By Roberto Savio
ROME, Apr 27 2015 (IPS)

The results of a survey of what 3,500 young people between the ages of 18 and 24 – in all Arab countries except Syria – feel about the current situation in the Middle East and North Africa have just been released.

The report of the survey, which was carried out by international polling firm Penn Schoen Berland (PBS), is not a minority report given that 60 percent of the population of the Arab population is under the age of 25, which means 200 million people. Well, the outcome of the survey is that the large majority of them have no trust in democracy.

Roberto Savio

The word democracy does not exist in Arabic, being a concept totally alien to the era in which Muhammad created Islam. However, it is worth noting that the concept of democracy as it is known today is also relatively recent in the West, and we have to wait from its origins in the Greek era for it to make a comeback at the time of the French Revolution.

It became an accepted value just after the end of the Second World War, and the end of the Soviet, Nazi and Japanese regimes.

As a matter of fact, it is still not a reality in large parts of Asia (just think of China and North Korea) and Africa.

Then we have governments, as in Hungary where Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is openly preaching a style of governance à la Russian President Vladimir Putin, followed by several of his esteemers, including the National Front party in France, and the Northern League in Italy. But few have such a negative view of democracy as young Arabs.After the Arab Spring revolutions in 2012, a massive 72 percent of young Arabs believed that the Arab world had improved. The figure dropped to 70 percent in 2013, then 54 percent in 2014, and now it stands at just 38 percent

After the Arab Spring revolutions in 2012, a massive 72 percent of young Arabs believed that the Arab world had improved. The figure dropped to 70 percent in 2013, then 54 percent in 2014, and now it stands at just 38 percent.

According to the survey, 39 percent of young Arabs agreed with the statement “democracy will never work in the region”, 36 percent thought it would work, while the remaining 25 percent expressed many doubts.

It is clear that the Arab Spring has been betrayed by the return of the army to power as in Egypt, or by the clinging of the old guard to power regardless of the costs, like Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

If you add to this the fact that 41 percent of young Arabs are unemployed (out of a total unemployment figure of 25 percent), and of those 31 percent have completed higher education and 17 percent have graduated from university, it is not difficult to understand that frustration and pessimism are running high among Arab youth.

It also contributes to explaining why so many young people feel attracted to the Islamic State (ISIS) which wants to topple all Arab governments, defined as corrupt and allied to the decadent West, and create a Caliphate as in Muhammad’s times, where wealth will be distributed among all, the dignity of Islam will be enhanced, and a world of purity and vision will substitute the materialistic one of today.

This is why ISIS is attracting youth from all over. Besides, according to experts, for the terrorist to have a geographical space and run it  as a state, where hospitals and schools function and there is a daily life to prove that the dream is possible, represents a great difference with previous terrorist movements like Al-Qaeda, which could only destroy, not really build.

But the survey also reveals something extremely important. To the question “which is the biggest obstacle for the Arab world?”, 37 percent indicated the expansion of ISIS and 32 percent the threat of terrorism. The problem of unemployment was mentioned by 29 percent and that of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by 23 percent.

It is worth noting that the threat of a nuclear Iran was mentioned by only 8 percent (contrary to the declarations of Arab governments), while 17 percent consider that the real problem is the lack of political leaders, while only 15 percent denounce the lack of democracy.

It is important to note that no interviews were carried out in Iran, which is not an Arab country but is a Muslim country. However Iranian Muslims are Shiites and not Sunnis, as in all Arab countries, except for Iraq and Bahrein, and perhaps Yemen, where Shiites are a majority. Of the world’s total Islamic population of 1.6 billion people, Shiites make up only 10 percent.

It is within Sunnite Islam that a dramatic conflict is going on, where Wahabism, a Sunni school born in Saudi Arabia and the official religion of the Saudi reigning house, has now split into those who want to return to the purity of the early times and those are considered “petrowahabists” because they have been corrupted by the wealth created by petrol (they are also called sheikh wahabists because they accept government by sheikhs).

Saudi Arabia has been spending an average of 3 billion dollars a year to promote Wahabism. It has built over 1,500 mosques throughout the world, where radical preachers have been asking the faithful to go back to the real and uncorrupted Islam.

