly cemented by the imprisonment and killing of his own brothers by the United States. Furthermore, according to the U.S. government he “used social media posts [in Syria] to demonstrate his aspiration to target Americans and U.S. interests.”[46] His desire to orchestrate attacks against the West may, for the time being, have been tempered by al-Zawahiri’s call for Jabhat al-Nusra not to use Syria as a base for international operations. His track record as a loyalist to al Qa`ida’s top command and his emphasis in his writings on obeying the emir suggests he is likely to abide by these orders.

A Harsh Critic of the Islamic State
The period during which al-Nasr and many of his comrades migrated to Syria corresponded with the growing rift between Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State. Indeed, as al-Qa`ida’s emissaries entrusted with securing its interests in Syria, a number of them[ff] served as mediators in the then nascent fitna (sedition) that created the Islamic State, though there is no hard evidence that this was part of al-Nasr’s portfolio.[gg]

Despite several reconciliation attempts throughout 2013,[hh] the rift only intensified. Although al-Nasr did not specifically point to the Islamic State, he railed against “adolescent jihadism [which manifests in a] disorder of priorities, a rush to set loose rulings, [and] on-the-spot decision-making by temper.”[47]After infighting with the Islamic State broke out in January 2014, al-Nasr grew more outspoken about Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s men. He noted the discrepancy between what he was told by Islamic State members, namely that “they do not excommunicate Ahrar al-Sham,” and their “calls to send car bombs” against the group.[48] The hostility that the al-Qa`ida envoys reported to the leadership in Pakistan was a driving factor in the organization’s decision to disown its Iraqi affiliate in February 2014.[ii] Al-Nasr’s aversion to the Islamic State reached its climax later that month with Abu Khalid al-Suri’s slaying, which the Saudi blamed on the “state of oppression and injustice.” [jj]

Further asserting his anti-Islamic State sentiment, al-Nasr signed the joint statement “About al-Baghdadi’s group” issued on July 18, 2015.[49] The Saudi jihadi, alongside other prominent foreign militant figures, admonished al-Baghdadi’s forces for having “increased their crimes.” This was the first time that al-Nasr’s name featured on a public communiqué as one of Jabhat al-Nusra’s top representatives. Al-Nasr was last heard of on August 24, 2015, when he eulogized Idris al-Balushi—Khalid Shaykh Muhammad’s nephew, who he evidently knew—on a Twitter account he had apparently newly created.[50]

Conclusion
Al-Nasr’s trajectory from the Saudi wing of al-Qa`ida to al-Qa`ida in Khorasan epitomizes the intertwined nature of the jihadi milieu, where social bonds and family pedigree often prove to be significant in one’s radicalization process and subsequent role. Although he is a member of the younger generation that used to acclaim Abu Mus`ab al-Zarqawi’s jihad in Iraq, the Saudi has remained devoted to al-Qa`ida’s old guard, and established himself as a staunch critic of al-Zarqawi’s heirs in the Levant. In light of his recent feature role as one of Jabhat al-Nusra’s major officials and the demise of many of al-Qa`ida’s longtime figures, al-Nasr appears set to further increase his stature within al-Qa`ida’s global network. Should the organization change its calculus with regard to launching international attacks from Syria, al-Nasr’s background and mindset would likely see him play a key role in orchestrating terrorist attacks against the West.

Kévin Jackson is a contributor at the Jihadica academic blog, runs the All Eyes on Jihadism blog, and is completing a degree in Middle East Studies at Sciences Po. You can follow him
@alleyesonjihad.

Substantive Notes

[a] Al-Nasr is on Saudi Arabia’s February 2009 most-wanted list and the United Nations Security Council and the U.S. Treasury Department both added him to the list of al-Qa`ida figures on the sanctions list in August 2014. See “Tafasil fi Qa`ima al-85 al-Mulahaqin Amniyyan,” `Ukadh, February 5, 2009. I am grateful to the blogger known as Mr. Orange for his help in translating Arabic texts; “United Nations Security Council Adds Names of Six Individuals to Al-Qaida Sanctions List,” United Nations, August 15, 2014; “Treasury Designates Additional Supporters of the Al-Nusrah Front and Al-Qaida,” U.S. Department of the Treasury, August 22, 2014.

