How terror groups vied for a player

All the terrorists wanted Shadi Abdallah on their team.

Like many disenchanted Muslim youths in the late 1990s, the Jordanian-born Mr. Abdallah had embarked on a wandering journey that ended in the terror training camps of Afghanistan. But Abdallah was apparently a better student than most. As his time in the camps neared its end in 2001, at least two major Islamist factions began vying for his services.

In a face-to-face meeting, Osama bin Laden invited him to join Al Qaeda - and even asked him to serve as a personal bodyguard. Meanwhile, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the now-infamous Jordanian deemed responsible for recent attacks in Iraq, wanted Abdallah to join Al Tawhid, Mr. Zarqawi's rival organization.

Abdallah opted for Al Tawhid, in part due to Jordanian ties. He went to Germany to carry out attacks, but his plans were interrupted when German authorities arrested him in April 2002.

Is that the end of his story? Not entirely. Since then, information provided by Shadi Abdallah - still in German custody - has painted a vivid, and in some ways surprising, picture of Islamic terrorism. His interrogations - a summary of which was given to the Monitor by a European intelligence source and deemed credible by an intelligence official from a separate European country - depict a world riven by internal rivalries, with different groups fighting over men and money.

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."

To the US public, Islamic terrorism is symbolized by the thin, haunting face of Mr. bin Laden. They see him - and the US government portrays him - as a dominant figure among terror factions.

But that may be only one part of the story. In the transcript summarizing his interrogations, Abdallah provides insights into Al Qaeda and its relationship with the group led by Zarqawi, who US officials say was also behind the October 2002 assassination of US diplomat Laurence Foley in Amman, Jordan, as well as a recent string of foiled ricin attacks across Europe.

He also provides insight into how disaffected Muslims adopt the terrorist way of life.

Like many young Muslim men living in the politically and economically troubled Middle East in the early 1990s, Abdallah left his family in Jordan to pursue a more prosperous, rewarding life in Europe.

He lived in Germany the longest, but - disenchanted with the secular life there - left in late 1999 to become more pious. He joined a pilgrimage to Mecca.

Abdallah's recruitment into the world of terrorism is typical, Hoffman and intelligence officials say. While performing his religious pilgrimage, Abdallah says in the interrogation documents that he met a man who claimed to be bin Laden's son-in-law. This man, whom he referred to as both Abdallah al-Halabi and Abdallah al-Makki, convinced Abdallah he would receive a better religious education in Afghanistan and facilitated his travel there, according to the interrogation transcript.

Abdallah arrived in Afghanistan early in 2001 and entered one of Al Qaeda's military training camps for a 45-day session. It was here, according to the interrogation transcripts, where Abdallah had his first brush with Al Tawhid, the terror group founded by Mr. Zarqawi. It was Zarqawi who, according to US officials, wrote the well-publicized 14-page letter earlier this year, exhorting bin Laden to help foment a religious war in Iraq.

His organization, Al Tawhid, is based on the same religious tenets as Al Qaeda, but has a different agenda. Zarqawi's raison d'être is to overthrow the royal family of Jordan. To join his organization, Abdallah says, one must agree with its mission and be of Jordanian or Palestinian origin.

At the military camp, Abdallah says in the documents that a man referred to as Abu Abed befriended Abdallah, and told him he had trained under Zarqawi at another military camp in the western Afghanistan city of Herat. Mr. Abed, according to the transcripts, suggested to Abdallah that he join Zarqawi's group and perhaps infiltrate Jordan's secret service, as he had done.

Page: 1 | 2