Suspected Female Terrorist Malika El-Aroud Arrested With 13 Others

Posted on December 20th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: Blogosphere, ISIM/RU Research, Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, Religious and Political Radicalization, Religious Movements.

Suspected Female Terrorist Malika El-Aroud Arrested With 13 Others | wowOwow

Suspected Female Terrorist Malika El-Aroud Arrested With 13 Others
By The Staff at wowOwow.com

Malika El-Aroud

A suspected female terrorist known as the “Internet jihadist” was arrested last night on the eve of the European Union Summit in Brussels, a Belgian police source told CNN.

Malika El-Aroud — who once described the “love” she and her late terrorist husband felt for Osama bin Laden — was one of 14 suspected terrorists arrested for her alleged involvement in the plan to execute an attack during the EU summit. It’s been said that El-Aroud calls herself a female holy warrior for al-Qaeda and has become one of the most prominent “Internet jihadists” in Europe, spreading hate messages through chat rooms and discussion boards.

“It’s not my role to set off bombs — that’s ridiculous,” she said to The New York Times. “I have a weapon. It’s to write. It’s to speak out. That’s my jihad. You can do many things with words. Writing is also a bomb.”

Her late husband, Dahmane Abd al-Sattar, killed anti-Taliban resistance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud — two days before the September 11, 2001, attacks.

In a 2006 interview with CNN, El-Aroud proclaimed her “love” for deadly terrorist leader, Bin-Laden. “Most Muslims love Osama. It was he who helped the oppressed. It was he who stood up against the biggest enemy in the world, the United States. We love him for that.”

Police say that they had no time to waste. According to CNN’s source, the 14 detained had contacts at the “highest levels of al-Qaeda.”

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Niets dan Allah

Posted on December 20th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: Blind Horses, ISIM/RU Research, Multiculti Issues, Religious and Political Radicalization, Religious Movements.

Niets dan Allah en zijn profeet – België – nieuws – Knack.be

Niets dan Allah en zijn profeet

16/12/2008 14:58

De grootste bedreiging voor een harmonieuze samenleving in en om Antwerpen komt niet van potentiële moslimterroristen. Wel van een groep salafisten binnen de islamgemeenschap voor wie er slechts één rechte weg is: degene die Allah vijftien eeuwen geleden heeft opgedragen aan zijn profeet Mohammed.

Dat is nogal kort door de bocht. Er is niet veel voor nodig om mensen verdacht te maken zo lijkt het:

En hoewel volgens de officiële lijn van JVI geweld niet de goedkeuring wegdraagt van Allah, blijkt toch minstens één van de oprichters en huidige dragende krachten het niet zo nauw te nemen met die stelling.

Saïd El Kaouakibi wordt door zowel de federale politie als de Staatsveiligheid omschreven als ‘gevaarlijk’. De broer van de OCMW-voorzitter in Boom komt voor in de adressenbestanden van buitenlandse terreurverdachten en wordt door de Belgische Staatsveiligheid in de gaten gehouden.

Hij is een vaste bezoeker van moskee El Fath op het Kiel in Hoboken. De imam daar en drie andere moskeegangers werden indertijd opgepakt omdat ze een aanslag zouden gepland hebben in de HST-tunnel in Antwerpen. Later zouden ze buiten vervolging worden gesteld wegens een gebrek aan bewijzen.

Gebrek aan bewijs is voldoende voor Knack.be om mensen als gevaarlijk aan te merken? Geen wonder dat Jongeren voor Islam met een reactie komt:
Jongeren Voor Islam – Recht op antwoord van Jongeren voor Islam aan De Knack

Als organisatie vertrekken we vanuit de leefwereld van de jongeren waarin ze zijn opgegroeid en waar de Islam deel uitmaakt, dit heeft ons in de voorbije jaren bewezen dat dit heel effectief is. Deze methode verschilt duidelijk van de standaard Marokkaanse buurtvereniging, we organiseren namelijk geen couscous avonden of theekransjes, maar wilt dit zeggen dat we een gevaar vormen?