[b] An internal al-Qa`ida document states that “after [`Abd al-Razzaq’s] brother [`Abd al-Latif] died in Chechnya, his mother sent him, along with two brothers, to jihad.” See `Abd al-Razzaq’s profile in “The Guantanamo Docket.” New York Times (updated June 2015).

[c] It was named as such given that, besides `Abd al-Latif, another Saudi living close by nicknamed Abu `Abdallah al-Shabani was killed in Bosnia. See Hamad al-Qatari, “Min Qisas al-Shuhada’ al-`Arab, `Ibad al-Najdi.” Available at http://www.saaid.net/Doat/hamad/48.htm. (shari’ al-shuhada’).

[d] While Sanafi al-Nasr has explicitly mentioned `Abd al-Latif and `Abd al-Rahman as his brothers, he did not do so concerning `Abd al-Razzaq (born in al-Shaqra, like al-Nasr) and `Abd al-Hadi. Nonetheless, it is evident that these two are also al-Nasr’s brothers. Not only do they share the same family name, but the two also stated that `Abd al-Latif and `Abd al-Rahman were their brothers. See, for instance, `Abd al-Razzaq’s profile in “The Guantanamo Docket.” New York Times (updated June 2015). Bilal al-Khurasani, a personal friend of al-Nasr, though not naming `Abd al-Razzaq or `Abd al-Hadi, confirmed that two of al-Nasr’s brothers had been imprisoned in Guantanamo. See Bilal al-Khurasani, “Wa madhi Kawkab min Kawakib Khurasan—al-Amir al-Nabil Sanafi al-Nasr Rahimahullah,” March 26, 2014. On the connections between the brothers also see Thomas Jocelyn, “Treasury designates 2 ‘key’ al Qaeda financiers,” The Long War Journal, August 22, 2014.

[e] After being transferred to their home country on September 5, 2007, the two brothers were later rearrested on terrorism suspicions. See “Former Guantanamo Detainee Terrorism Trends,” Defense Intelligence Agency, April 8, 2009.

[f]  This branch was the first incarnation of al-Qa`ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and was mainly active in Saudi Arabia between 2003 and 2006. After several setbacks in the kingdom, the group announced its “reactivation” in January 2009, with the merger between its Saudi and Yemeni components. For an exhaustive account of AQAP’s first incarnation, see Thomas Hegghammer, Jihad in Saudi Arabia: Violence and Pan-Islamism since 1979 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010).

[g] Al-Nasr hid al-Rashud while the latter was “snubbed by many of those that he had considered to be among his closest friends.” See Bilal al-Khurasani, “Wa madhi Kawkab min Kawakib Khurasan—al-Amir al-Nabil Sanafi al-Nasr Rahimahullah,” March 26, 2014. Al-Rashud eventually managed to flee to Iraq, where he was killed in 2005.

[h] The Sahwists were reformist Islamists who led the non-violent opposition against the Saudi regime in the first half of the 1990s.

[i] Al-Nasr’s early online involvement was recounted to this author by Aimen Dean. The Saudi Islamist-run forums al-Nasr was active on were al-Islah, owned by the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia, and al-Masrah, created by Kassab al-`Utaybi, a Saudi dissident. These were the two online platforms where Dean would come to know and interact with al-Nasr from 2000 onward.

[j] Sanafi al-Nasr, “Hal Ta`rifun Sanafi al-Nasr, Innahu fi Sahat al-Wagha,” Ana Muslim, May 5, 2007. Al-Mutlaq was likely killed in a U.S. drone strike that targeted a compound in North Waziristan on January 29, 2010. To read more on his background, see “2 More Web Jihadists Announced Dead,” Jarret Brachman blog, February 1, 2010.

