More from the tangled world of terrorism
Testimonies from former star terrorist trainee Shadi Abdallah to German authorities are providing new insights on al-Qaeda and other terrorist organisations, showing how Bin Laden's al-Qaeda and Abu Musab al Zarqawi's Al Tawhid competes as much as they cooperate, for funds and people.
There is unity, but there is also bickering over status in their own terror league.
"This is a very important document," says Bruce Hoffman, a terror expert at RAND Corp. in Washington. "It confirms that Zarqawi was running a parallel organization - not completely divorced from Al Qaeda, but separate. And that [Zarqawi] competes with Osama bin Laden and sees himself as somewhat of an emulator, or even a successor in the Muslim world."
Cheack it out.
Update: A comment directed me to Regnum Crucis, which argues that Shadi Abdullah is a fraud with very little credibility.
As an aside, the same blog discusses this troubling NYT article about the increasing Islamist terrorist threat in North Africa.
A terrorist leader named Ammari Saifi, also known as Abderrezak al-Para because he was trained as an Algerian Special Forces paratrooper, took 32 European tourists hostage near the Libyan border and transported some of them to northern Mali.
To free the hostages, United States military officials say, Germany paid him a ransom of nearly $6 million — equivalent to a quarter of Niger's defense budget — making him instantly one of the most powerful Islamic militants in North Africa.
He is a leader of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, or G.S.P.C., which was formed in 1998 and has many links with Al Qaeda.
I wrote an angry reply last August when I learned that the Germans had paid a ransom to the terrorists to free the hostages. Thanks to this stupidity, we have a well-funded extremist causing much more havoc than he ever could do earlier.
9:17:19 PM 
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