During the 1980s Iran
began to sponsor conferences to establish a working relationship among Middle
Eastern terrorist group. (Bodansky, Bin Laden, pp. 102-104.) Michael Ledeen
believed that "in all probability the working relationship between al
Qaeda and Iran was forged in the Afghan war, and continued uninterrupted
throughout the nineties." Ledeen, The nwr
against the Terror Masters, p. 50.
Tehran resolved to
transform Hezbollah into the "vanguard of the revolution." Despite
its Shi'ite orientation, Iran sought to build bridges with Sunni terrorist
organizations. The Iranian arm of Hezbollah had been involved in international
terrorism since 1981, but this most recent initiative broadened the scope of
its operations. Although Tehran had previously sponsored numerous foreign
terrorist groups, it could exert only a limited amount of influence over them,
mostly by financial power and ideological suasion. (Taheri, Holy Terror, pp.
99-111.)
Khomeini's successor,
President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, established the Supreme Council for
Intelligence Afairs, which was construed elsewhere as
the Supreme Council for Terrorism.The council laid
the foundation for a broad-based terrorist organization known as Hezbollah
Internationa1. And in 1996 Dr. Mahdi Chamran Savehie from the Supreme Council convened a conference in
Tehran, which brought many groups and leaders together, including Mustafa Al Liddawi of Hamas, George Habbash
of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Abdullah Ocalan of the
Kurdish People's Party, Ramadan Shalah of the Palestinian branch of Islamic
Jihad, Ahmed Sala of the Egyptian branch of Islamic Jihad, and Osama bin Laden.
(Robinson, Bin Laden, p. 188.)
The summit
participants agreed to the unification of their financial system as well as the
standardization of training in order to establish interoperability for their
terrorist operatives. Reportedly, a Committee of Three was established, which
included Osama bin Laden of al Qaeda, Imad Mughniya
of the Lebanese branch of Islamic Jihad, and Ahmed Sala of the Egyptian branch
of Islamic Jihad. Although two of these individuals were Sunnis and one was a
Shi'ite, all sides were comfortable with the arrangement, and Iran trusted
them.
In 1996 "the
Qods Force, the covert-action arm of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps,
arranged" the Khobar Towers bombing. (It is worth noting that there is
still some uncertainty surrounding the Khobar Towers bombing. For example, the
9-11 Commission concluded, "While the evidence of Iranian involvement is
strong, there are also signs that al Qaeda played some role, as yet
unknown.")
In early June 2002
the leaders of four major terrorist organizations-Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic
Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine general
command-met in Tehran, Iran, presumably to work on a common strategy to oppose
Israe1. (David Frum and Richard Perle, An End to Evil: How to Win the war on
Terror, 2003, p. 43.)
Richard Clarke (a
former National Security Council staffer) in Against All Enemies, Clarke makes
it clear that Iran was a "priority" country "as important as the
others," including the Taliban's Afghanistan, in the post-9/11 war on terrorism.
And that,” al Qaeda regularly used Iranian territory for transit and sanctuary
prior to September 11. Al Qaeda's Egyptian branch, Egyptian Islamic Jihad,
operated openly in Tehran. It is no coincidence that many of the al Qaeda
management team, or Shura Council, moved across the border into Iran after U.S.
forces invaded Afghanistan. (See also the Febr. 27, 2006 article Tehran plays
host to al Qaeda:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/782ppuml.asp)
In fact the 9/11
Commission reports last year stated that al Qaeda operatives received
explosives training from Iran in the early 1990s. Bin Laden "showed
particular interest in learning how to use truck bombs such as the one that had
killed 241 U.S. Marines in Lebanon in 1983." This early history of
collaboration did not come to an end. Even after 1996, Iran continued to open
its doors to al Qaeda. The Clinton administration's original unsealed
indictment of al Qaeda in November 1998 states that bin Laden's group had
allied itself with Iran and its terrorist puppet, Hezbollah. The 9/11
Commission even left open the possibility that Hezbollah had assisted al
Qaeda's execution of the September 11 plot.