[k] Before leaving, al-Nasr returned to his home to see his parents and bid them farewell.

[l] Also known as Abu al-Harith, Iqbal went to Afghanistan in 1991 and 1992 before turning his attention to the Bosnian jihad in the mid-1990s. He enjoyed close relations with Libyan jihadis, especially in the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group.

[m] Bilal al-Khurasani, “Wa madhi Kawkab min Kawakib Khurasan—al-Amir al-Nabil Sanafi al-Nasr Rahimahullah,” March 26, 2014. For more on `Atiyyatullah al-Libi and his ideological views, see Christopher Anzalone, “Revisiting Shaykh Atiyyatullah’s Works on Takfir and Mass Violence,” CTC Sentinel 5:4, (2012). He was also known by the alias Abu `Abd al-Rahman. His real name is Jamal Ibrahim Ishtiwi al-Misrati. He was born in 1970 in Misrata, Libya, traveled to Afghanistan in the late 1980s and was killed in a drone strike in Pakistan on August 22, 2011. See Don Rassler et al, “Letters from Abbottabad: Bin Ladin Sidelined?” Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, May 3, 2012, p. 5.

[n] This was said on the Twitter account @Kmohajer63, which has since been shut down. Aimen Dean was also adamant that al-Nasr was an “al-Qa`ida Central media guy.”

[o] For instance, al-Nasr announced the arrival of a forum administrator to Khorasan in late June 2008. See “Report: The brother asdasd99, one of the supervisors of the Al-Firdaws web forum, has joined his mujahideen brothers in Afghanistan,” NEFA Foundation, June 29, 2008. To read a battle report written by al-Nasr, see Sanafi al-Nasr, “Tafasil Saytarat Taliban Bakistan `ala al-Ta`irat al-Thalath kama Yarwiha Sanafi al-Nasr,” Hanayn Forum, June 18, 2008.

[p] His real name is Talayhan al-Mutayri. Abu Tayyib al-Sharqi joined al-Qa`ida in the late 1990s. After three years in custody in Saudi Arabia in the aftermath of 9/11, he moved to the Afghan-Pakistan border region and reconnected with his group. He led a major assault against a U.S. military base in Khost in August 2008 before being killed in an airstrike shortly after. To read his eulogy, see Sanafi al-Nasr, “Silsilat `Am al-Huzn 1429h—Abu al-Tayyib al-Sharqi Rahimahullah,” Ana Muslim, March 28, 2009.

[q] It is not clear exactly when al-Nasr traveled. This estimate is based on the author’s analysis of al-Nasr’s statements.

[r] “United Nations Security Council Adds Names of Six Individuals to Al-Qaida Sanctions List,” United Nations, August 15, 2014. According to the U.S. Treasury, Yasin al-Suri has been active in al-Qa`ida’s facilitation networks in Iran since 2005 and later became the head of its activities in the country. He was also involved in moving the group’s elements from Khorasan into Syria. “Treasury Targets Key Al-Qa’ida Funding and Support Network Using Iran as a Critical Transit Point, U.S Department of the Treasury Press Release,” July 28, 2011. For more details on al-Suri’s most recent activities, see Thomas Jocelyn, “Report: Senior al Qaeda Facilitator ‘Back on the Street’ in Iran,” The Long War Journal, January 31, 2014.

[s] See “Asbab Ghadhab al-Qa`ida `ala al-Qar`awi wa `Azluhu min Mansibihi,” al-Sakina, February 22, 2015. Although it does not mention al-Nasr, an insider account substantiates the article’s information about al-Qa`ida’s strained relationship with al-Qa`rawi. In it, al-Qa`rawi is decried as a rogue element whose “reckless behavior” caused major troubles in the Khorasan-based militant community, which prompted al-Qa`ida’s leaders, including Abu al-Yazid, to attempt to “contain him.” See `Abd al-Hamid al-Iraqi, “Allahu Akbar—bi Idhnillah—Tahrir Bayt al-Maqdis ala yad al-Qa`ida (ma`a Dalil),” Post 13, Ana Muslim, July 17, 2010.