It was with Osama Bin Laden that the Wahabist movement escaped from the control of Saudi Arabia, very much like the radical Hamas movement, originally supported by Israel to weaken the Palestinian Liberation Organisation and Yasser Arafat, turned against the Israeli state. It is not possible to ride radicalism.

The survey also reveals that young Sunnis see ISIS and terrorism as their main threat, but we are talking here of a poll which should represent 200 million people between the ages of 18 and 25. Even if just one percent of them were to succumb to the call of the jihad, we are talking of a potential two million people … and this is now being felt acutely.

The polarisation inside Sunni society (Shiites are not part of that – there are no Shiite terrorists) is felt as the most important problem for the future.

In Europe and the United States, this should be the clearest of examples that ISIS and terrorism are first and foremost an internal problem of Islam and that to intervene in that problem will only unify the Arab world against the invader. (END/IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE)

Edited by Phil Harris   

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Excerpt:

By Roberto Savio
ROME, Mar 25 2015 (IPS)

The United Kingdom has been accused of “sleepwalking” into the Ukraine crisis – and the accusation comes from no less than the House of Lords, not usually considered a place of critical analysis.

In a scathing report, the upper house of the U.K. parliament has said that the United Kingdom, like the rest of the European Union, has sleepwalked into a very complex problem without looking into the possible consequences, letting bureaucrats taking critical political decisions.

Roberto Savio

It said that it was only when the conflict was well entrenched that political leaders decided to negotiate the Minsk ceasefire agreement, reached by Angela Merkel of Germany, Francois Hollande of France, Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation and Petro Poroshenko of Ukraine, with the notable absence of U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron.

In fact, it was left up to bureaucrats of the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) to take decisions regarding Ukraine, the same kind of bureaucrats as those appointed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the European Commission who, with their usual arrogance, decided the European bailout conceded to Greece where it is widely known that the priority was to refund European (especially German) banks.

The media have a great responsibility in this situation. In all latter day conflicts, from Kosovo to Libya, the formula has been very simple. Let us divide conflicts into good and bad, let us repeat the declarations of the ‘good guys’ and demonise the ‘bad guys’. Let us not go into analytical disquisitions, complexities and side issues because readers do not like that. Let us be to the point and crisp.“The media have a great responsibility … the formula has been very simple. Let us divide conflicts into good and bad, let us repeat the declarations of the ‘good guys’ and demonise the ‘bad guys’. Let us not go into analytical disquisitions, complexities and side issues because readers do not like that”

The latest example. All media have been talking of the Iraqi army engaged in taking back the town of Kirkuk from the Caliphate, the Islamic State. But how many are also informing that two-thirds of the Iraqi army is actually made up of soldiers from Iran? And that the Americans engaged in overseeing this offensive are in fact accepting cooperation from Iran, formally an archenemy?

How many have been reporting that the ongoing negotiations over the nuclear capabilities of Iran are really based on the need to restore legitimacy to Iran, because it has become clear that without Iran there is no way to solve Arab conflicts? And how many have informed that all radical Muslims have received financial support from  Saudi  Arabia, which is intent on supporting Salafism, the Muslim school which is at the basis of al-Qaeda and now of the Islamic State?

Recent history shows the West has gone into a number of conflicts (Kosovo in 1999, Afghanistan in 2001, Iraq in 2003, Libya in 2011 and Syria in 2012), without looking beyond the immediate consequences, and without any consideration for long-term analysis. The costs of those conflicts have always exceeded the benefits foreseen. An auditor company could not certify any of those conflicts in terms of costs and benefit.

Let us start from the collapse of Yugoslavia, and let us remind ourselves that the West has three principles of international law under which to shield itself as a result of its actions.

One is the principle of inviolability of state borders, which was not applied to Serbia, but is now the case for Ukraine. The second is the principle of self-determination of people, which was used in Kosovo for the Albanian minority living in that part of Serbia but it is not considered valid now for the Russian populations of East Ukraine. The third is the right to intervene for humanitarian interventions, which was used first in Libya, and is now under consideration for Syria.

The drama of the Balkan conflicts was due to a very unilateral action by Germany, which decided to extrapolate Croatia and Slovenia from the Yugoslav federation as its zone of economic interest. The then Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, pushed this in an unprecedented way throughout the West.

It was the first time that Germany had play an assertive role, with U.S. support, and it was a Cold War reflex – let us eliminate the only country left after the collapse of the Soviet Union, which still inspires itself to a socialist state and not to a market economy.

