MUSLIM RECRUITING
Wooing Recruits To Radical Islam Like 'Dating'
Feb. 18, 2010
Dina Temple-Raston
National Public Radio
NPR News Investigation: A former member of the radical Islamist organization Hizb ut-Tahrir explains the psychology and tactics of enticing new recruits. Although he never met Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Christmas Day bombing suspect, Shiraz Maher recruited people like him.
Shiraz Maher stands outside the Regent's Park Mosque in central London trying to look inconspicuous. Young men brush by him on the way to midday prayers.
Maher, 28, used to be a member of a radical Islamist organization called Hizb ut-Tahrir. HuT, as it is known, has been agitating for a Muslim superstate for decades.
Maher joined when he was in college and was part of the organization for four years. He was in charge of its operations in northeast England. These days, he looks more like a graduate student than a radical Islamist. He has a trimmed goatee, a stylish haircut, dark-rimmed glasses, and is wearing a blazer.
The Christmas Day bombing suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, used to attend Regent's Park Mosque for evening prayer when he lived in London as a university student from 2005 to 2008.
While it is unclear exactly where and when Abdulmutallab embraced radical Islam, law enforcement officials agree that he didn't do so alone. Someone indoctrinated him, they say.
That was one of the things Maher used to do when he was a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir — bring in recruits.
Maher and Abdulmutallab never met. But as a recruiter, Maher knew — and wooed — people like him.
How To Find And Cultivate An Extremist
He offered NPR his insights into how a recruiter might convince a young man like Abdulmutallab to embrace radical Islam.
"You can move from being a very ordinary Muslim or even a non-practicing Muslim and still be radicalized," Maher says. "That was certainly the case with myself. When I was in my first year at university, I didn't pray at all. In fact, I would describe myself as an atheist at times. It was after Sept. 11 that I wanted to go and speak to people, and find out what Islam had to say about this. That journey, meeting all these radical people, led to me being sucked into that."
There is a guard at the front gate of the mosque. He motions to any women wanting to enter that they must cover their hair before going farther. The mosque complex is enormous. There is a large courtyard in front, surrounded on three sides by low buildings. An enormous gold dome and minaret loom overhead.
Abdulmutallab used to come to this mosque for evening prayers, starting in late 2005, according to his posting on an Islam-oriented Web chat room. He said this mosque, also known as the Central London mosque, is his favorite in London.
Identifying Potential Recruits
A year before Abdulmutallab arrived, Maher was at the Regent's Park Mosque on a very important night in the Muslim calendar — the night Muslims believe the Quran was revealed. He remembers that the mosque was packed that evening. Worshippers were flowing out of the mosque and into the courtyard.
It happened to be the same night that U.S. forces launched the Fallujah offensive in Iraq. It was 2004. As the crowd grew, members of Maher's group, Hizb ut-Tahrir, began making fiery, anti-American speeches.
"There was a lot of anger, a lot of chanting and sloganing, and essentially a lot of recruiting, as well," Maher says. "On an event like that, what you would do is you would have your speakers giving their talks, but the crowd would be filled with your members. They would be speaking to other people assessing who is there to just listen but doesn't agree, and those who are listening and getting increasingly interested."
That is the initial step in the recruiting process: identifying possible recruits. They would be people who are joining in the chanting; people who seem angry.
"Once you identify people who are interested, you take their numbers, you find out where they live, and you begin a very strong one-to-one cultivation," Maher says. "Usually we would turn people around in three to four weeks and then assess where they were at."
The Assessment
Maher says recruiters look for people who not only embrace the ideas of political Islam, but also show an eagerness to act on them. For someone like Abdulmutallab, for example, simply knowing a great deal about the Quran would not have been enough, he says. There has to be that political component — a small ember of activism that recruiters can fan to flame.
Maher walks into the mosque's main prayer hall. The men's section is about the size of a high-school gymnasium. The walls are white. The carpeting is blue. The women pray in a slightly smaller space upstairs, decorated in the same way.
Every Saturday after midday prayers, Maher says, members of Hizb ut-Tahrir used to call people over to the left-hand side of the prayer hall, and would make a public speech.