[t] “United Nations Security Council Adds Names of Six Individuals to Al-Qaida Sanctions List,” United Nations, August 15, 2014. In the same vein, the U.S. Treasury says that al-Nasr functioned “as a key financial facilitator in Pakistan” for the organization.

[u] It should be noted that al-Nasr hinted at his close relationship with al-Fadhli by lauding him as his “companion” when rumors surfaced that the Kuwaiti had been killed in a U.S. airstrike in Syria in September 2014.

[v] The United States is less exact, identifying only the spring of 2013. Interestingly, there was a time lapse between early February 2013 and early April 2013 during which al-Nasr went dark on Twitter.

[w] Author monitoring of the @Snafialnasr Twitter account. The account contains many personal recollections in the first person indicating it is authored by al-Nasr, not a supporter.

[x] This was claimed by a Jordanian who defected from al-Qa`ida to the Islamic State and became a vocal opponent of his former group. See Abu Jarir al-Shamali, “Al-Qaidah of Waziristan,” Dabiq, Issue 6, December 29, 2014, p. 51.

[y] Al-Nasr is said to have been working with `Abd al-Rahman al-Juhani, a top leader of al-Qa`ida who arrived in Syria from Pakistan in 2012, in his duties in Latakia. See “United Nations Security Council Adds Names of Six Individuals to Al-Qaida Sanctions List.”

[z] Interview with Aimen Dean, July 28, 2015. Based on his online conversations with al-Nasr, Dean saw him as being from “la crème de la crème” of jihadis, those who, as opposed to the “romantic” or “bloodthirsty” types, are “ideologically, politically, and strategically driven.”

[aa] In late 2009 or early 2010, Bin Ladin addressed a letter to Mustafa Abu al-Yazid in which he brought up the need for “one or two brothers to specialize in the area of strategic policies and planning,” adding that “this person might give us lucid ideas during the events the nation will go through since this is his field of study.” U.S. intelligence sources told Thomas Jocelyn that this very restricted body eventually grew and became known as the “Shura al-Nasr.” (Victory Council), with al-Nasr running it. I am indebted to Thomas Jocelyn for having shared his insights into the origins and development of the council.

[bb] On a broader level, the role played by al-Qa`ida’s representatives in orienting Jabhat al-Nusra is echoed in primary sources. For example, an insider account refers to an unnamed “delegate of Ayman al-Zawahiri” as one of “Jabhat al-Nusra’s advisors and leaders” keen to push forward reform in the group. See “Interview with Abu Samir al-Urduni,” Dabiq, Issue 10, July 14, 2015, p. 76.

[cc] Interview with Aimen Dean, July 28, 2015. Charles Lister agrees that a cluster of Jordanians, Saudis, and some Kuwaitis lobbied for keeping Jabhat al-Nusra under al-Qa`ida’s umbrella. To read more about Jabhat al-Nusra’s internal divisions, see Charles Lister, “An Internal Struggle: Al Qaeda’s Syrian Affiliate Is Grappling With Its Identity,” Huffington Post, May 31, 2015.

[dd] Interview with Aimen Dean, July 28, 2015. During their discussions on Islamist forums, al-Nasr told Dean that the two most influential scholars he had come across were al-Filistini and al-Maqdisi, whose book al-Kawashif al-Jalliyya fi Kufr al-Dawla al-Sa’udiyya considerably influenced his views on the Saudi monarchy. Also, al-Nasr participated in online debates involving al-Filistini and the Syrian militant cleric Abu Basir al-Tartusi. Al-Nasr’s role in specifically strengthening al-Filistini’s standing in Jabhat al-Nusra led one member of Ahrar al-Sham to dismissively refer to the Saudi government as “nothing but a stooge of Abu Qatada.”

