US pressures Norway to extradite leading exiled Kurd

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/feb2004/mull-f14.shtml

By Niall Green

14 February 2004

Mullah Krekar, the alleged leader of Ansar al-Islam, a militia based in
northern Iraq and Iranian Kurdistan, was arrested on January 2 in his
apartment in Oslo, Norway’s capital city. Krekar, whose real name is Faraj
Ahmad Najmuddin, is charged with directing terrorist activities in Iraq
through his leadership of the militia.

The case against Krekar is built largely on the testimony of two young men
alleged to be members of Ansar al-Islam. Both are currently held under
arrest by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in Iraq, and have issued
statements saying that in 2003 Krekar encouraged them to blow themselves up.

The mullah’s detention in Norway is the product of a campaign whereby the
United States has used military might and diplomatic arm-twisting in an
attempt to liquidate the Ansar al-Islam group, which it has categorised as
the “missing link” of Al Qaeda involvement in Iraq.

The Bush administration insists that Krekar is the active leader of Ansar
al-Islam, an Islamic fundamentalist Kurdish separatist group. It has placed
Ansar on its list of prohibited terrorist organisations and since 2002 has
been pressuring the Norwegian authorities to arrest Krekar, who, with his
family, has had asylum in Norway for more than 10 years.

Krekar insists that he ceased to lead Ansar al-Islam in 2002. He has
charged that the US government’s pursuit of him is politically motivated,
as Ansar al-Islam is a long time rival of one of the US occupation’s two
Kurdish allies in Iraq, the PUK, which would like to see the militia pushed
out of the area of northern Iraq under its jurisdiction.


US and PUK target Ansar al-Islam

In March 2003, US Special Forces, helicopters and air support, and 6,000
PUK fighters launched an offensive on the much smaller Ansar al-Islam’s
stronghold in northern Iraq near the Iranian border, where it was estimated
to have only 600 to 800 fighters and to control 15 villages. US involvement
in the operation was likely to have been a payoff to the PUK, which had
been engaged in bitter fighting with Ansar, in return for the PUK’s support
for the invasion of Iraq.

Human Rights Watch, which visited Kurdish Iraq in 2003, has stated that
hundreds of Kurdish Islamic militants, many of whom are probably members of
Ansar al-Islam, are held by the PUK and the other main pro-occupation
party, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). The human rights group has
observed that these prisoners are held for prolonged periods without any
legal basis. Some prisoners made reports of torture and ill-treatment by
their captors for suspected links with Ansar al-Islam. Krekar’s own brother-
in-law has been kidnapped.

The double suicide bombing in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil on February
2, which claimed over 100 lives, was blamed by the PUK on Al Qaeda working
through Ansar al-Islam. The dead were among hundreds present at the offices
of the KDP and the PUK. No group claimed responsibility for the attacks,
the single bloodiest in Iraq since the summer. The pro-occupation Kurdish
parties and US officials blamed Ansar al-Islam and Al Qaeda, without
attempting to substantiate the claim. “All indications point to the
involvement of Islamic terrorists with Al Qaeda connections,” said Barham
Salih, prime minister of the PUK-dominated sector of the Kurdish region.

Talks had been held between the PUK and Ansar al-Islam between December
2001 and late March 2002, aimed at concluding a political agreement between
the rival groups, but an assassination attempt in April 2002 against Barham
Salih led to their collapse. Ansar al-Islam denied any involvement in the
incident, but PUK officials later issued the names of three suspects it had
apprehended and claimed there was evidence linking them to Ansar. In June
2002, relations between the two groups deteriorated further as the PUK held
Ansar al-Islam responsible for coordinating suicide bombings.

It was at this time that the US stepped up its campaign against Ansar. When
Mullah Krekar went to Iran in September 2002, he was detained and
questioned at Tehran airport and denied entry to the country by Iranian
authorities reportedly responding to US demands that he be treated as a
terrorist. He was forced to leave on a flight that took him to Schipol
airport in the Netherlands, where he was arrested by Dutch police.


Krekar threatened with extradition

Krekar has reported that he was questioned by two groups of “visitors”—whom
he assumed to be intelligence agents—while he was in custody in Amsterdam.
He said a group from Brussels wanted to know whether he had any
relationship with Saddam Hussein. Another group claiming to represent the
US authorities asked whether he had contact with Osama bin Laden. He
remained in detention in the Netherlands for another three months. During
this time, the Dutch authorities received and rejected an extradition
request from Jordan, where Krekar faces accusations of drug smuggling. It
has been said that the Jordanian claim is a pretext for its authorities to
interrogate Krekar on behalf of the US.

Upon Krekar’s return to Norway from the Netherlands at the start of 2003,
US authorities asked the Norwegian government to limit the mullah’s freedom
of movement and monitor his activities. The US State Department said they
suspected Krekar had connections to international terrorism, adding that
Ansar al-Islam had access to chemical weapons. According to the New York
Post, investigators from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and the New
York police had been in Norway in September 2002 with the aim of tracking
down suspects linked to Al Qaeda. Krekar, in custody in Amsterdam, was
apparently one of those being investigated by the US authorities.

On January 14, 2003, a source in the US State Department leaked to
Norwegian Broadcasting that the US government would insist on Krekar’s
extradition to America. The Norwegian government quickly issued a statement
denying that they were under any pressure over the fate of Mullah
Krekar. “We have been in contact with American authorities ... and they
made two things clear: they will not demand that Mullah Krekar be
extradited to the USA and they are not preparing a formal protest against
Norway for not arresting him on his arrival here,” said a spokesperson for
the Foreign Ministry.