Serbia, which considered itself heir to the Kingdom of Serbia (out of which Josep Broz Tito had created the socialist Yugoslavia), intervened and a terrible conflict ensued, with civilians paying a dramatic cost.

That conflict renewed dormant ethnic and religious divisions, about which everybody knew, but Genscher, who was then no longer in the German government, explained at a meeting in which the author participated: “I never thought the Serbians would resist Europe.”

It is interesting to note in this context that just a few weeks ago, the International Court of Justice ruled that neither Serbia nor Croatia had engaged in a genocidal war. The news was reported by many media, but without a word of contextualisation.

The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia had been destroyed to implement the winning theory of “free market against socialism”. Did the creation of five mini-states improve the lives of the people? Not according to statistics, especially of youth unemployment, which was unknown in the days of Tito.

Then there was Iraq where, in the aftermath of the Twin Towers attack in September 2001, the rationale for attacking the country was based on assertions that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was both harbouring and supporting al-Qaeda, the group held responsible for the attack, and possessed weapons of mass destruction that posed an immediate threat to the United States and its allies. These, which turned out to be lies, were blindly propagated by the media

But if, as is widely believed, petroleum was the cause, let us look at figures as an accounting company would do. That war is estimated to have cost at least two trillion dollars, without considering human life and physical destruction.

Iraq’s annual petroleum output at full pre-war capacity was 3.7 million barrels per day. Now a part of that is under the control of the Islamic State and Kurds have taken more than one-third under their control. But even at the full production, it would have taken more than 20 years to recoup the costs of the war.

It is, to say the least, unlikely that the United States would have had all that time – and since the war, has spent more than a further trillion dollars just in occupation and military costs.

And what about Afghanistan where there is no petroleum? Two trillion dollars have also been spent there … and the aim of that war was just to capture al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden!

Among others, it was said that democracy would be brought to Afghanistan. Now, after more than 50.000 deaths, nobody speaks any longer of institutional building, and the United States and its allies are simply trying to extricate themselves from a country whose future is bleak.

Now, the question I want to raise here is the following: what has happened to looking beyond the immediate consequences and long-term analysis in foreign policy?

Is it possible that nobody in power questioned the wisdom of an intervention in Libya for example, even assuming that Muammar Gaddafi was a villain to remove?  Did any of them ask what would happen afterwards? Did any of those in power ask what it would mean to support a war to remove Bashar al-Assad in Syria and what would happen after?

It appears that the House of Lords is right, we are taken into conflict by sleepwalkers. The West is responsible either for creating countries which are not viable (Kosovo), or for disintegrating countries (Yugoslavia and now probably Iraq), or for opening up areas of instability (Libya, Syria).

Without mentioning Ukraine where intervention is aimed at pushing the country towards Europe and NATO, thus provoking the potential retaliation of Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

Those errors have cost hundreds of thousands of lives, displaced millions of people and, altogether, cost at least seven trillion dollars. Who is going to wake the sleepwalkers up? (END/IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE)

Edited by Phil Harris   

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Excerpt:

By Farhang Jahanpour
OXFORD, Oct 21 2014 (IPS)

When Ibrahim al-Badri al-Samarrai adopted the name of Abu-Bakr al-Baghdadi al-Husseini al-Quraishi and revealed himself to the world as the Amir al-Mu’minin (the Commander of the Faithful) Caliph Ibrahim of the self-proclaimed Islamic State, the whole world had to sit up and take notice of him. 

The choice of the long title that he has chosen for himself is most interesting and symbolic. The title Abu-Bakr clearly refers to the first caliph after Prophet Muhammad’s death, the first of the four “Orthodox Caliphs”.

Farhang Jahanpour

The term Husseini presumably refers to Imam Hussein, the Prophet’s grandson and Imam Ali’s son, who was martyred in Karbala on 13 October 680. His martyrdom is seen as a turning point in the history of Islam and is mourned in elaborate ceremonies by the Shi’ites.

Both Sunnis and Shi’ites regard Imam Hussein as a great martyr, and as someone who gave up his life in order to defend Islam and to stand up against tyranny.

Finally, al-Quraishi refers to Quraish, the tribe to which the Prophet of Islam belonged.

Therefore, his chosen title is full of Islamic symbolism.