And although still
part of an ongoing investigation following the gradual release of Saddam
Hussein documents these days, early on some intelligence analysts already
maintained that al Qaeda had endeavored to create an operational alliance
with Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Simon Reeve claims that by early 1999, bin Laden
was in the process of forging a secret alliance with Saddam Hussein. Contact
between the two sides was first allegedly made in the early 1990s when Hassan
al- Turabi put bin Laden in contact with operatives from the Iraqi secret
service. These contacts were supposed to have been maintained by
representatives of the Iranian terrorist group Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization
(MKO), which had its headquarters in Baghdad. (Bergen, Holy war, Inc., p. 77.)
A recent Foreign
Affairs article titled “Blessed July,” refers to a book-length
report with Iraqi documents and interviews with over 100 officials of Saddam’s
regime which was, in the words of the Foreign Affairs article, “a
regime-directed wave of ‘martyrdom’ operations against targets in the
West.” The Foreign Affairs article mentions terror training camps
operated by the Fedayeen Saddam, the militia of soldiers most loyal to Saddam.
Started in 1994, according to the documents, it trained some 7,200 Iraqis in
the art of terrorism in the first year alone. “Beginning in 1998,”
according to the full report, “these camps began hosting ‘Arab volunteers from
Egypt, Palestine, Jordan, “the Gulf, and Syria.”
Laurie Mylroie asserted that bin Laden had known ties to Iraqi
intelligence and that both parties share similar objectives, such as
overthrowing the Saudi regime, ending the U.S. presence in the Persian Gulf,
and having sanctions against Iraq lifted. (Mylroie,
The new war against America: Saddam Hussein and the World Trade Center Attacks,
2001, p. 252.)
Accordingly, Osama
bin Laden's right-hand man, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, visited Baghdad in 1998 and
received a $300,000 payment just before he merged the Egyptian branch ofIslamic Jihad group with al Qaeda. (Frum and Perle, An
End to Evil, p. 46.)
Where in part one and
two of these series we have seen evidence of Nazi Government links
various Governments in the Middle East including Iraq and Iran, according
to accounts , a convoluted web of terrorists that includes elements of al
Qaeda, Iraqi intelligence, and German neo-Nazis have established a working
relationship. In the fall of 2002, investigators with the German government's
Office for the Protection of the Constitution reported that right-wing
extremists and radical Muslims were increasingly using similar rhetoric. They
both decry the new world order, which they see as controlled by Jews and
enforced by U.S. military power. Both movements are also wary of democracy.
Recently, German neo-Nazis have been seen sporting Palestinian headscarves at
rallies and calling for worldwide intifada. Also Udo Voigt, the chairman of the
National Democratic Party, has reached out to Muslim extremists.
(Jeffrey Fleishman, "Shared Hatred Draws Groups Closer," Los Angeles
Times, January 19, 2003, http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/019/nation/Shared_hatred_draws_groups_
closerP.shtml.)
Some investigators
believe that Hezbollah and Argentinean right-wing extremists may have been
responsible for the bombings of the Israeli embassy and Jewish Community Center
in Buenos Aires in 1993 and 1994. Jewish institutions outside Israel are
generally less protected, and local anti-Semitic extremists can provide
logistical help for attacks. (Bodansky, Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political
Instrument, p. 76.)
In 1993, Imad Mughniya of Hezbollah masterminded the truck bombing of the
Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which killed 29 people and wounded
over 200 others. This attack was followed by a second bombing on July 18, 1994,
which destroyed the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association (AIMA) building in
Buenos Aires, which housed several Argentine Jewish organizations. The attack
killed 86 people and wounded several hundred more. And some speculate that the
Arab and Nazi expatriate communities may have assisted in the attack. (Samuel
Katz, Relentless Pursuit: The DSS and the Manhunt for the al-Qaeda Terrorists,
2002, p. 235.)
Although several
factors would seem to militate against such an alliance, militant Islamic
groups, including al Qaeda, have previously sought to cooperate with
non-Islamic militant groups. For example, in Ireland, army intelligence
investigated the possibility that funds raised by the Mercy International
Relief Agency (MIRA) may have found their way into the coffers of the Irish
Republican Army. In Spain, authorities discovered an alleged plan hatched by al
Qaeda and Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA, or Basque Nation
and Liberty) to car-bomb a meeting of leaders of the European Union. In Sierra
Leone, the Revolutionary United Front was charged with selling millions of dollars worth of illegally mined diamonds to al Qaeda.