[ee] Interview with Charles Lister, July 29, 2014. According to Lister, besides al-Qar`awi, al-Nasr also knew Majid al-Majid, the late emir of the AAB, and “had relationships into Lebanon’s Palestinian refugee camps.” These contacts proved useful in fostering the Jabhat al-Nusra-AAB nexus. Lister added that the Lebanese-founded group “Jund al-Sham in Homs along the Lebanese border may have helped with several covert crossings to Tripoli in this regard.”

[ff] Although he had the main authority in solving these internal disputes as per al-Zawahiri’s orders, Abu Khalid al-Suri was not the only one involved. For example, the biography of Abu Firas al-Suri, a jihadi veteran now part of Jabhat al-Nusra’s senior leadership, specifies that he “returned to Syria from Yemen in 2013 when the conflict between Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State took place and he desperately tried along with Shaykh Abu Khalid al-Suri to address the issues.” See Abu Firas al-Suri, “Silsalah al-Shahada: Chain of Testimonies,” al-Basira Media Productions, March 21, 2014.

[gg] Both Aimen Dean and Charles Lister raised doubts about al-Nasr’s possible involvement in the mediation. Dean holds that al-Qa`ida favors “grey beards,” (meaning historically authoritative figures with long experience in jihad) for such a sensitive mission.

[hh] According to Abu `Abdallah al-Shami, a top Jabhat al-Nusra religious official, one of the proposed solutions was to send two figures, one from Jabhat al-Nusra and one from the Islamic State, to al-Zawahiri so that he could choose the most suitable candidate to lead both groups in Syria. See Abu `Abdallah al-Shami, “But If They Had Done What They Were (Actually) Told, It Would Have Been Best For Them,” al-Tahaya Media Foundation, March 30, 2014.

[ii] This had been reported by Adam Gadahn, a key figure in al-Sahab until his death, who declared that “numerous reports from reliable sources—including some sent to Syria especially for the purpose of evaluating the situation on the ground—confirmed the accuracy of many of the accusations leveled against Islamic State.” See “Resurgence,” al-Sahab, Issue 2, June 25, 2015, p. 54.

[jj] See https://twitter.com/Snafialnasr/statuses/437596608906407936. Al-Nasr further revealed what al-Suri had told him shortly before his assassination, from a meeting with Bin Ladin in Afghanistan in the 9/11 aftermath to the death threats he received from ISIS in Syria.

Citations

[1] For the most thorough article on al-Nasr to date see Thomas Jocelyn, “Head of al Qaeda ‘Victory Committee’ in Syria,” The Long War Journal, March 6, 2014.

[2] Barbara Starr, “U.S. Official: Leader of Khorasan Group Dead,” CNN, July 21, 2015.

[3] For more details on al-Fadhli, see Thomas Jocelyn, “Report: Former Head of al Qaeda’s Network in Iran now Operates in Syria,” The Long War Journal, March 25, 2014.

[4] “Translation: Interview with Abu Muhammad al-Joulani on Al Jazeera (Part 1),” al-Minara, June 1, 2015.

[5] To read more about U.S. allegations regarding plots against the West hatched by the Syria-based al-Qa`ida cadre, see Siobhan Gorman and Julian E. Barnes, “U.S. Feared Al Qaeda Group Targeted in Syria Was Plotting Terror,” Wall Street Journal, September 23, 2014.

[6] “Tafasil fi Qa`ima al-85 al-Mulahaqin Amniyyan,” `Ukadh, February 5, 2009; “Treasury Designates Additional Supporters of the Al-Nusrah Front and Al-Qaida, United States Department of the Treasury, August 22, 2014.