According to an alleged biography posted on jihadi Internet forums, al-Baghdadi is a direct descendant of the Prophet, but curiously enough his ancestors come from the Shi’a line of the Imams who descended from the Prophet’s daughter Fatimah.

Despite his great hostility towards the Shi’ites, is this genealogy a way of portraying himself as the true son of the descendants of the Prophet, thus appealing to both Shi’ites and Sunnis?“The decision of some Western governments, Saudi Arabia and Turkey to topple the regime of the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad by training and funding Syrian insurgents provided al-Baghdadi with an opportunity to engage in jihad and to widen the circle of his followers, until he suddenly emerged at the head of thousands of jihadi fighters, again attacking Iraq from Syria”

According to the same biography, al-Baghdadi was born near Samarra, in Iraq, in 1971. It is alleged that he received BA, MA and PhD degrees in Islamic studies from the Islamic University of Baghdad. It is also suggested that he was a cleric at the Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal Mosque in Samarra at around the time of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.

According to a senior Afghan security official, al-Baghdadi went to Afghanistan in the late 1990s, where he received his early jihadi training. He lived with the Jordanian militant fighter Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Kabul from 1996-2000.

It is likely that al-Baghdadi fled Afghanistan with leading Taliban fighters after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan following the Sep. 11, 2001 attacks in the United States. After the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Zarqawi and other militants, perhaps including al-Baghdadi, formed al-Qaeda in Iraq.

In September 2005, Zarqawi declared an all-out war on the Shi’ites in Iraq, after the Iraqi and U.S. offensive on insurgents in the Sunni town of Tal Afar. Zarqawi was killed in a targeted killing by U.S. forces on Jun. 7, 2006.

According to U.S. Department of Defense records, al-Baghdadi was held at Camp Bucca from February until December 2004, but some sources claim that he was interned from 2005 to 2009.

In any case, his history of militancy in both Afghanistan and Iraq and fighting against U.S. forces goes back a long way. He was battle-hardened in the jihad against U.S. forces, and being detained by U.S. forces further strengthened his ambitions and credentials as a militant jihadi fighter.

In the wake of the Arab Spring and anti-government protests in Syria, some Western governments, Saudi Arabia and Turkey decided to topple the regime of the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad by training and funding Syrian insurgents.

The upheaval in Syria provided al-Baghdadi with an opportunity to engage in jihad and to widen the circle of his followers, until he suddenly emerged at the head of thousands of jihadi fighters, again attacking Iraq from Syria.

His forces conquered vast swaths of territory in both Syria and Iraq, and he set up his so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Sham (or greater Syria), ISIS.

On the first Friday in the Muslim month of fasting or Ramadan on Jul, 4, 2014 (American Independence Day), al-Baghdadi suddenly emerged out of the shadows and delivered the sermon at the Great Mosque in Mosul, which had been recently conquered by ISIS.

His sermon showed not only his command of Koranic verses, but also his ability to speak clearly and eloquently. He is certainly more steeped in radical Sunni theology than any of the al-Qaeda leaders, past and present, ever were.

His biographer says that Al-Baghdadi “purged vast areas in Iraq and Syria from the filth of the Safavids [a term referring to the 16^th century Iranian Shi’ite dynasty of the Safavids], the Nusayris [a derogatory term referring to the Syrian Alawite Shi’ites], and the apostate [Sunni] Awakening Councils. He established the rule of Islam.”

In his short sermon, al-Baghdadi denounced those who did not follow his strict interpretation of Islam as being guilty of bid’a or heresy. He quoted many verses from the Koran about the need to mobilise and to fight against non-believers, and to remain steadfast in God’s path.

He also stressed some key concepts, such as piety and performing religious rituals, obeying God’s commandments, and God’s promise to bring victory to the downtrodden and the oppressed. Finally, he talked about the need for establishing a caliphate.

In the Koranic context, these terms have broad meanings. However, in the hands of al-Baghdadi and other militant jihadis, these terms are given completely different and menacing meanings, calling for jihad and the subjugation of the non-believers.

The views and actions of al-Baghdadi and his followers are almost an exact copy of the Wahhabi revivalist movement instigated by an 18^th century theologian from Najd in the Arabian Peninsula, Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703-1792).