Finally, in Sri Lanka, the media reported that Liberation Tigers of Tamil had
established ties with al Qaeda.
One of the chief
obstacles to cooperation would seem to be a disagreement over religion.
However, there may be ways in which to hurdle this obstacle. For example,
inasmuch as the Koran teaches that Allah sent prophets to all major
civilizations, it is conceivable that the extreme right could reconcile some of
its beliefs with Islam. (For example, some Muslim scholars have attempted to
show that Socrates, Lao-Tzu, Hammurabi, and Zoroaster were prophets of Allah
and thus acceptable to Islam. Yahiya Emerick, The Complete Idiots Guide to
Understanding Islam, 2002.)
Furthermore, the
entry requirements for Islam are relatively few in number. Technically, all
one need do to become a Muslim is to recite the Shahadah: "I declare
there is no god except God, and I declare that Muhammad is the messenger of
God." One significant difference between right-wing terrorists and the
more prominent variants of terrorists (e.g., left-wing during the 1970s,
contemporary Islamic) is that the former have had no significant state
sponsors. This material and logistical disadvantage could conceivably make the
more radical elements of the extreme right more amenable to an alliance with
outside groups. Without governments to offer intelligence, funds, sanctuaries,
training facilities, and other kinds of support, their effectiveness has been
very limited. (Benjamin Netanyahu, Terrorism: How the west Can Win, 1986, p.
13.)
One of the principal
reasons terrorism spread from the Middle East and Latin America to Western
Europe in the 1970s was that a shared ideology of anti-Americanism and
anti-imperialism cemented ties among radical group. (Martha Crenshaw,
"Suicide Terrorism in Comparative Perspective," in International
Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism, Countering Suicide Terrorism, 2002, p.
22.)
The chief difference
today is that the nascent anti-American global movement lacks a powerful state
sponsor. However, it is worth noting that most lethal acts of terrorism over
the past decade have been perpetrated by groups and individuals unaffiliated with
state sponsors. Another very significant difference between right-wing and
Islamic terrorists is the latter's propensity for martyrdom. Islamic extremists
have demonstrated time and again their commitment to carry out suicide attacks,
whereas such methods are virtually nonexistent among right-wing terrorists, for
both logistical and ideological reasons. Alex Curtis praised the exploits of
Benjamin Smith, a former member of the World Church of the Creator, who went on
a shooting spree that killed two and injured several others. Just before he was
about to be apprehended by the police, Smith committed suicide via a gunshot
to the head. Curtis lauded Smith as an ''Aryan kamikaze" in a subsequent
newsletter. (''Aryan Kamikaze Terrorizes Midwest," Nationalist Observer,
no. 15 July 1999).
Sophisticated suicide
operations require an extensive network capable of support and planning.
Islamic terrorists have such a network, but right-wing terrorists do not.
Perhaps more important, for Islamic terrorists, dying in a suicide operation is
considered an act of martyrdom that will immediately be rewarded with splendid
afterlife bliss. Although right-wing extremists have traditionally not
practiced suicide terrorism, the theme occasionally appears in their
literature, most notably in William Pierce's novel The Turner Diaries. The
conclusion is strikingly similar to the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon. The
story's protagonist, Earl Turner, writes in his diary just hours before his
scheduled attack: It's still three hours until first flight, and all systems
are "go." I'll use the time to write a few pages-my last diary entry.
Then it's a one-way trip to the Pentagon for me. The warhead is strapped into
the front seat of the old Stearman and rigged to detonate either on impact or
when I flip a switch in the back seat. Hopefully, I'll be able to manage a
low-level air burst directly over the center of the Pentagon. Failing that,
I'll at least try to fly as close as I can before I'm shot down. (William
Pierce, The Turner Diaries, 1993, p. 202.)
