OSLO - The founder of a radical Islamist group living in Norway since 1991 hailed Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden on Thursday, and praised the good work of bid Laden’s recently slain lieutenant Abu Musab Al Zarqawi. “Osama bin Laden is a good man. I wish him a long life. He is a good Muslim and he is against the Bush administration,” Mullah Krekar, head of the radical Ansar Al Islam organization, told AFP in Oslo. Krekar, whose real name is Fateh Najmeddin Faraj, is considered a national security risk in the Scandinavian country and is to be expelled, though his deportation has been suspended until the security situation in Iraq improves.“Abu Musab Al Zarqawi became a martyr. His death is bad news but I am not sad because he went to paradise,” Krekar said. Zarqawi was killed on June 7 in a US air strike on his hideout in farmland north of Baghdad. “Of course everything he’s done was not good. When he was fighting against the American troops in Iraq, it was good but when he carried out crimes against civilians, Shiite Muslims and some Sunni Muslims, it was not good,” he said.
Krekar denied however reports that he had claimed to be “ready to sacrifice himself” for Osama bin Laden. The reports were carried Thursday by the Norwegian media, citing Kurdish weekly Awene. “The translation of my words is perhaps not exactly right,” he said, refusing to comment further on his remarks.
| Translation: "I'm too holy to sacrifice myself" |