Jordan releases Abu Mohammad al-Maqdisi | Reuters

Posted on March 14th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: ISIM/RU Research, Religious and Political Radicalization, Religious Movements.

Jordan releases leading al Qaeda mentor | Reuters
Jordan releases leading al Qaeda mentor
Wed Mar 12, 2008 8:34am EDT

AMMAN (Reuters) – Jordanian authorities on Wednesday released Jordanian Sheikh Abu Mohammad al-Maqdisi, a leading al-Qaeda mentor, after several years imprisonment without trial, security sources said.They said Maqdisi, who was regarded as the spiritual mentor of slain al Qaeda leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, had been in solitary confinement since he was rearrested in July 2005 following his acquittal at a trial of al Qaeda sympathizers.

“He was released,” said one security source without elaborating on the circumstances of the release of Maqdisi.

The militant Jihadi shared a cell block with Zarqawi for four years between 1995 and 1999. Both were freed in an amnesty. Zarqawi later went to Afghanistan then Iraq.

U.S. intelligence officials say Maqdisi is a major Jihadi mentor who wields more influence over Islamist ideology than leading militants such as Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri.

A study by a private think tank of the U.S. military academy West Point in 2006 described Maqdisi, a self-taught religious intellectual, as the most influential living Islamist mentor. (Writing by Suleiman al-Khalidi; Editing by Ibon Villelabeitia)

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