"When I was part of the organization in 2003 and 2004, on a Saturday you could get 300-odd people turning up," Maher says. "And the talks were political, always political, nothing else. You would talk to people and take details down; and after you get details, you talk to these people away from the mosque."
Maher adds: "It is almost like the Western equivalent of going to the nightclub, getting the girl's number, then dating her away from the nightclub so no one can move in on your turf, basically."
The Indoctrination
Generally, new recruits aren't indoctrinated in mosques — a trend that the FBI and intelligence officials in the U.K. have known for some time.
Recruiters may find people who want to embrace a more radical form of Islam there, but they take them elsewhere to actually indoctrinate them. That's why intelligence officials are less worried about people who continue to attend prayers at a mosque. Their concern ramps up when people leave the mosque and set up their own prayer meetings elsewhere.
"I always say it is very seductive," says Maher, trying to put his finger on why Abdulmutallab got swept up in radical Islam. "When I was running the north [of England], I was 21 or 22. I was youngest guy there. There were guys in their 40s, and I would tell them what to do, and they would listen. That's hugely powerful."
Abdulmutallab's friends in London say he was quiet and isolated. Maher says that is a combination that is attractive to recruiters. It plays into their hands.
"When you are starting to feel alienated from society, radical Islam gives you a great outlet and release from it," he says. "Radical Islam says, 'Yes, that is fine that you feel isolated. Islam can never be at home and comfortable within the West.' So therefore, the more upset you feel, the better Muslim you are becoming because, as they see it, these things will never mix."
Crossing The Line
Maher says his former group doesn't get involved with terrorist attacks. He said Hizb ut-Tahrir is a political arm in the Islamist movement. It advocates setting up a Muslim caliphate, but says it doesn't want to achieve that through violence.
At graduate school for Islamic studies, Maher came to the conclusion that HuT's interpretation of the Quran was wrong, and that led him to quit, he says.
But some of its former members — even people Maher knew — have been linked to violence. Maher was at Regent's Park Mosque recruiting that night in 2004 with one of them.
"The guy who attempted to bomb Glasgow Airport three years later was here that evening with me," he says. "We drove down from Cambridge together."
That guy was Bilal Abdullah. He was one of two men who drove a Jeep Cherokee filled with propane tanks into the airport terminal at Glasgow in 2007. Abdullah survived the attack. He is currently in Belmarsh prison, in southeast London, serving 32 years after being found guilty of conspiracy to murder and cause explosions. Maher testified against him at trial.
Officials aren't certain when Abdulmutallab actually crossed that same line and decided to mix Islam and violence. But he has allegedly told the FBI that he saw himself as a warrior for God.
Pakistan discovers 'village' of white German al-Qaeda insurgents
Investigators have discovered a "Jihadi village" of white German al-Qaeda insurgents, including Muslim converts, in Pakistan's tribal areas close to the Afghan border.
By Dean Nelson in New Delhi and Allan Hall in Berlin
Telegraph.co.uk
25 Sep 2009
The village, in Taliban-controlled Waziristan, is run by the notorious al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which plots raids on Nato forces in Afghanistan.
A recruitment video presents life in the village as a desirable lifestyle choice with schools, hospitals, pharmacies and day care centres, all at a safe distance from the front.
In the video, the presenter, "Abu Adam", the public face of the group in Germany, points his finger and asks: "Doesn't it appeal to you? We warmly invite you to join us!"
According to German foreign ministry officials a growing number of German families, many of North African descent, have taken up the offer and travelled to Waziristan where supporters say converts make up some of the insurgents' most dedicated fighters.
The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which has a foothold in several German cities, has capitalised on growing concern over the rising profile of German forces in Afghanistan. Their role has become increasingly controversial in Germany in recent weeks after dozens of civilians were killed in an air strike ordered by German officers.
Last night a foreign ministry spokesman told The Daily Telegraph they were now negotiating with Pakistani authorities for the release of six Germans, including "Adrian M", a white Muslim convert, his Eritrean wife and their four year old daughter, who were arrested as they were making their way to the "German village". They are particularly concerned about the welfare of the child.