In het artikel wordt ons ook verweten dat we als organisatie niet gemakkelijk bereikbaar zijn: “Na lang zoeken naar een telefoonnummer krijgen we toch een e-mailadres waar we onze vragen kunnen stellen. ‘Praten aan de telefoon doen we niet. Dan verdraait u toch maar onze woorden. We willen alles zwart op wit’, laat Zahnoun via een tussenpersoon weten. Het antwoord op ons vragenlijstje komt er pas na enkele dagen en is zeer algemeen. “ dit zegt meer over zijn kunnen dan over de organisatie, de insinuatie dat we een dubieuze en duistere organisatie zijn die alleen via tussenpersonen werkt is compleet uit de lucht gegerepen, maar hij slaagde er wel in om ons te mailen op donderdagavond via de website, waarna hij dezelfde avond een antwoord terugkreeg met onze wens om het via email af te handelen. Ook werd ons verweten dat we te algemene informatie gaven. We weten niet wat Dhr Cattebeke verwachtte naast de simpele waarheid.

Dan gaat Dhr Cattebeke één van de bestuursleden beschuldigen, Dhr Cattebeke stelt in het artikel: “Hij behoort duidelijk tot de jihadistische strekking binnen het salafisme en wordt door zowel de federale politie als de Staatsveiligheid aangeduid als ‘gevaarlijk’. Tot voor kort een van de ‘hoofdtargets’ van de Belgische veiligheidsdiensten. Een van de redenen daarvoor was dat het GSM-nummer van de 29-jarige Antwerpenaar afkomstig uit Boom, werd aangetroffen in de adressenbestanden van buitenlandse terreurverdachten. Daardoor figureerde hij ook op de lijstjes van buitenlandse veiligheidsdiensten”

Ook hier blijkt dat de fantasie en de interpretatie van Dhr Cattebeke boven elke norm van fatsoen te gaan. Het lijkt dat we in Vlaanderen schuldig zijn tot we het tegendeel kunnen bewijzen.

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Ayman al-Zawahiri and Sayyed Imam al-Sharif debate

Posted on December 19th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: ISIM/RU Research, Religious and Political Radicalization, Religious Movements.

Ideological clash of two jihadi titans shakes Al Qaeda | csmonitor.com

RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA – A bitter, year-long feud that has shaken Al Qaeda’s ideological pillars grew even sharper last month. A former associate of Ayman al-Zawahiri accused him of working for Sudanese intelligence, wearing “women’s garments” to flee Afghanistan, and spreading an incorrect Islamic theory of jihad.

Mr. Zawahiri “is only good at fleeing, inciting, collecting donations, and talking to the media,” wrote Sayyed Imam al-Sharif in his latest attack on Al Qaeda’s No. 2.

Sayyed Imam, serving a life sentence in Egypt, is an esteemed theoretician of jihad whose ideas helped shape Al Qaeda’s ideology. But now he’s decrying its stock in trade – mass murder – in a clash that is an example of how some once-fierce zealots of violent jihad are having second thoughts.

“It is really an argument about … what means are militarily effective and Islamically legitimate,” says William McCants, a Washington area-based analyst of militant Islamism. Imam, he adds, is saying that only “a guerrilla war conducted against enemy soldiers” is permitted.

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Counterradicalization: Understandings of Jihad in Saudi Arabia

Posted on November 13th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: ISIM/RU Research, Religious and Political Radicalization, Religious Movements.

Deprogramming Jihadists – NYTimes.com

Finally, someone answered: “We do jihad to fight our enemies.”

“To defeat God’s enemies?” another suggested.

“To help weak Muslims,” a third offered.

“Good, good,” Jilani said. “All good answers. Is there someone else? What about you, Ali?” Ali, in the second row, looked away, then faltered: “To . . . answer . . . calls for jihad?”

Jilani frowned slightly and wrote Ali’s answer up on the white board behind him. He read it out to the class before turning back to Ali. “All right, Ali,” the sheik said. “Why do we answer calls for jihad? Is it because all Muslim leaders want to make God’s word highest? Do we kill if these leaders tell us to kill?”

Ali looked confused, but whispered, “Yes.”

“No — wrong!” Jilani cried as Ali blushed. “Of course we want to make God’s word highest, but not every Muslim leader has this as his goal. There are right jihads and wrong jihads, and we must examine the situation for ourselves. For example, if a person wants to go to hajj now, is it right?”

The class chuckled obligingly at Jilani’s little joke. The month for performing hajj, the holy pilgrimage to Mecca that observant Muslims hope to complete at least once in their lives, had ended five weeks earlier, and the suggestion was as preposterous as throwing a Fourth of July barbecue in November.

“Well, just as there is a proper time for hajj, there is also a proper time for jihad,” Jilani explained.