Indeed, what we are seeing in Iraq now is almost the exact repetition of the violent Sunni uprising in Arabian deserts that led to the establishment of the Wahhabi state founded by the Al Saud clan almost exactly 200 years ago.

In 1802, after having seized control of most of Arabian Peninsula, the Saudi warlord Abdulaziz attacked Karbala in Iraq, killed the majority of its inhabitants, destroyed the shrine of Imam Hussein, where Prophet Muhammad’s grandson is buried, and his followers plundered everything that they could lay their hands on.

The establishment of that dynasty has resulted in the propagation of the most fundamentalist form of Islam in its long history, which eventually gave rise to Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, and now to ISIS and al-Baghdadi.

The jihadis reduce the entire rich and varied scope of Islamic civilisation, Islamic philosophy, Islamic literature, Islamic mysticism, jurisprudence, Kalam and tafsir (hermeneutics) to the Shari’a, and even at that, they present a very narrow and dogmatic view of the Shari’a that is rejected by the greatest minds in Islam, putting it above everything else, including their rationality.

Indeed, it is a travesty that such barbaric terrorist acts are attributed to Islam. (END/IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE)

(Edited by Phil Harris)

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Excerpt:

The surviving Boston Marathon bomber reportedly told authorities the U.S. “war on Islam” drove him and his brother to commit their terrorist act. Their linking the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with a perceived global war on Islam is at the heart of the Jihadist message Bin Ladin and Al-Qaeda issued to the Muslim world almost two decades ago.

The message, which continues to lure some vulnerable Muslim youth across the globe, is powerful, simplistic, repetitive, deceptive and violent. It appeals to alienated and angry youth because they see in it a reaffirmation of their self-articulated religious narrative even though such a narrative has very little basis in objective religious teachings.

Of course, the tipping point of moving a young man from anger into killing innocent people varies from case to case. Once he accepts the universality of Bin Ladin’s message, he proceeds with plotting to terrorise regardless of place and cause.

When I was in government, I frequently briefed senior officials on the long-term danger of Bin Ladin’s message because it charted a path for individual radicalisers and radicalised alike without traceable connections to international terror organisations.

We also briefed them that more and more “lone wolf” potential terrorists who would be receptive to the Bin Ladin message live in Western societies and are usually “under the radar”. Part of my responsibility at CIA was to analyse all Bin Ladin’s messages for senior policymakers.

Bin Ladin’s simple articulation of Jihad, which continues to be propagated in the blogosphere by Al-Qaeda and its franchise groups, includes four key themes. First, the Islamic faith and territory are under attack, as exemplified by the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Western-led wars on individual Muslim countries, he told potential recruits, are part of a global “Christian-Zionist” war against Islam.

Second, Bin Ladin asserted that U.S., Western, and “Zionist” policies are anti-Islamic, as evidenced by what’s happening in Palestine, Chechnya, Kashmir, the Philippines, Sub-Saharan Africa, and elsewhere.

Third, in response to these attacks, he argued all Muslims are duty bound to engage in Jihad against the “near” enemy (Muslim regimes) and the “far” enemy (the U.S., European states, and Israel). In addressing his followers through so-called fatwas and media messages, Bin Ladin claimed such “jihad” is an existential fight for the survival of the global Muslim community or umma. His successor, Ayman Zawahiri, has repeated the same message.

Fourth, the war between Islam and the “infidels” and the “apostates” will last until the “final days” when the “enemies of Islam” will be defeated. Islam will emerge victorious awaiting the coming of the “Mahdi”.

For Bin Ladin and Al-Qaeda, infidels and apostates included, in addition to non-Muslims, Islamic majorities who disagreed with this radical ideology and terrorist methods.

The four-pronged message is theology at its most simplistic level. Many grade school graduates, high school dropouts, and other youth with limited knowledge of their faith tend to accept it blindly as immutable truth. Many mainstream Muslims, including clerics and scholars, have had difficulty refuting Al-Qaeda’s calls for violence because radicalised youth have no interest in reasoned discussion or in learning about their faith.

Many Muslim youth, like their counterparts across the globe, have grown up with the new social media and a worldview grounded in the Internet, Facebook, short texting, and tweets. Longer treatises on religion or any other subject for that matter turn them off.

When Western governments began to implement so-called strategic communications strategies in an attempt to engage mainstream and “moderate” Muslims and refute extremism, radicalised youth were already inculcated with Bin Ladin’s violent rhetoric.