They are being held in custody in Peshawar after their arrest in May shortly when they crossed the border from Iran. They are understood to have left Germany in March this year.
The spokesman said negotiations were "under way" with Pakistani authorities "concerning a group of German citizens" and that it had been aware that the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan had been recruiting in Germany "since the beginning of the year".
Their recruitment drive has been led by "Abu Adam", a 24-year-old German believed to be of Turkish or North African descent who was raised with fellow Jihadi, Abu Ibrahim, in the smart Bonn suburb of Kessenich.
Adam, whose real name is Mounir Chouka, received weapons training from the German army as part of his national service, and later spent three years training at the Federal Office of Statistics where colleagues described him as a "nice boy".
He left in 2007, telling colleagues he was joining a trading firm in Saudi Arabia, but is believed to have joined a terrorist training camp in Yemen.
In another recruitment video released earlier this year he urged supporters to: "Die the death of honour."
Khalid Khawaja, a former Pakistan intelligence officer, who describes himself as a friend of Osama bin Laden, said he was aware of a German contingent and that there were a number of Swedish converts too who had arrived in Pakistan "for Jihad".
"The Europeans are there [in Waziristan]. The most dedicated people there are from Europe. They will do anything for Islam. They are not there because their fathers are Muslim, but by choice," he said.
Thai Rebels Recruiting in Schools, Study Says
By THOMAS FULLER
The New York Times
June 21, 2009
BANGKOK — Insurgents in southern Thailand are using a network of Islamic schools to recruit fighters, but their movement does not appear to be linked to Al Qaeda or other foreign Islamist groups, according to a study due to be released Monday.
Since an increase in violence five years ago, analysts have sought to pinpoint the primary motivations of an insurgency that has left more than 3,400 people dead in towns and villages only several hours away from Thailand’s most popular beach resorts.
The 20-page study, by the International Crisis Group, describes a homegrown movement of Malay Muslim fighters seeking independence from Thailand and built around longstanding resentment toward the Thai Buddhist majority. Thai officials have in the past attributed the violence to the drug trade and other criminal activities.
A group known as the National Revolutionary Front-Coordinate was the main force in recruiting an estimated 1,800 to 3,000 fighters drawn from more than 100,000 students in southern Thailand’s Islamic school system, the report says.
“The classroom is the point of first contact,” the report says. “Recruiters invite those who seem promising devout Muslims of good character who are moved by a history of oppression, mistreatment and the idea of armed jihad to join extracurricular indoctrination programs in mosques or disguised as football training.”
The Crisis Group said the report was based on 16 months of interviews with religious teachers and students — all of whom are unnamed — involved in underground activities.
Violence in southern Thailand has been overshadowed by the political crisis in the country, but the southern insurgency remains one of the region’s most deadly and intractable ethnic conflicts.
Until recent weeks a two-year crackdown by the Thai military appeared to be reducing violence in the area. But tensions flared this month when a group of masked gunmen opened fire on a crowd of worshipers outside a mosque, killing 10 people and seriously wounding 12. Since the start of this month, 36 people have been killed and more than 100 have been wounded in the region.
The victims of the attacks are often Buddhists, notably teachers and government officials, but more than half of those killed in the past five years were Muslims, many labeled by the insurgents as collaborators or spies for the Thai government.
The insurgents use many of the same methods in their recruitment — oath-taking, indoctrination and military training — as other jihadist groups. But the difference in southern Thailand, the report says, is that recruiters “appeal to Malay nationalism and the oppression of Malay Muslims by Buddhist Thai rulers” rather than invoking a universal Islamic state or a global jihad.
A pamphlet found at an Islamic school during a raid by security forces in 2005 offered a window into the teachings.
“Our land is crying and calling and waiting for independence and fraternity,” the pamphlet said. “We have been treated as second-class citizens or like children of slaves.”
The insurgents are helped in their recruitment by reports of torture by the military, disappearances and extrajudicial killings. A Muslim lawyers group counted 74 reports of torture of detainees between June 2007 and April 2008.