[…]

Though the exact nature of the role that religious belief plays in the recruitment of jihadists is the subject of much debate among scholars of terrorism, a growing number contend that ideology is far less important than family and group dynamics, psychological and emotional needs. “We’re finding that they don’t generally join for religious reasons,” John Horgan told me. A political psychologist who directs the International Center for the Study of Terrorism at Penn State, Horgan has interviewed dozens of former terrorists. “Terrorist movements seem to provide a sense of adventure, excitement, vision, purpose, camaraderie,” he went on, “and involvement with them has an allure that can be difficult to resist. But the ideology is usually something you acquire once you’re involved.”

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Muslim cleric Abu Qatada held over bail breach

Posted on November 11th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: International Terrorism, ISIM/RU Research, Religious and Political Radicalization, Religious Movements.

ITN – Qatada held after ‘attempts to flee UK’

Qatada held after ‘attempts to flee UK’

Radical cleric Abu Qatada is being held by police after allegedly trying to flee the country. (more…)

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ISIM Review available online

Posted on November 3rd, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: [Online] Publications, Arts & culture, ISIM/RU Research, Multiculti Issues, My Research, Religious and Political Radicalization, Religious Movements, Research International, Ritual and Religious Experience, Young Muslims, Youth culture (as a practice).

ISIM Review 22, Autumn 2008 is out and available online. As usual very interesting articles which are relevant for  my research, to name but a few:

And many more of course. You can read on ISIM website.

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Hofstadgroep 2 ?

Posted on October 28th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: ISIM/RU Research, Religious and Political Radicalization, Religious Movements.

‘Opvolgers Hofstadgroep komen eraan’ – Telegraaf.nl

door Joost de Haas en Jouke SchaafsmaAMSTERDAM – Onderzoekers van de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen zijn op een nieuwe groep radicale Marokkaanse moslims gestuit die mogelijk een gevaar vormt voor de staatsveiligheid. De groep wil in de voetsporen van de Hofstadgroep treden. Het gaat om zeker negen jongeren, van 15 tot 25 jaar, die afkomstig zijn uit verschillende Amsterdamse stadsdelen.

Ze werken volgens de onderzoekers aan de oprichting van een criminele organisatie en schuwen het geweld niet om hun gedachtegoed te verspreiden. De groep zou intern al gesprekken voeren over voorbereidingen voor extremistische daden. Volgens de universiteit lijken die plannen nog in een pril stadium te verkeren en wordt er vooral over gefilosofeerd. “Maar ze zien een duidelijke uitweg in geweld”, aldus onderzoeker R. Balgobind.

De sociologen ontdekten de terroristen in wording bij een studie naar het verschil tussen Turkse en Marokkaanse radicale moslims. De Groningse onderzoekers wisten tot de groep Marokkanen door te dringen en interviews te houden.

Tijdens gesprekken vertelden de moslimradicalen ook dat ze voor werving van nieuwe leden financieel gesteund worden door organisaties uit het buitenland. Over de ‘salafi-jihadi’, een benaming voor radicale moslims die een islamitische staat willen, zei een van de leden: “Ik wil wel net als zij vechten tegen vijanden van de islam, de islam zal er altijd zijn zolang wij haar beschermen.” De leiders van de groep zijn een à twee hoger opgeleide Marokkaans-Nederlandse jongvolwassenen die hun studie in het hoger onderwijs niet afmaakten. Ze worden gevolgd door een aantal schoolverlaters, die veelal gescheiden ouders hebben. De groepsleden blijken vaak een strafblad te hebben.

“Gezien onze ervaringen met deze jongeren en de wijze waarop we met ze in contact kwamen, denken we niet aan grootspraak”, aldus onderzoeker R. Balgobind, die de studie verrichtte in het kader van een master sociologie.

De gemeente Amsterdam neemt de bevindingen serieus, vooral vanwege sterke gelijkenissen met de Hofstadgroep rond Mohammed B., de moordenaar van Theo van Gogh. ,,We gaan binnenkort in gesprek met de onderzoekers om alle bevindingen door te spreken. Zoals ook bij eerdere onderzoeken moet echter de identiteit van de moslimjongeren anoniem blijven omdat ze anders niet meer meewerken aan dergelijke studies”, aldus een ambtenaar.

Uit het onderzoek, dat werd begeleid door universitair docent Hans Knol, blijkt ook dat Turken in tegenstelling tot Marokkaanse jongeren wel geloven in de kansen die de samenleving biedt.

Ehh, dat laatste doet wel mijn wenkbrauwen een beetje fronsen. Gaat het hier om studenten? Dus nog geen sociologen, maar sociologie-studenten? Met alle respect, maar dat heeft toch een beetje z’n beperkingen.