My analysts and I frequently briefed senior policymakers on the need to study Al-Qaeda’s radical rhetoric and fight it with more convincing messaging. Accomplishing such a goal should have been easy since vast majorities of Muslims worldwide rejected violence and extremism. But it wasn’t.

Radicalisation did not succeed because of religion or values. Terrorist groups have cynically used Muslims’ disagreements with specific Western policies to spread their message of terror. They also used the politics of nationalism – including in Bosnia, Chechnya, the Arabian Peninsula, Kashmir, Western China, and Sub-Saharan Africa – for their global Islamic agenda.

They stoked opposition to the United States and other Western countries by exploiting popular anger on the “Islamic street” against invading Muslim countries, Guantanamo, drone strikes, and other “dirty wars” tactics.

Some Muslim youth, immigrants or children of immigrants who live in Western societies find it difficult to adjust to life in their adopted countries. As alienated adolescents and even college-age kids, they become easy prey to radical recruiters, whether in person or on the Internet.

Where do we go from here? The news from Canada about the role of Canadian Muslims in foiling the recent terror plot to blow up a train is a useful guide on how to proceed.

Canada, the UK, some European countries, and Australia have done a commendable job making their Muslim communities feel a sense of belonging to the country where they live. Several U.S. cities, especially New York City and Las Vegas, Nevada, have implemented similar policies.

Real engagement of Muslim communities in Western societies usually begets a sense of belonging, especially if it is accompanied by official condemnation of hate crimes and rhetoric, such as “Islamophobia”. A well-grounded feeling of belonging empowers mosque imams and other community leaders to spot signs of radicalisation in their community and report them to the authorities.

As one Muslim resident of New York City once said, “This is my city and don’t want anything to happen to it.”

The good news is that vast majorities of Muslims oppose terrorism and focus on improving their lives. As the Afghan war winds down, and as Al-Qaeda Central weakens, a time should come when Guantanamo is closed and “dirty wars’’ become subject to public scrutiny. That is when Bin Ladin’s message becomes irrelevant, the threat of radicalisation wanes, and the “See Something, Say Something” slogan gains acceptance among Muslims.

*Emile Nakhleh, a former director of the CIA Political Islam Strategic Analysis Programme, is a Research Professor at the University of New Mexico and author of “A Necessary Engagement: Reinventing America’s Relations with the Muslim World”.

While U.S. politicians Friday debated whether Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, a son-in-law of Osama bin Laden and former Al-Qaeda spokesman, should be tried in New York City, foreign policy analysts were speculating about the circumstances under which he was apprehended by U.S. authorities.

Abu Ghaith, who pleaded not guilty in a federal court in Manhattan Friday to charges that he had conspired to kill U.S. citizens as part of the 9/11 terrorist attack, had been living in Iran under some form of confinement since some months after the U.S. campaign that ousted the Taliban from power in Afghanistan in late 2001.It seems that someone in the U.S. government knew that he was about to lose his safe haven.

How he left or was permitted to leave Iran for Turkey, where he was initially apprehended in what some reports are calling a joint Turkish-Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operation, is one of the big questions that has not been answered to date.

The fact that a U.S. federal court issued a warrant for his arrest only last December – that is, just a month before the Kuwait-born Abu Ghaith, according to various published reports, entered Turkey – has added to the speculation about whether his departure from Iran was part of a larger deal.

“It’s unlikely that Iran would release Abu Ghaith ‘for free’”, one knowledgeable Western-based Iranian analyst told IPS Friday, suggesting that bin Laden’s son-in-law had the freedom to come and go as he pleased. The source asked not to be identified.

Indeed, the coincidence of the arrest order – which made Abu Ghaith the subject of an Interpol “red notice” that in turn gave Turkey the legal authority to detain him – with his departure from Iran has added to the intrigue.

“It seems that someone in the U.S. government knew that he was about to lose his safe haven,” said another U.S. source who stressed that it was still all a matter of speculation.

While some commentators have suggested that Iran may have expelled Abu Ghaith as a goodwill gesture toward the U.S. in anticipation of the latest round of negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear programme that got underway in Kazhakstan last month, other sources believe it may have been part of a complex, Turkish-mediated prisoner exchange between Syrian rebels and Iran.