Not unlike MuhammadAtta, Turner expressed a sense of calm before his
mission. It is a comforting thought in these last hours of my physical
existence that, of all the billions of men and women of my race who have ever
lived, I will have been able to play a more vital role than all but a handful
of them in determining the ultimate destiny of mankind. What I will do today
will be of more weight in the annals of the race than all the conquests of
Caesar and Napoleon-if! succeed! (Ibid., p. 202.)
Finally, like Atta,
Turner shares a sense of religious fellowship with his comrades. The night
before his suicide mission, Turner is inducted into "the Order," the
quasi-religious inner circle of the organization: Knowing what was demanded in
character and commitment of each man who stood before me, my chest swelled with
pride. These were no soft-bellied, conservative businessmen assembled for some
Masonic mumbo-jumbo; no loudmouthed, beery red necks letting off a little
ritualized steam about "the goddam niggers"; no pious, frightened
churchgoers whining for the guidance or protection of an anthropomorphic deity.
These were real men, White men who were now one with me in spirit and
consciousness as well as in blood. (Ibid., p. 203.)
Where it is known
that Arab newspapers often reprint articles written by extreme right
activists, there is also evidence to suggest that anti-Semitism has
spread to some parts of the non-Arab Muslim World. Even during the Asian
financial crisis in 1997, Malaysian prime minister Muhammad Mahathir went so
far as to blame this predicament on Jews. The high-powered currency speculator,
George Soros, was seen as the chief culprit in adversely affecting the
Malaysian economy. More recently, in a speech presented at an Organization of
the Islamic Conference summit in October 2003, Mahathir accused Jews of trying
to "rule [the] world by proxy [and] get others to fight and die for
them." Further, he asserted that Jews promoted socialism, communism, human
rights, and democracy so that persecuting them would appear to be wrong, and by
doing so they have "gained control of the most powerful countries."
Mahathir exhorted the Islamic umma "to face the enemy" and opined
that 1.3 billion Muslims could not be "defeated by a few million
Jews." ("Speech by Prime Minister Muhammad Mahathir," October
16, 2003, http://www . adl.org/ Anti_semitism/
malaysian.asp.)
Mahathir's remarks
were met with scorn by President George Bush, as well as various European
governments, however, numerous extreme right groups and Muslims commended him
for speaking out on this issue. Defiant, Mahathir reiterated his criticism of
Jews and Israel in an interview in May 2005, in which he accused American
politicians of being "scared stiff of the Jews because anybody who votes
against the Jews will lose elections. (Quoted in Simon Tisdall, ''Father' of
Malaysia Savages Bush and Blair," Guardian, May 27,2005.)
Just as Islamists and
the extreme right are beginning to find common ground, the gap between the far
left and the far right may be narrowing as well. Both movements often decry
globalization. Increasingly, they both share a criticism of Israeli policy toward
Palestinians. A case in point is the case of Rachel Corrie, an attractive
twenty-three-year-old American student at Evergreen State College in Olympia,
Washington, and a member of the International Solidarity Movement, who took a
semester off to work as a peace activist in Gaza. While there, she took part in
a protest in which an Israel driver using a bulldozer was preparing to knock
down a Palestinian's house. Corrie stood between the bulldozer and the house
and refused to move. However, the Israel driver ran over her, and she sustained
injuries from which she ultimately died. Despite Corrie's presumably
left-leaning political orientation, various right-wing publications and
websites eulogized her as an Aryan martyr. What is more, the antiglobalization rhetoric of the contemporary extreme
right could conceivably make its agenda more palatable to the far left, which
also champions a similar platform, including radical environmentalism and
animal rights. In fact, in 2002, the National Alliance created a front group,
the Anti-Globalism Action Network (AGAN), to capitalize on the left's
opposition to globalist organizations such as the World Bank, G8, and the
International Monetary Fund and sent it to Kananaskis, Canada, to protest a G8
meeting. AGAN added an antiSemitic twist to the
traditional left-wing conspiracy narrative. (Center for New Community.
"CNC Uncovers Neo-Nazis Masquerading as AntiGlobalization
Activists," June 21, 2002, http://newcom.org.)