En wat rechtvaardigt de conclusie dat het gaat om een groep? En nog wel Hofstadgroep 2? En wat zijn precies extremistische acties?

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Al-yaqeen – Harry van Bommel in 20 vragen

Posted on September 15th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: ISIM/RU Research, Religious Movements.

Al-yaqeen heeft 20 vragen gesteld aan SP-kamerlid Van Bommel.

Wat is uw boodschap/advies aan de moslims in Nederland?

Verdiep je in de Nederlandse samenleving, dan pas kun je deze veranderen. Zet de stap om bestuurlijke functies te bekleden. Mahatma Gandhi zei het al: “Wees zelf de verandering die je wilt zien.”

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Milli Görüs in het nieuws

Posted on September 8th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: Religious Movements.

In een geheime analyse van een Regionale Inlichtingendienst wordt een relatie gelegd tussen Milli Görüs en extremisten en financiers van terrorisme . Spin in het web is volgens de rapportage het Duitse kopstuk Ibrahim El-Zayat, die een vertegenwoordiger van de  Moslim Broederschap zou zijn en zich nauw met de benoeming van Nederlandse kopstukken bemoeit.

Zo weet de Telegraaf te melden, hetgeen de PVV verleidt tot een pleidooi voor een verbod op de beweging en al haar moskeeën. Allochtonenweblog is in deze wakker en verwijst naar eerdere publicaties van de Telegraaf hierover. Over welke afdeling van Milli Görüs gaat het? Noord- of Zuid-Nederland of allebei? Noord-Nederland ontkent de aantijgingen

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Protected: Telegraaf – Wilders lacht om claim imam

Posted on July 13th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: ISIM/RU Research, Public Islam, Religious Movements.

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International Crisis Group – Egypt’s Muslim Brothers: Confrontation or Integ

Posted on June 18th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: Religious Movements.

International Crisis Group – 76 Egypt’s Muslim Brothers: Confrontation or Integ
Egypt’s Muslim Brothers: Confrontation or Integration?

Middle East/North Africa Report N°76
18 June 2008

Cairo/Brussels, 18 June 2008: The three-year clash between the government and the Muslim Brothers is damaging Egypt’s political life. Ending this confrontation and moving towards the long-term goal of integrating the Brothers into the political mainstream is a far better option.

Egypt’s Muslim Brothers: Confrontation or Integration?,* the latest report from the International Crisis Group, examines the ruling National Democratic Party’s (NDP) hard-line stance and the Muslim Brothers’ ambiguous approach to political participation. At a time of political uncertainty surrounding the presidential succession and serious socio-economic unrest, it offers an alternative to the current short-term thinking that carries very uncertain longer-term returns.

Since their surprisingly strong electoral performance in 2005, when they won nearly a fifth of parliamentary seats while running as independents, the Muslim Brothers have redoubled efforts to contest elections. The resulting backlash and mass arrests have further discredited Egyptian electoral democracy and increased political tensions. Although the regime has used the Brothers to frighten domestic and foreign audiences into accepting the status quo, this has mainly served to reinforce the Brothers at the expense of other political currents. By restricting the political field, the regime has assisted a hybrid organisation that is uniquely positioned to evade restrictions on recognised political parties and work outside a strict legal framework.

The Muslim Brothers also carry their share of responsibility. While they more explicitly embrace political reform as a main goal and have built alliances with opposition groups, their program’s distinctly non-democratic and illiberal tone, as well as its ambiguous pronouncements on the role of women and the place of religious minorities, is cause for genuine concern.

To break this standstill, the regime should recognise the Muslim Brothers’ ambition to create a legal political party, take the opportunity to set clear standards for integration and end its campaign of mass arrests, made possible by the draconian Emergency Law. For their part, the Muslim Brothers should finalise and clarify their political program in order to reassure their critics.

“Ultimately, the Muslim Brothers are too powerful and too representative for there to be either stability or genuine democratisation without finding a way to incorporate them”, says Issandr El Amrani, Crisis Group’s North Africa Analyst.

The Muslim Brothers’ regularisation and participation in political life should be framed as part of a wider process of reform designed to restore confidence in electoral politics.

“Although this likely will be a gradual process, the regime should take preliminary steps to normalise the Muslim Brothers’ participation in political life”, says Robert Malley, Crisis Group’s Middle East and North Africa Program Director. “Their integration should be pursued not just for its own sake, but as an essential step to a genuine opening of the political sphere that would also benefit secular opposition forces.”