[7] Bilal al-Khurasani, “Wa madhi Kawkab min Kawakib Khurasan—al-Amir al-Nabil Sanafi al-Nasr Rahimahullah,” March 26, 2014, available at http://justpaste.it/snafi. For details on how the al-Sharikh patriarch directly encouraged his sons to take up the cause, see `Abd al-Hadi al-Sharikh’s profile on “The Guantanamo Docket,” New York Times (updated June 2015).

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ibid.

[10] `Abd al-Hadi al-Sharikh’s profile on “The Guantanamo Docket,” New York Times (updated June 2015).

[11] `Abd al-Hadi al-Sharikh’s profile on “The Guantanamo Docket,” New York Times (updated June 2015). The mission they were assigned to was to attack a U.S. airbase in Saudi Arabia.

[12] “Shuhada’ al-Islam alladhina Jahadu wa Nadhalu wa Nalu Sharaf al-Shahada wa al-Mawt fi Sabil Allah,” Ahla Shalahu, February 18, 2011.

[13] Bilal al-Khurasani, “Wa madhi Kawkab min Kawakib Khurasan—al-Amir al-Nabil Sanafi al-Nasr Rahimahullah,” March 26, 2014. The relationship between al-Nasr and al-Uyayri was confirmed to this author by Aimen Dean, a former member of al-Qa`ida.

[14] “`Abd al-Muhsin al-Sharikh, al-Sira al-Dhatiyya `an `Abd al-Muhsin al-Sharikh, Man Huwa Sanafi al-Nasr,” Nahr al-Hub, August 24, 2014.

[15] “`Abd al-Muhsin al-Sharikh, al-Sira al-Dhatiyya `an `Abd al-Muhsin al-Sharikh, Man Huwa Sanafi al-Nasr,” Nahr al-Hub, August 24, 2014. For more on the cooperation between Jabhat al-Nusra and AAB see Charles Lister, “Al-Qa`ida Plays a Long Game in Syria” in this issue, p. 13.

[16] “Shuhada’ al-Islam alladhina Jahadu wa Nadhalu wa Nalu Sharaf al-Shahada wa al-Mawt fi Sabil Allah,” Ahla Shalahu, February 18, 2011.

[17] Sanafi al-Nasr, “Taqrir `an Film Qawafil al-Shuhada’ fi Bilad al-Rafidayn,” Ana Muslim, March 2, 2007.

[18] Sanafi al-Nasr, “Maghalitat fi Bayan ‘Mish`an al-Juburi’ al-Mushrif al-`Am `ala Mawqi’ al-Mukhtasar,” Ana Muslim, February 26, 2007.

[19] Sanafi al-Nasr, “Al-Rayy al-`Am li-al-Rafidha Yu`id Fasl al-Mintaqa al-Sharqiyya bi-al-Quwwa,” Ana Muslim, May 16, 2006.

[20] Interview with Aimen Dean, July 28, 2015.

[21] “Istishhad al-Shaykh `Abdallah al-Qahtani—Abu Bashir al-Najdi—Ahad al-Matlubin,” Ana Muslim, November 13, 2009.

[22] Sanafi al-Nasr, “Wa rahala Hafid Abu Hurayra al-Qiyadi al-Bariz `Abdallah `Azzam al-`Azdi Rahimahullah,” Ana Muslim, February 8, 2009.

[23] This was mentioned on al-Nasr’s former Twitter profile.

[24] See Bilal al-Khurasani, “Wa madhi Kawkab min Kawakib Khurasan—al-Amir al-Nabil Sanafi al-Nasr Rahimahullah,” posted on Justpaste and disseminated by pro al-Qa`ida Twitter accounts, March 26, 2014.

[25] Ibid.

[26] See “Sharpshooters of Paktitka,” al-Sahab, March 3, 2012. A comrade of al-Nasr made this claim on his now defunct account @ali_gt959.

[27] Sanafi al-Nasr, “Ibrat Madhi al-Tariq!,” Ana Muslim, December 13, 2007.