Asked about what role, if any, Iran played in his eventual apprehension, the White House Friday referred the question to the Justice Department whose spokesman said he had no guidance to offer on that issue when asked by IPS.

“We have no comment about the roles of other countries in this,” the spokesman said.

If the trial goes forward, Abu Ghaith, who acted chiefly as a propagandist for Al-Qaeda and reportedly had no operational role in the organisation, will be the most senior Al-Qaeda leader to face a U.S. civilian court since 9/11.

“From at least May 2001 up to and around 2002, Abu Ghaith served alongside Osama bin Laden, appearing with bin Laden and his then deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, speaking on behalf of the terrorist organisation in support of its mission and warning that attacks similar to 9/11 would continue,” said the White House spokesman, Josh Earnest, who described the alleged crimes of which he is accused as “terrible”.

The administration of President Barack Obama had wanted to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the operational leader of the 9/11 attack who was captured in Pakistan in 2003 and taken to Guantanamo, in a New York City federal court.

But it changed its mind in 2010 amidst protests over the possible costs incurred by ensuring security for the trial. In 2011, his case was transferred to a military commission at Guantanamo where his trial, along with four co-defendants, began last May.

Some Republican lawmakers Friday protested the decision to try Abu Ghaith in New York, insisting that, as a senior member of Al-Qaeda, he should also be sent to Guantanamo to face a military commission.

“We should treat enemy combatants like the enemy,” said Rep. Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. “The U.S. court system is not the appropriate venue. The president needs to send any captured Al-Qaeda members to Guantanamo.”

But human rights groups who have long called for closing Guantanamo and the military commissions praised the decision.

“Some people may feel on a gut level that terrorism suspects should be treated differently somehow, but it’s long been clear that federal courts are the best and fairest places to try them,” said Laura Pitter, counterterrorism advisor at Human Rights Watch. “The military commissions in Guantanamo have been proven unable to deliver real justice.”

While his trial venue provided the major source of debate on his fate here Friday, foreign policy experts expressed more interest in how he came into U.S. hands. According to a number of reports, he entered Turkey on a fake Saudi passport and was apprehended at a hotel in Ankara in a joint CIA-Turkish operation in late January or early February.

The Turkish authorities held him for about one month but decided that he could not be charged with a crime. They also reportedly resisted U.S. requests for his extradition, although this could not be confirmed.

In the end, they arranged for his deportation to his native Kuwait via Jordan where he was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Feb. 28. He was brought to New York Mar. 1, according to his court-appointed defence attorney.

According to accounts in “Haqq News”, an independent jihadi news outlet pointed out by Cole Bunzel, an Al-Qaeda specialist at Princeton University, “Iranian authorities” suddenly demanded that Abu Ghaith leave their country early this year.

They subsequently took him to the coastal city of al-Faw in Iraq for transfer to the Kuwaiti island of Warba, but Kuwait, which stripped him of his citizenship after 9/11, got word of the operation, and it was scotched. At that point, Tehran sent him to Turkey instead.

If true, it suggested that Iran had decided to expel Abu Ghaith, leaving open the question as to why it would do so.

While some sources suggested that it may have been designed as a goodwill gesture to Obama, who had just begun his second term, others said it may be tied to a Turkish-mediated deal between the Free Syrian Army (FSA), whose forces captured 48 alleged members or veterans of the Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Syria in August, and Iran.

After a number of threats by the FSA during the autumn to execute their captives, the hostages were eventually released Jan. 9 in exchange for freedom for 2,000 Syrian civilians imprisoned by Damascus, several weeks before Abu Ghaith entered Turkey.

The Iranian analyst suggested that the CIA, which has consulted closely with the Turks throughout the Syrian civil war, could have pressed the Turks to make Abu Ghaith’s transfer part of the deal which was then carried out in stages.

It’s also possible, according to one former U.S. intelligence official who also asked not to be identified, that the chronology that has been presented in news reports is not accurate and that Abu Ghaith may have been transferred to Turkish custody at an earlier date.

“I would assume there has been a fair amount of dialogue between the U.S. and the Turks about this person in the past weeks or months,” he told IPS.

“Perhaps he came into the Turks’ hands last year, interrogation in Turkey yielded information that made him even more of a person of interest than before, and the Turks shared some of that information with the U.S., and that was the stimulus to issue an arrest warrant.”