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Protected: De Telegraaf – Moslimbroeders rukken op

Posted on June 5th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: ISIM/RU Research, Religious and Political Radicalization, Religious Movements.

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Malika El Aroud – Oum Obeyda

Posted on May 27th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: Blogosphere, Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, ISIM/RU Research, Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, Religious and Political Radicalization, Religious Movements.

Belgian woman wages war for Al Qaeda on the Web – International Herald Tribune

Belgian woman wages war for Al Qaeda on the Web
Belgian’s online jihad reflects rise of female extremists

By Elaine Sciolino and Souad Mekhennet
Tuesday, May 27, 2008

BRUSSELS: On the street, Malika El Aroud is anonymous in an Islamic black veil covering all but her eyes.

In her living room, El Aroud, a 48-year-old Belgian, wears the ordinary look of middle age: a plain black T-shirt and pants and curly brown hair. The only adornment is a pair of powder-blue slippers monogrammed in gold with the letters SEXY.

But it is on the Internet that El Aroud has distinguished herself. Writing in French under the name Oum Obeyda, she has transformed herself into one of the most prominent Internet jihadists in Europe.

She calls herself a female holy warrior for Al Qaeda. She insists that she does not disseminate instructions on bomb-making and has no intention of taking up arms herself. Rather, she browbeats Muslim men to go and fight, and rallies women to join the cause.

“It’s not my role to set off bombs – that’s ridiculous,” she said in a rare interview. “I have a weapon. It’s to write. It’s to speak out. That’s my jihad. You can do many things with words. Writing is also a bomb.”

El Aroud has not only made a name for herself among devotees of radical forums where she broadcasts her message of hatred toward the West. She also is well known to intelligence officials throughout Europe as simply “Malika” – an Islamist who is at the forefront of the movement by women to take a larger role in the male-dominated global jihad.

The authorities have noted an increase in suicide bombings carried out by women – the American military reports that 18 women have conducted suicide missions in Iraq so far this year, compared with 8 all of last year – but they say there is also a less violent yet potentially more insidious army of women organizers, proselytizers, teachers, translators and fund-raisers, who either join their husbands in the fight or step into the breach as men are jailed or killed.

“Women are coming of age in jihad and are entering a world once reserved for men,” said Claude Moniquet, president of the Brussels-based European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center. “Malika is a role model, an icon who is bold enough to use her own name. She plays a very important strategic role as a source of inspiration. She’s very clever – and extremely dangerous.”

El Aroud began her rise to prominence because of a man in her life. Two days before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, her husband carried out a bombing in Afghanistan that killed the anti-Taliban warlord Ahmed Shah Massoud at the behest of Osama bin Laden. Her husband was killed, and she took to the Internet as the widow of a martyr.

She remarried, and she and her new husband were convicted in Switzerland for operating pro-Qaeda Web sites. Now, according to the Belgian authorities, she is a suspect in what the authorities say they believe is a plot to carry out an attack in Belgium.

“Vietnam is nothing compared to what awaits you in our lands,” she wrote to a supposed Western audience in March about wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “Ask your mothers, your wives to order your coffins.” To her followers she added: “Victory is appearing on the horizon, my brothers and sisters. Let’s intensify our prayers.”

Her prolific writing and presence in chat rooms, coupled with her background, makes her a magnet for praise and sympathy. “Sister Oum Obeyda is virtuous among the virtuous; her life is dedicated to the good on this earth,” a man named Juba wrote late last year.

The rise of women comes against a backdrop of discrimination that has permeated radical Islam. Mohamed Atta, the Sept. 11 hijacker, wrote in his will that “women must not be present at my funeral or go to my grave at any later date.” Last month, Ayman al-Zawahri, Al Qaeda’s second in command, said in an online question-and-answer session that women could not join Al Qaeda.

In response, a woman wrote on a password-protected radical Web site that “the answer that we heard was not what we had hoped,” according to the SITE monitoring group, adding, “I swear to God I will never leave the path and will not give up this course.”

The changing role of women in the movement is particularly apparent in Western countries, where Muslim women have been educated to demand their rights and Muslim men are more accustomed to treating them as equals.

El Aroud reflects that trend. “Normally in Islam the men are stronger than the women, but I prove that it is important to fear God – and no one else,” she said. “It is important that I am a woman. There are men who don’t want to speak out because they are afraid of getting into trouble. Even when I get into trouble, I speak out.”

After all, she said, she knows the rules. “I write in a legal way,” she said. “I know what I’m doing. I’m Belgian. I know the system.”