[28] “Hal Sayafaji’na al-i’alam al-Sa`udi bi-Quwa`im al-Matlubat,” Tala`i’ Khurasan, Issue 19, September 11, 2011.

[29] “Khasrian…Jalasat Anashadiyya al-Ikhwanuna al-Mujahidin fi Afghanistan Muhadat Min al-Akh Sanafi al-Nasr li-Ghurfat al-Ansar,” originally published on a jihadi forum, March 26, 2009. Accessed through archive.org. Al-Nasr also shared a video paying tribute to a cluster of foreign militants killed in Zabul, Afghanistan. The video was narrated by Abu Damdam al-Qurayshi (Khalid al-`Utaybi), a Saudi national reported to have facilitated al-Nasr’s departure from Saudi Arabia. See “Ghurfat al-Ansar fi al-Baltuk Tuqaddim: Abrar fi Zaman al-Inkisar,” al-Qimmah Forum, February 28, 2009.

[30] See, for example, Abu `Ubayda al-Maqdisi, “Eulogy for the Lion of ash-Sham: Shaykh Mahmud Mihdi Aal Zaydan (Mansur ash-Shami),” al-Ansar Mailing Group, June 8, 2012.

[31] Sanafi al-Nasr, “Ma Qabl al-Nafir,” Ana Muslim, July 1, 2011; Sanafi al-Nasr, “Ma Ba`d al-Nafir,” Defender of the Lands Arabic, September 30, 2011. The term al-nafir means heading to jihad.

[32] “United Nations Security Council Adds Names of Six Individuals to Al-Qaida Sanctions List” United Nations, August 15, 2014.

[33] “Treasury Further Exposes Iran-Based Al-Qa’ida Network,” U.S. Department of the Treasury, October 18, 2012.

[34] “Kanz `Adhim li-kul Talib Ilm Mujahid—Silsila Nadira Jiddan lil Shaykh Abu Yahya al-Libi Rahimahullah,” November 15, 2013.

[35] See https://twitter.com/abo11hosam/status/447260012369309697.

[36] See for instance, http://ask.fm/tash3ri/answer/73743073854.

[37] See https://twitter.com/Snafialnasr/statuses/438441163000152064.

[38] Interview with Charles Lister, July 29, 2014.

[39] Interview with Aimen Dean, July 28, 2015.

[40] See Thomas Jocelyn, “Head of al Qaeda’s ‘Victory Committee’ Survived Battle in Syria,” The Long War Journal, April 19, 2014.

[41] “Treasury Designates Additional Supporters of the Al-Nusrah Front and Al-Qaida,” U.S. Department of the Treasury, August 22, 2014.

[42] One source claims that after his recovery, al-Nasr focused more on “administrative” tasks. See “Asbab Ghadhab al-Qa`ida `ala al-Qar`awi wa `Azluhu min Mansibihi,” al-Sakina, February 22, 2015.

[43] Ibid. Abu Qatada al-Filistini, who is also said to have played a role in Jabhat al-Nusra’s leadership shift, categorically denied the allegations.

[44] Interview with Thomas Joscelyn, August 31, 2015.

[45] Sanafi al-Nasr, “Hal Ta`rifun Sanafi al-Nasr, Innahu fi Sahat al-Wagha,” Ana Muslim, May 5, 2007.

[46] “Treasury Designates Additional Supporters of the Al-Nusrah Front and Al-Qaida,” U.S. Department of the Treasury, August 22, 2014.

[47] See https://twitter.com/Snafialnasr/statuses/366998172230361088.

[48] See https://twitter.com/Snafialnasr/statuses/424671349320069120.

[49] See “Statement of the Muhajireen of Shaam Regarding Baghdadi’s group,” March 18s, 2015.

[50] See https://twitter.com/snafialnasr0. For more details on al-Nasr’s eulogy, see Thomas Joscelyn, “Jihadists Say Nephew of 9/11 Mastermind Killed in Raid by Pakistani Intelligence,” The Long War Journal, August 26, 2015.