However, in March 2003, Norwegian police arrested Krekar on various
charges, including terrorism. Seven other men of Iraqi origin were also
questioned by Norwegian authorities on related matters. The Norwegian
police accused Krekar of terrorist connections and posing a security
threat, as well as of breaching his asylum conditions.

That month, an Oslo Court ruled that Krekar should be remanded in custody
for four weeks, pending an investigation of charges that he planned and
prepared terrorist acts against the autonomous regional government of the
PUK in Kurdish Iraq.

But the Norwegian Court of Appeal ruled in April that Krekar should be
released. “The court has considered the appeal we submitted. There are
insufficient grounds for holding him in custody. He will be released
immediately,” Krekar’s defence counsel Brynjar Meling told Norwegian
Broadcasting. Meling has stated that he believes his client is being
persecuted by the Norwegian state for political reasons. The Supreme Court
later upheld the Appeal Court’s decision.

Ignoring the Norwegian judiciary’s decision, the US continued to exert
pressure on the Norwegian government, claiming that Krekar was the leader
of Ansar al-Islam and that he had connections to both Saddam Hussein and Al
Qaeda.


Ansar al-Islam floated as the “missing link”

Ansar al-Islam was being pushed as the “missing link” between Saddam
Hussein and Osama Bin Laden in order to justify the US-led war against Iraq.

While highly dubious claims from the PUK that the Ansar al-Islam was in the
pay of Saddam was meant to provide evidence of its links to Baghdad,
evidence of its Al Qaeda connections had supposedly been discovered in
Afghanistan by the New York Times and reported at the beginning of January
2003. On this basis, Washington was demanding that the tiny forces of Ansar
al-Islam and their exiled clerical guru were to be treated as one of the
major threats to world security.

Norway’s Conservative and Christian Democratic government, which had
officially opposed the invasion of Iraq, saw that supporting the US
campaign against Ansar al-Islam provided it with an opportunity to improve
relations with the Bush administration. This would be especially important
for Norway’s substantial oil industry, which did not want to be shut out of
lucrative Iraqi contracts. Thus the case against Krekar had to be reopened.

During a meeting in September 2003 between US Attorney General John
Ashcroft and Norway’s foreign minister Jan Petersen on the “war on
terrorism,” the fate of Krekar was high on the agenda. Though Ashcroft
would not publicly mention him by name, the foreign minister claimed after
the meeting that “The Americans are very, very concerned with Mullah
Krekar.”

Despite initial reluctance to consent to Ashcroft’s demands that Krekar be
handed over to US custody, the Norwegian government—which has posed as a
critic of the US concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay—manoeuvred to
acquiesce to the US. Ashcroft said he was grateful for Norway’s cooperation
in the war on terrorism: “Norway is one of the most valuable partners the
US has.” He claimed that the Ansar al-Islam group was “very dangerous” and—
unchallenged by Petersen—stressed that the extradition of terror suspects
from Norway to the US was not unimaginable. The Norwegian Supreme Court had
already ruled that courts could not extradite terror suspects to countries
where the suspects’ rights may not be respected or where they face the
death penalty—i.e., the United States.

Following Ashcroft’s intervention, the Norwegian authorities stepped up
their actions against Krekar. In October, Norwegian police filed
preliminary terrorist charges against him. Then police from Italy—a key
European ally of the US in the war against Iraq—were involved in the
interrogation of Krekar at an Oslo court in December. The Italians stated
that they suspected Norway was being used as a recruiting ground for
terrorists and insurgents looking for Arab fighters against the US
occupation of Iraq. Echoing Washington, they claimed that Al Qaeda and
Krekar’s group Ansar al-Islam were behind the activities.

Krekar later told Aftenposten that the Italian police had shown him about
75 photographs and that he was able to identify three of the people
depicted: two Kurds and an Arab living in Italy.


Krekar’s previous links to the US and Saudi governments

As with many comparable figures, though Krekar has now fallen foul of US
imperialism he claims to have been cooperating with US authorities and
intelligence for several years. Last year, he told Aftenposten, “I am
Saddam’s enemy. If the USA pushes me harder [on his alleged links to the
deposed Iraqi dictator], then I will reveal my proof”—a statement that
indicates Krekar could expose some agreement with the US that Ansar may
have had in the past to destabilise the Iraqi regime.

His group’s links to the US may go back to the 1980s, as many of its cadres
are veterans of the Mujihadeens of Afghanistan, where, with US support,
they were engaged in fighting against the Soviet-backed government in the
1980s. Ansar has its roots in the Islamic Movement in Kurdistan (IMK),
established in 1987 with Krekar as a leading figure. The IMK cooperated
with the PUK and the KDP during the 1991 uprisings against Iraq’s Baathist
regime that were first encouraged and then abandoned by the administration
of Bush Senior. Finally, Ansar al-Islam espouses the harsh ultra-orthodox
Islamic ideology of Wahhabism, the doctrine promoted by the Saudi royal
family, and quite distinct from the Sunni faith practised by most Iraqi
Kurds. It is therefore very likely that the pro-US Saudi ruling dynasty has
connections to Ansar al-Islam.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/CGI/wa.exe?S1=gambia-l
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]

To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~