That system has often been lenient for her. She was detained last December with 13 others in a suspected plot to free a convicted terrorist from prison and to mount an attack in Brussels. But Belgian law required that they be released within 24 hours because no charges were brought and searches failed to turn up weapons, explosives or incriminating documents.

Now, even as El Aroud remains under constant surveillance, she is back home rallying militants on her Web site – and collecting more than $1,100 a month in government unemployment benefits.

“Her jihad is not to lead an operation but to inspire other people to wage jihad,” said Glenn Audenaert, the director of Belgium’s federal police force. “She enjoys the protection that Belgium offers. At the same time, she is a potential threat.”

Born in Morocco, raised from a young age in Belgium, El Aroud did not seem destined for the jihad.

Growing up, she rebelled against her Muslim upbringing, she wrote in a memoir. Her first marriage, at 18, was unhappy and brief; she later bore a daughter out of wedlock.

She was unable to read Arabic, but her discovery of the Koran in French led her to embrace a strict version of Islam and eventually to marry Abdessatar Dahmane, a Tunisian loyal to Osama bin Laden.

Eager to be a battlefield warrior, she hoped to fight alongside her husband in Chechnya. But the Chechens “wanted experienced men, super-well trained,” she said. “They wanted women even less.” In 2001, she followed her husband to Afghanistan. As he trained at a Qaeda camp, she was installed in a camp for foreign women in Jalalabad.

For her, the Taliban were a model Islamic government; reports of their mistreatment of women were untrue. “Women didn’t have problems under the Taliban,” she insisted. “They had security.”

Her only rebellion was against the burka, the restrictive garment the Taliban forced on women, which she called “a plastic bag.” As a foreigner, she was allowed to wear a long black veil instead.

After her husband’s mission, El Aroud was briefly detained by Massoud’s followers. Frightened, she was put in contact with the Belgian authorities, who arranged for her safe passage home.

“We got her out and thought she’d cooperate with us,” said one senior Belgian intelligence official. “We were deceived.”

Judge Jean-Louis Bruguière, who was France’s senior counterterrorism magistrate at the time, said he interviewed El Aroud because investigators suspected that she had shipped electronic equipment to her husband that was used in the killing. “She is very radical, very sly and very dangerous,” he said.

El Aroud was tried with 22 others in Belgium for complicity in the Massoud murder. A grieving widow in a black veil, she persuaded the court that she had been doing humanitarian work and knew nothing of her husband’s plans. She was acquitted for lack of evidence.

Her husband’s death, though, propelled her into a new life. “The widow of a martyr is very important for Muslims,” she said.

She used her enhanced status to meet her new “brothers and sisters” on the Web. One of them was Moez Garsalloui, a Tunisian several years her junior who had political refugee status in Switzerland. They married and moved to a small Swiss village. There, they ran several pro-Qaeda Web sites and Internet forums that were monitored by Swiss authorities as part of the country’s first Internet-related criminal case.

After the police raided their home and arrested them at dawn in April 2005, El Aroud described extensively what she called their abuse.

“See what this country that calls us neutral made us suffer,” she wrote, claiming that the Swiss police beat and blindfolded her husband and manhandled her while she was sleeping unveiled.

Convicted last June of promoting violence and supporting a criminal organization, she received a six-month suspended sentence; Garsalloui, who was convicted of more serious charges, was released after 23 days.

Despite El Aroud’s prominence, it is once again her husband whom authorities view as a bigger threat. They suspect he was recruiting for the feared Christmastime attacks last December and that he has connections to terror groups operating in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

The authorities say that they lost track of him after he was released from jail last year in Switzerland. “He is on a trip,” El Aroud says cryptically when asked about her husband’s whereabouts. “On a trip.”

Meanwhile, her stature has risen with her claims of victimization by the Swiss. The Web site Voice of the Oppressed described her as “our female holy warrior of the 21st century.”

El Aroud’s latest tangle with the law hints at a deeper involvement of women in terror activities. When she was detained last December in the suspected plot to free Nizar Trabelsi, a convicted terrorist and a one-time professional soccer player, El Aroud was one of three women taken in for questioning.

Although the identities of those detained were not released, the Belgian authorities and others familiar with the case said that among those detained were Trabelsi’s wife and Fatima Aberkan, a friend of El Aroud and a 47-year-old mother of seven.

“Malika is a source of inspiration for women because she is telling women to stop sleeping and open their eyes,” Aberkan said.