Extreme right
stalwarts, such as Louis Beam, the chief proponent of the leaderless resistance
approach in the United States, expressed solidarity with anti-World Trade
Organization protestors in Seattle. (Reynolds, "Virtual Reich.")
The conflation of
anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism arises in large part from the relationship
between the United States and Israel. The paradox of modern Israel, as
Christopher Hitchens argued, is that the state was created to provide a safe,
stable, and proudly independent nation to which Jews from around the world
could come to escape from fluctuations in gentile goodwill. However, today
Israel is largely reliant on foreign aid, most notably the annual subsidy of $3
billion from the United States. Furthermore, the tiny nation appears to be
hopelessly involved in endless battles that have the effect of catalyzing
anti-Zionist sentiment around the world. Anti-Semitism generated in the lands
of the diaspora is weak, but anti-Zionism generated from the Middle East
conflict grows strong. Therefore, paradoxically, the "new
anti-Semitism" appears to be engendered in large part by the existence of
Israel. In recent years, some observers have also noted the parallels between
traditional anti-Semitism and the current incarnation of anti
Americanism. (Hitchens, "Jewish Power, Jewish Peril," Vanity
Fair, September 2002, pp. 194-202.)
But as Waiter Laqueur observed, since the 1960s the American extreme
right has been transformed from an ultrapatriotic niovement
to one that is increasingly antipatriotic and nihilistic. (Laqueur,
No End to War, 2003, p. 150.) This shift explains how the extreme right could
find common cause with anti-American movements such as militant Islam. Both
movements see the United States as being under the control of the Jews. It thus
follows that with the global rise of American prominence, the Jewish threat extends
to the entire world. A new synthesis has been created, centered on the
narrative of a U.5.-Israeli alliance. The Israeli-Jewish hand is seen as
pulling the strings of the American leviathan. Just as bin Laden has conflated
the United States and Israel under the rubric of the
"Zionist-crusader" alliance, so has the international extreme right
reified the notion of the U.S. government hopelessly under the control of a
Jewish cabal in the phrase "Zionist occupation government," or
"ZOG."
For many years, the
European extreme right has identified the United States and its pervasive
popular culture as an existential threat to the racial, cultural, and spiritual
integrity of European civilization. Ahmed Huber wrote an essay in this vein in
1982, titled "The Unknown Islam." In it he identified three principal
threats to Islam: Zionism, Marxism, and finally "the American way of
life," which was largely a code phrase for "Judaism." Huber
commented on a trend in which anti-Semitism coincided with anti-Americanism:
Now the anti-Americanism all over the world, which should be directed at the
American government, against Zionist power in America, becomes now a general
anti-Americanism. (For Huber see the article by Kevin Coogan, "The
Mysterious Achmed Huber: Friend to Hitler, Allah and Ibn Laden"
http://coraclesyndicate.org/pub_e/k.coo_e/pubC 05-02_1.html.)
Similarly however, in
an audio tape released in October 2003, Osama bin Laden voiced his contempt for
the United States, replete with anti-Semitic themes: Some have the impression
that you [Americans] are a reasonable people. But the majority of you are vulgar
and without sound ethics or good manners. You elect the evil from among you,
the greatest liars and the least decent and you are enslaved by your richest
and the most influential among you, especially the Jews, who lead you using the
lie of democracy to support the Israelis and their schemes and in complete
antagonism towards our religion, Islam. ("Bin Laden Calls Americans
'Vulgar and without Sound Ethics,''' al- Jazeera, October 18, 2003,
http://english.aljazeera.net/HomePage. )
As reported on this
website we also observed a similar pattern to the anti-Americanism in
Europe in the wake of 9/11. Although anti-Americanism in the media came
overwhelmingly from the political left, protests in the streets were almost all
sponsored by the extreme right and radical Muslims. (See also:)
Militant Islam and
the extreme right both share a strikingly similar critique on several issues.
This development has not gone unnoticed by authorities. Dale Watson, the
Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI's) assistant director for
counterterrorism, saw evidence of communication between extremists in the
United States and Muslim extremists overseas. (John Solomon, "U.S.
