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The rise and fall of Ansar al-Islam | ||||||||||
2003-10-16 | ||||||||||
By Scott Peterson, The Christian Science Monitor EFL Hat tip to the Brothers Judd Washington fingered Ansar al-Islam as a terrorist group experimenting with poisons, and used its tenuous links to Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda to help justify the war against Iraq. . . . Lengthy interviews with several Ansar members now in custody, and with officials and intelligence sources of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in northern Iraq, . . . describe a group now so decimated and demoralized that even true believers admit it is unlikely to be reborn according to its old template.
[or maybe just "overestimated"] aspects of the threat from the 600 to 800 Ansar members. Ansar was once part of a long-term Al Qaeda dream to spread Islamic rule from Afghanistan to Kurdistan and beyond. But that idea was embryonic at best, and when US forces attacked Afghanistan in October 2001, Al Qaeda support for Ansar dried up.
Shifting? Do you mean that before the Iraq campaign they were on our side?
’Scuse the interruption, but if, as you said six paragraphs ago, Ansar was "part of a long-term Al Qaeda dream to spread Islamic rule" and got support from Al Qaeda before the fall of ’01, wouldn’t anyone in Ansar be "tied to Al Qaeda" by definition? Just askin’.
Good. You lost, and you know you lost. That’s good. You need to remember that. As an Arab speaker in the ethnically Kurdish group, Gharib was transferred in 2001 to Sargat, where Arab fighters were based in their "Ghurba Katiba" (or [There’s that "tied to Al Qaeda" thing again.] "This was the sense of everybody, that we were linked to Al Qaeda," says Sangar Mansour, a short, wiry detainee with a youthful face and thin moustache. "[We] looked like Al Qaeda, gave orders like Al Qaeda, trained like Al Qaeda, and used their videotapes" of Afghan operations. [If it waddles like Al Qaeda and swims like Al Qaeda and quacks like Al Qaeda, then it’s . . . .] "Some non-Kurds had US military uniforms, that they put on when the [US] attacks started," Mr. Mansour says. He saw a worn photograph one of his friends kept under his pillow, of Ansar security chief Ayub Afghani, eating with Osama bin Laden. Arab militants had begun to trickle into northern Iraq to join the Kurds well before Ansar was officially formed in December 2001. Their presence helped bolster the isolated Kurdish militants.
Waddle, swim, quack, et cetera. But keeping away from the manipulations of local powers was not easy. The Iranians flooded the Ansar area with extremely cheap food supplies, then stopped them abruptly, to squeeze concessions out of Ansar. "They said they loved us, but they were just using us!" Baghdad played a similar role, by using smugglers and middlemen to provide dirt-cheap weapons to Ansar. "Then it stopped - boom! - and you had to beg for it, and make concessions," Gharib says. "I tell you, Ansar was the biggest buyer [from Baghdad]." But there’s no connection between Al Quaeda/Ansar and the Hussein regime! That’s what the New York Times said. They couldn’t print it if it wasn’t true, could they? So the key to success was funding, especially after Al Qaeda support dried up in late 2001. That’s where Gharib’s video camera and ability to burn propaganda CDs came in. They showed everything from Koran lessons and road building to training and offensive operations. "These CDs were extremely important, because they were our income source we sent them back up the cash chain to donors," Gharib says, holding up his black prayers beads to illustrate the linkages. After one successful attack, funding came "like rain...from everywhere." Later came JDAMs like rain from everywhere, but we’re getting ahead of the story. "It’s not governments, but people from rich countries, Kuwait, Saudi, and Qatar-rich people who "I’m paying you to go out and die gloriously for the Prophet! Get out there and stop some bullets!" So training was serious, under the tutelage of a tough "Everybody was kung fu fighting/Those fists were fast as lightening . . . " "You felt [Mr. Wali] was born to train - they even depended on him in Afghanistan," says Gharib. "Besides weapons, he taught psychological warfare, and dealing with pressure during battle. He was playing with your nerves, until you were able to withstand the pressure." Later, as US-Kurdish ground forces advanced, Ansar evacuated to Iran. But Ansar’s reception was mixed. "The Iranians started to fire at us," says Taher, who speaks Farsi. Uh, Taher, where I come from, that’s not a "mixed" reception. They finally talked to Revolutionary Guards at the border, handed over their guns, and at 8 a.m. they were driven to the nearest Iranian village. At 10 a.m., they were hustled back. "An angry official came out and stuck an Iranian flag into the ground," Taher recalls. "This is the border with Iran don’t cross it!" he warned. But his group found a nearby valley, and were taken to a large prison hall in a border town, where they found 100 more militants. They stayed a week, and were each interrogated in front of video cameras by Iranian agents, before being taken back to the border, given back their weapons, and told to "Go, go, go!" "And don’t let the border gate hit you in the butt on the way out!" Ayub Afghani was later arrested by the Iranians, Mansour says, when he was caught with six pistols, fake documents, and several foreign passports. "It’s a birthday present for my mom. She collects this stuff." Mansour eventually returned home, and turned himself in to the PUK. Which says something about the hospitality of Iranian prisons. Such has been the fate of the majority of Ansar’s original members, say these detained militants, which makes them skeptical that the group can be behind many of the current attacks in Iraq. Gharib estimates that of the 600 Ansar members, some 250 were killed, 50 "were officials who ran away," and the rest have been arrested by the PUK, have given themselves up, or are still in semi-hiding in Iran. "This virtually means that Ansar is over, by the numbers," says Gharib. "Anybody saying these [current attacks] are done by Ansar has no information. They can’t do it." While I disagree with some of the analytical spin, this is a good, detailed bit of reporting. The Monitor has been turning out a lot of good, detailed reporting from Iraq recently. How is it that the New York Times and the AP are getting scooped by the Christian Science Monitor? | ||||||||||
Posted by:Mike |
#2 CSM's been on the Jund/Ansar al-Islam story since late 2001. I think the first story I read on them was from CSM. |
Posted by: Fred 2003-10-16 8:33:10 PM |
#1 How is it that the New York Times and the AP are getting scooped by the Christian Science Monitor? The Christian Science Monitor reporters do their research first, THEN write the story, instead of writing the story, and then inventing the 'research' to back it up. Makes a world of difference in what's written. |
Posted by: Old Patriot 2003-10-16 6:04:28 PM |