El Aroud operates from her three-room apartment above a clothing shop in a working-class Brussels neighborhood where she spends her time communicating with supporters on her main forum, Minbar-SOS.

Although she insists she is not breaking the law, she knows the police are watching. And if the authorities find way to put her in prison, she said: “That would be great. They would make me a living martyr.”

Basil Katz contributed reporting from Paris.


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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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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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Protected: Nederlands Dagblad – Imam: Geert Wilders moet vooral Allah vrezen

Posted on March 8th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: ISIM/RU Research, Misc. News, Religious Movements.

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Protected: 'Nederland moslimstaat maken' – Binnenland – Telegraaf.nl [24 uur actueel, ook mobiel] [binnenland]

Posted on January 24th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: ISIM/RU Research, Religious Movements.

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Protected: ‘Nederland moslimstaat maken’ – Binnenland – Telegraaf.nl [24 uur actueel, ook mobiel] [binnenland]

Posted on January 24th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: ISIM/RU Research, Religious Movements.

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EGYPT: Islamist Draft Manifesto Stirs Controversy

Posted on January 4th, 2008 by .
Categories: ISIM/RU Research, Religious Movements.

EGYPT: Islamist Draft Manifesto Stirs Controversy

By Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani

CAIRO, Dec 7 (IPS) – For the last several months, politicians of all stripes have awaited release of the Muslim Brotherhood movement’s political party manifesto. According to spokesmen for the group, the document is intended to clarify the positions of the Muslim Brotherhood — Egypt’s largest opposition force — on a range of issues.

“The party programme aims to explain the Brotherhood’s reform project,” Saad al-Din al-Kitatni, leader of the group’s bloc in parliament, was quoted as saying in late October. “It will serve to clarify the Islamic basis on which we hope to eventually establish an official political party.”

The Muslim Brotherhood was first established in the 1920s but has been officially banned since 1954. While the group remains formally outlawed, its members can run as nominal independents in parliamentary elections.

In late 2005, the Brotherhood scored a surprise victory in a hotly contested parliamentary race. Despite widespread electoral fraud by the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) of President Hosni Mubarak, the Islamist group captured a total of 88 parliamentary seats — roughly a fifth of the otherwise NDP-dominated assembly.

Over the course of the last year, however, the Muslim Brotherhood has become subject to an ongoing campaign of arrests by police and vilification in the official media.

In December of 2006, a small rally held by Brotherhood-affiliated students was depicted by the state press as the advent of an “Islamic militia”. Since then, more than 300 of the group’s members have been arrested on various charges.

Early this year, 40 of the movement’s leaders were referred by presidential decree to a military tribunal where they currently face charges of “financing the activities of a banned group.” The move came in tandem with constitutional changes granting the President broad powers of arrest, including authority to refer suspected “terrorists” to military courts.

Along with threats of incarceration, the Muslim Brotherhood also faces mounting criticism from civil society and secular opposition figures. They claim that — despite the group’s significant parliamentary presence — its political agenda remains largely unknown.

In August, under pressure to provide a degree of insight into its policy orientations, the group’s leadership distributed a preliminary draft of its official party manifesto. Hoping to avoid unnecessary controversy, only a select handful of academics and civil society figures received copies of the document.

Despite this precaution, however, contents of the draft were soon leaked to the local press. In the ensuing debate, critics seized upon two aspects of the document, which, they claimed, confirmed the “undemocratic” nature of the Islamist movement. (more…)

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AKI – Adnkronos international Egypt: Women of the Muslim Brotherhood rebel

Posted on December 19th, 2007 by .
Categories: Religious Movements.

AKI – Adnkronos international Egypt: Women of the Muslim Brotherhood rebel
Cairo, 18 Dec. (AKI) – Women are raising their voices for the first time in the history of one of the most important political movements in the Islamic world, Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood.

A group of women from the movement has appealed for the right to run for office as members of the movement’s council, “to resolve the internal problems of the organisation, play a more important role and participate in political life so that they can be elected to the general leadership”.

This request has been written and published on the Internet site of the Muslim Brotherhood, an international Sunni movement considered one of the world’s most influential Islamist groups.

In the missive, addressed to the leader of the movement, Muhammad Mahdi Akif, the women complain of being obstructed while their meetings are considered “meetings of housewives in which they only speak about their children and their vegetables.”

It’s the first time women have made such an appeal since the movement was established in 1928.

The Brotherhood’s general leadership has asked to meet one of these Islamic leaders, Risha Ahmad, who teaches in the faculty of medicine at an Egyptian university.

