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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: A. Geiche who wrote (475865)	10/14/2003 11:14:55 PM
From: A. Geiche	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Newsweek Ansar Al-Islam's Mullah Krekar: "I Met Bin Laden" Oct 08, 2003 Source: Newsweek Editors Note: This interview with Ansar Al-Islam Mullah Krekar will be released in the October 13th issue of Newsweek. Here are excerpts they have released prior to publication. If this truly is with Krekar, it is alarming indeed. Between December 2001 and May of last year, Mullah Krekar was the leader in Iraq of Ansar Al-Islam. He served both as spiritual guide and warlord for the militant Islamist group, which controlled a small enclave in Iraqi-controlled Kurdistan. Now Krekar (whose real name is Najumuddin Faraj Ahmed) lives in a modest apartment near the central railway station in Oslo, where he spoke last week to NEWSWEEK’s Mark Hosenball. Excerpts: Hosenball: Do you think the Americans should get out of Iraq now? Krekar: Yes. Hosenball: If Ansar fighters go back into Iraq and fight the Americans, do you condemn them or is that good? When the Americans attacked Ansar Al-Islam’s area, they destroyed everything and killed 253 people who belong to Ansar. Civilians, women and children, and some other people also. I think it is a very, very natural reaction, when the members who are still alive from Ansar Al-Islam try to do something against America. Of course, inside of Iraq, I mean. Hosenball: You say the Americans wiped out Ansar Al-Islam’s area. What happened to the fighters? They went over the border into Iran? Krekar: The people on the two sides of the border belong to the same religion, same nation, same creed. They [people in Iranian border villages] are Sunni Muslim; also they are Kurdish, like us, and we had good contact with them. After the attack, some of the fighters went inside Iranian Kurdish villages, and some of them returned back during the night. Hosenball: You’ve been quoted as saying Osama bin Laden is a good Muslim. Krekar: I say that he is a Muslim like any other Muslim, and he is the leader of one of the Islamic groups also, like any other leader. But that doesn’t mean that I am with him for everything he says or everything he does. Hosenball: And did you ever meet bin Laden? Krekar: I met bin Laden in 1988 [but did not talk with him], when we tried to get some money from a Saudi family. I was trying to help orphans. Hosenball: So you asked Osama for some money for the orphans? Krekar: Yes, for money. But I didn’t speak with him. Hosenball: Do you think it’s legitimate for jihad fighters to go to Iraq now and fight the Americans? Krekar: It’s like any other occupation that happened in history. Everyone knows that Muslims must do jihad against occupation everywhere. Hosenball: When was the last time you had any contact with anybody in Iraq? Krekar: I haven’t had any contact since 2002. Also I don’t want them to contact me. Because now I am in Norway, and Norway is a democratic country, they cannot arrest me without reason.>>>>