Extremists' Links with Terror Groups Watched," Salon. corn, February 28,
2002.)
In recent years
however, domestic right-wing extremists appear to be more internationally
inclined than they traditionally have been in the past. In the realm of
terrorism, such cooperation would make for a very formidable challenge, if
carried out deftly. Islamic terrorists have traditionally been foreign young
men of Middle Eastern origin. Despite the pronouncements on the part of
authorities that they abhor racial profiling and would not condone its use, the
fact remains that young men of Middle Eastern ancestry will tend to make people
more suspicious than other population groups, for no other reason than that
previous Islamic terrorists shared the same ethnic and religious
characteristics. If well-funded Middle Eastern terrorists could enlist the support
of terrorists with white, Anglo-Saxon ethnic features, it could present an
intelligence nightmare to authorities. Reportedly, al Qaeda has already
entertained this scheme. According to a statement by then US. attorney general
John Ashcroft in May 2004, al Qaeda was seeking to recruit operatives "who
can portray themselves as Europeans."
Also Alfred Schobert,
a researcher at the Information Service against Right-Wing Extremism in
Duisburg, Germany, made this observation with regard to the situation in
Germany. He conceded, however, that some far-right leaders see potential in
such an alliance. In order to avoid the intense scrutiny received by travelers
from certain Middle Eastern countries, it is believed that al Qaeda is now
using operatives from Chechnya, Bosnia, and even Western Europe. Furthermore,
some Muslim operatives are believed to have converted to Christianity in order
to obscure their backgrounds and allay suspicion.
The U.S. government
has warned law enforcement agencies that Islamic extremists, without any formal
affiliation with al Qaeda, might carry out terrorist attacks in the United
States and overseas. The FBI fears that individuals on the fringes of extremist
groups may carry out attacks on their own initiative. Certain events, such as
the war on Iraq and increasing tensions in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,
could act as catalysts for such attacks. (David Johnston and James Risen,
"Agencies Warn of Lone Terrorists," New York Times, February 23,2003,
http://www.nytimes.com. extremists had used right-wing extremist propaganda to
augment their anti-Zionist propaganda.)
One major obstacle to
any kind of serious collaboration is the fact that in the United States, there
is no real right-wing terrorist infrastructure to speak of; leaderless
resistance-actually a sign of desperation-predominates. However the
significance of potential collaboration in the area of propaganda should not be
blithely dismissed, as conflicts in the future will increasingly revolve around
information and communication matters. So-called soft power is important in an
era of globalization. Joseph Nye was the first to distinguish between
"hard power" and "soft power." The former consists of
traditional measures such as military and economic strength, and the latter
includes culture and ideology. Adversaries will emphasize media operations and
"perception management" in order to get their side of the story out.
As David Ronfeldt and John Arquilla argued, what happens at the "narrative
level" is very important to the success of a network:
Networks, like other
organizations, are held together by the narratives, or stories that people
tell. ... these narratives provide a grounded expression of people's
experiences, interests, and values. First of all, stories express a sense of
identity and belonging-who "we" are, why we have come together, and
what makes us different from "them." Second, stories communicate a
sense of cause, purpose, and mission. The express aims and methods as well as
cultural dispositions-what "we" believe in, and what we mean to do,
and how. (Arquilla and Ronfeldt, Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror.
Crime, and Militancy, 2001, p. 328.)
In fact there have
been indications that the United States and the UK are losing the war of ideas,
most notably in the Islamic world. A survey conducted by the Pew Global
Attitudes Project in forty-four countries and released in June 2003 found that
a significant number of people in the Muslim world would trust Osama bin Laden
to "do the right thing regarding world affairs." (Faye Bowers,
"Al Qaeda's Profile: Slimmer but Menacing," Christian Science
Monitor, September 9, 2003)
It is known that the war in Iraq sent support for the
United States to record lows in the Muslim world, and the extreme right is
keenly aware of this, so next a more in detailed review.
From Hitler to the "Arab Reich"P.1
From Hitler to the "Arab Reich" P.2
From Hitler to the "Arab Reich" P.4
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