“Dear father, I am one of the thousands of your daughters and sisters that appeals to you to do us the honour to be a part of this organisation,” says the teacher. ” I am 35 years old. We know the problems that interest the movement and we have also put forward some proposals without, however, receiving a response.

“Then I wonder, perhaps Allah has not spoken to women in the same way he has spoken to men? Then inside our organisation why are there some things for men and some things for women?

“I realise that there are some things that only women can do but I don’t think that it is fair that they are happening now.”

Risha complains that women in the Brotherhood can only take part in the work of certain committees, while others are banned from politics or involved in communication, although members of the movement specialise in these areas.

Actually, this letter was sent in a private form to Akif some time ago, through internal channels of the movement, but the young Islamic activist did not receive a response.

After trying to make contact several times with the leader of the movement, she decided to go public posting the document on the website of the brotherhood.

It is not, however, an isolated protest. Other women have taken a courageous position and put their requests on the same website calling for internal reform sought by women inside the movement.

The Muslim Brotherhood is the largest political opposition organisation in many Arab nations, particularly Egypt. Founded by the Sufi schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna in 1928, several linked groups have since formed across many nations of the Muslim world.

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Middle East Report 245: Young Brothers in Cyberspace by Marc Lynch

Posted on December 14th, 2007 by .
Categories: Blogosphere, ISIM/RU Research, Religious Movements.

Middle East Report 245: Young Brothers in Cyberspace by Marc Lynch

An older Muslim Brother blogger, Ahmad ‘Abd al-‘Ati, came out in favor of the fourth generation’s openness: “The blogs represent a sign of success despite the fears of others that they have crossed the line…. Exchanging ideas is not a divide between generations and differences of opinion are not divisions.”[28] This is an opinion from which young bloggers like Rashwan take heart. Yet Deputy Guide Muhammad Habib seems bent on squelching talk of “generations” or “trends” out of concern that it could be used to weaken the Brothers.[29]

Some skeptics dismiss the blogs as a public relations stratagem. That may have been partly true at the outset, particularly as regards the blogging campaigns in support of the al-Azhar students and to secure the release of the Brotherhood’s imprisoned leaders. But their emergence as an independent force among the Brothers is something altogether different. The bloggers of the Muslim Brothers represent a growing intellectual and political force within the movement that could, over time, help tip it in a reformist direction. But they face considerable challenges: a leadership wary of change, a regime increasingly prone to arresting troublesome Internet activists and a salafi counter-trend that could well take the Muslim Brothers in another direction entirely. How much impact the blogging Brothers can really have remains to be seen, but at the least they represent a new dynamic in the world of Islamism and Arab politics, and offer a striking new window upon the internal life of the Muslim Brotherhood.

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Open Brief aan de Tweede Kamer n.a.v. provocaties van dhr. Wilders

Posted on December 10th, 2007 by .
Categories: Religious Movements.

Al-yaqeen
OPEN BRIEF AAN DE TWEEDE KAMER n.a.v. provocaties van dhr. Wilders
Van: De Jongerencommissie van Stichting El Tawheed
Aan: De Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal

Amsterdam, 6 december 2007

Betreft: De plannen van dhr. Wilders van het maken van een provocerende film over de Koran

Geachte leden van de Tweede Kamer,

Wij van de Jongerencommissie van Stichting El Tawheed, schrijven u deze brief naar aanleiding van de plannen van de fractievoorzitter van de Partij Voor de Vrijheid, Geert Wilders, om een provocerende film te maken over de Koran. In deze brief zullen wij u duidelijk proberen te maken waarom wij, als organisatie, hier tegen zijn en waarom wij het als uw taak als volksvertegenwoordigers zien om hier iets tegen te doen.

(more…)

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Protected: 'Gesprekspartner Vogelaar bij Moslim Broederschap' – Binnenland – Telegraaf.nl [24 uur actueel, ook mobiel] [binnenland]

Posted on November 30th, 2007 by martijn.
Categories: Religious Movements.

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Protected: ‘Gesprekspartner Vogelaar bij Moslim Broederschap’ – Binnenland – Telegraaf.nl [24 uur actueel, ook mobiel] [binnenland]

Posted on November 30th, 2007 by martijn.
Categories: Religious Movements.

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Protected: Trouw, hetNieuws| wereld – Geweld is uit voor ideoloog van Al-Kaida

Posted on November 26th, 2007 by martijn.
Categories: International Terrorism, Religious and Political Radicalization, Religious Movements.

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