MUST READ: BEHIND THE INDOCTRINATION & TRAINING OF AMERICAN JIHADIS

Behind the Indoctrination and Training of American Jihadis
By Chris Heffelfinger

Ali al-TimimiOn July 26, a former Washington, DC cab driver and resident of Gwynn Oak, Maryland was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison for providing material support to a terrorist group. Ohio-born Mahmud Faruq Brent, 32, admitted to attending training camps run by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT, Army of the Pure) in 2002, a Pakistani-based jihadi group established during the 1980s campaign against the Soviets in Afghanistan. After training at various locations in Pakistan, Brent returned to the United States, residing in Baltimore when he was arrested in August 2005. Brent told Tarik Shah—who pleaded guilty to conspiring to provide material support to al-Qaeda—that he had been up in the mountains training with the mujahideen [1]. Through Shah, Brent's training is linked to other cases of Americans who attended LeT-run camps in Pakistan. After Shah's arrest, he agreed to record conversations with Brent in cooperation with the FBI. In Shah's cell phone, along with Mahmud al-Mutazzim, another name Brent used, was the contact information for Seifullah Chapman, who also knew Brent (Dawn, July 26). Chapman, a former Marine, was part of the "Virginia Jihad Group," another informal network convicted of terrorism-related charges stemming from their training in Pakistan. He was sentenced in 2005 to a 65-year prison term. As disturbing as these cases are individually, collectively they demonstrate an even more troubling trend of radicalized American Muslims—bound by Salafi ideology—receiving training overseas and returning to the United States for potential future operations.

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Conclusion

These cases all suggest that ideology, above anything else, is the common identity among group members. Their belief and commitment to the Salafi movement and its aims to purify Islam, which is the foundation upon which bin Laden and other jihadi leaders have built their platforms, was the common factor that bound together these diverse individuals with various ethnic, national and linguistic backgrounds. Even a cursory look at the Brent case reveals ties to members of Ali al-Timimi's northern Virginia jihad group, and through them, a much larger world of official Saudi funding and militant Salafi influence. For nearly all the terrorism cases involving radical Islam, the subjects began their journey with the Salafi Islam offered by the Saudi establishment, its leading scholars and its prestigious institutions in Mecca and Medina.

Although they are clearly responsible for a portion of the radicalized Muslims now on a course for militancy, whether headed for a jihadi front in Iraq, Somalia, Lebanon, or in the United States or United Kingdom, those same individuals who have committed themselves to the cause cannot be effective without adequate training. Such individuals are encouraged—by Ali al-Timimi and Abu Musab al-Suri alike—to seek training in a place like Pakistan as an essential stage in their path to truly serving the jihad.




Pertinent Links:

1) Behind the Indoctrination and Training of American Jihadis