U.S. officials told reporters that they do not believe Abu Ghaith can offer them much intelligence about Al-Qaeda’s operations since he’s been confined to Tehran for such a long time.

To the degree that he has information they want, it may be more about the activities of other Al-Qaeda members, hundreds of whom fled to Iran in 2001 and 2002, and their relationship with the Tehran regime.

When Iran offered to repatriate those Al-Qaeda members from the Arab Gulf States, including Kuwait, all countries rejected the offer.

In July 2011, the U.S. Treasury accused Tehran of having forged a “secret deal” with Al-Qaeda to allow it to use Iranian territory to transport money and operatives to Pakistan and Afghanistan, and named one Al-Qaeda official allegedly based in Tehran as a key interlocutor with the Iranian authorities.

*Jim Lobe’s blog on U.S. foreign policy can be read at http://www.lobelog.com.

The sentencing of the Pakistani doctor believed to have provided the U.S. with vital DNA evidence that led to the tracing and killing of Osama bin Laden has set off new conflicts within Pakistan. The Taliban are now out to get him beyond what the law can.

“We have given him a separate room to safeguard him against danger,” jail official Mukhtiar Ahmed told IPS. Dr Shakil Afridi is now in Peshawar central prison. A large number of Taliban militants arrested in a military operation in the border Malakand region are locked up in the same prison.

The Taliban would take pride in killing Afridi, local residents say. “If the government wants to protect him, he should be locked in a jail where no militants exist,” Muhammad Taj Ali, expert on terrorism at the political science department at the University of Peshawar told IPS.

Afridi’s family members have gone into hiding following his arrest.

The arrest has certainly created a new round of friction between Pakistan and the U.S. The Pakistani government is now up against the U.S. which has cut aid over the jailing of Dr Afridi, and against the Taliban who think imprisonment is not enough punishment. The U.S. sees him as a champion in the fight against terror; in Pakistan he is seen as a traitor.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had officially called Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari to ask for Afridi’s release. The request was turned down.

There appears to be much public support for the Taliban on this issue, and against Afridi. “He (Shakil) has committed an unforgivable crime and should be hanged upside down,” said Naveed Akhtar a taxi driver. “Working for a foreign country without the knowledge of the government is a serious matter. He will face public wrath.”

Akhtar said he was not opposed to the U.S. but said Afridi’s had acted as a mercenary.

Afridi was convicted May 23 in Khyber Agency, one of the seven districts of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) under sections 121A, 123, 123A and 124 of the Pakistan Penal Code read with Section 11 of the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR).

The FCR brought in by British rulers in 1901 is different from laws in the rest of the country. Under this law, the executive can act both as police and judiciary.

A judicial commission investigating the circumstances leading to the death of Osama bin Laden had recommended in October last year that Afridi be charged with high treason.

“Dr Afridi was not convicted on treason charges as was expected,” Muhammad Shoaib, a political science teacher at Abdul Wali Khan University in Mardan area told IPS. “He will undergo 33 years jail on charge of conspiring against the country’s sovereignty. But the public by and large thinks of him as a traitor who colluded with an alien country.”

The allegation against Afridi is that the CIA sponsored a fake hepatitis B vaccination campaign to get a blood sample from Osama bin Laden among other people in Bilal Town at the garrison city Abbottabad, 60 kilometres north of Islamabad. This is where Osama bin Laden was hiding, and was killed.

Afridi is said to have led two vaccination campaigns as a senior health officer between Mar. 15 to 18 and Apr. 21 to 23 last year. Afridi was arrested three weeks after the assassination of Osama bin Laden in the U.S. military operation May 2 last year. Before he was sentenced, he was being held incommunicado after being seized by military sleuths near Peshawar.

The conviction is having particular consequences within the medical fraternity. Dr Obaidullah who worked with Dr Afridi said he had let down the entire medical community, and people would not respect doctors any more. “I think he should pay the price for the blunder he committed,” he told IPS. “If he is spared, others would get encouraged and feel no fear in hatching conspiracies against the country’s integrity.”

“We are not going to protect a person who had brought notoriety to the entire nation. The medical community have no respect for Afridi who had deceived people in the garb of his profession,” Dr Muhammad Jamal of the Pakistan Doctors Association told IPS. (END)