The recruitment is secretive, and even in schools where insurgents are active, “not all school administrators, teachers and students may be aware of what is happening, let alone consent to it,” the report says.
The government has tried to offer an alternative to the traditional community-based Islamic schools, where instruction is often only in the Malay language, but has met deadly resistance. Over the past five years, 115 public school teachers and education officials have been killed and 200 schools burned in what Human Rights Watch called a “sickening trend.”
Islamist Radicals Use Web to Reach Asian Youth
Monday, March 09, 2009
Reuters
SYDNEY — Extremist groups in Southeast Asia are increasingly using the Internet and social networking to radicalize the youth of the region, said a new security report released Friday.
Internet usage in Southeast Asia has exploded since 2000 and extremist groups have developed a sophisticated online presence, including professional media units.
"For extremist groups in our region, the internet is an increasingly important tool for recruitment to violence," said the report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.
"Importantly, they aren't attacking only the West, but are drawing on their narrative to attack the governance arrangements of regional states," said the report titled "Countering internet radicalization in Southeast Asia" (www.aspi.org.au/).
The report said online extremism first appeared in Southeast Asia in early 2000, particularly in the Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Melayu language cyber-environment.
Since then Internet usage in the region has exploded and so too have extremist Web sites, chat rooms and blogs.
The number of radical and extremist Web sites in Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Melayu -- the official languages of Indonesia and Malaysia, which are very similar -- rose from 15 in 2007 to 117 in 2008.
Of those, sympathetic Web sites rose from 10 to 16 and sympathetic blogs and social networking rose from zero to 82.
Between 2006 and July 2007, radical regional websites have disseminated Al Qaeda and Southeast Asian militant group Jemaah Islamiah propaganda videos, pictures and statements, it said.
In Indonesia, which has battled extremist Muslim groups responsible for bombings, Internet usage rose from 2 million in 2000 to 20 million in January 2008.
The country now represents 80 to 90 percent of visitors to 10 radical and extremist Web sites in the region, said the report.
The Philippines, which has a Muslim insurgency, has seen Internet usage rise to 14 million from 2 million in 2000, Malaysia 14.9 million from 3.7 million and Thailand 8.5 million from 2.3 million in the same period.
"The Bahasa [Indonesia] and Malay language websites include sites manned by radical and extremist groups, Islamic boarding schools (pesantrens), and groups of individuals who sympathize with and support the ideology of violent jihad," said the report.
MEDIA SAVVY
One of the first appearances of a "tradecraft manual" was in August 2007 in the then forum, Jihad al-Firdaus. The forum had a section on electronic jihad, including several hacking manuals.
In 2008 the region's first sophisticated bomb-making manual and bomb-making video were posted on the Forum Al-Tawbah, which is registered in Shah Alam, Selangor and Malaysia, said the report.
But it said there had been no serious attempt to plan militant operations in these forums, adding further details of their activities were in private messages or personal emails.
Extremists were using a variety of technology to spread their message. "Blogs and personal social networking accounts provided more than half of the increase in 2008," said the report.
Militant groups have also become internet media savvy.
The Mujahidin Syura Council, an extremist group that claims to operate in southern Thailand, launched an official media wing in July 2008 as a blog on Google, said the report.
The Khattab Media Publication's blog is mainly written in Malay and was used to announce the start of a new military campaign, codenamed Operation Tawbah (Operation Repentance).
Another group, Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia, often produces high-quality videos of its activities and uploads them onto YouTube.
Many of the videos focus on the failings of the Indonesian government and the need to implement sharia law and establish an Islamic caliphate, said the report.
"Extremist groups without access to mainstream media place great value on having online media units to boost their reputations and recruit people via the internet," it said.
The report said that regional governments had done little to stop the rise of online radicalization, partly because attempts to regulate cyberspace have been a political minefield.
It said while Web sites inciting violence are subject to criminal laws in some countries, there are often no specific regulations covering the internet.
"Some governments don't want to appear un-Islamic by coming down hard on Islamist groups, and some don't want to appear undemocratic by seeming to rein in freedom of expression in cyberspace," it said. "The problem of online radicalization crosses national borders and will require a concerted international response."