Foro de Inteligencia, Espionaje y Servicios Secretos

Aug. 3, 2009
Reprieve demands the British government investigate the secret illegal detention of ‘ghost’ prisoner Mustafa Setmariam Naser on Diego Garcia

Reprieve today demanded the British government reveal details of the secret illegal detention of ‘ghost’ prisoner Mustafa Setmariam Naser on Diego Garcia and asked two U.N. Special Rapporteurs to urgently investigate the case.

Mustafa Setmariam Naser was ‘disappeared’ while in US custody in 2005. Reprieve has learned that he was sent to Syria, where he wis held incommunicado in shocking conditions and almost certainly tortured. It seems the US deliberately ‘disappeared’ him to a rights-abusing regime once he stopped being useful for intelligence purposes.

The UK shares responsibility for Mr Naser’s disappearance because of its complicity in his ‘ghost’ detention on the Diego Garcia and elsewhere.

Reprieve has:

1) Written to the UK government on behalf of Mr Naser’s wife demanding the UK fulfils its legal obligation to investigate his disappearance.

2) Join the American Civil Liberties Union in reporting Naser’s disappearance to the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture and the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights while Countering Terrorism, requesting they take up the case with the UK and US governments.

Reprieve’s Director Clive Stafford Smith said:

“Enforced disappearance is a crime most associated with ruthless South American dictatorships, yet here we have the US and British governments embroiled in the same dirty deeds. Kidnapping is a crime in anyone’s language, and it is about time that powerful governments are held to account for their crime against Mustafa Naser.”

ACLU Staff Attorney Steven Watt said:

“It is a shocking that the US and UK are willing to deliberately ‘disappear’ a father of four to a regime where he will likely be tortured, held incommunicado and never see his wife and children again. Naser’s family are desperately worried about his welfare, and the U.N. must ensure that he is immediately found and his legal rights restored.”

CASE DETAILS AND BACKGROUND ON MUSTAFA NASER:

1) UK ACTION

Reprieve and Leigh Day and Co. are writing to the British Foreign Office on behalf of Mr Naser's wife Helena Moreno. She and her husband have four children, one of who was born in Britain. Both Mr Naser and Helena are Spanish citizens.

Reprieve is asking for three actions:

(a) That the UK investigate Mr Naser’s disappearance. Reprieve is asking the UK government to investigate the disappearance of Mustafa Naser into a secret prison regime that concededly and routinely involved torture of prisoners. Diego Garcia and its surrounding waters have been a US/UK “legal black hole” for many years before the existence of Guantanamo Bay, and continues to be. However, under international law, the UK is under a positive obligation to conduct a prompt, impartial, independent, effective and thorough investigation into Mr Naser’s disappearance.

(b) That the UK reveal all information they may have which would allow Reprieve to make a habeas corpus application in the US for Mr Naser to ensure his basic legal rights. If the UK has been complicit in his disappearance, then it is only fair that the UK should provide Mr Naser with assistance in order to reunite him with his rights. If the UK does not assist in this was, this effectively ensures that he remains "disappeared".

(c) That the UK demand information from the Americans about Mr Naser’s whereabouts. This is necessitated by the Obama Administration’s regrettable resistance to transparency. Obama’s CIA boss Leon Panetta recently said that the CIA "could neither confirm nor deny if Mr Naser is or is not in US custody".

2) UN ACTION

Together with the American Civil Liberties Union, Reprieve has reporting Naser’s case to the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture and the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights while Countering Terrorism.

The Rapporteurs will be asked to investigate the circumstances of Naser's forced disappearance and raise his case with the governments of the United Kingdom, United States and Syria.

3) BACKGROUND

Mustafa Setmariam Naser

Mr Naser was born in Aleppo, Syria on 27 October 1957. He fled Syria in the early 1980s after a challenge to the dictatorship failed. He arrived in Spain in 1985, and in 1988 married Helena, our client, in Madrid. Mr Naser subsequently became a Spanish citizen. Mr Naser and our client have four children.

Mr Naser wrote a number of books and other publications and was viewed as an influential theorist and intellectual in the Islamist movement.

Mr Naser and his family moved to the UK in 1995.

He has been alleged to have been involved in various offences. He and his family have always denied involvement, and he has never been convicted of any of them.

In 1999, they moved to Afghanistan. From 2002 until his disappearance, Mr Naser lived in Pakistan. In late 2005, Helena and the children moved to Kuwait as the situation in Pakistan became dangerous. Mr Naser was to join them, but in October 2005 he disappeared.

Numerous media reports have stated that Mr Naser was arrested by the Pakistani authorities and subsequently handed over the US authorities. It has been reported that he was transferred to US naval custody in the Chagos Islands (Diego Garcia) in November 2005.

Attempts by NGOs, journalists and Spanish prosecutors to ascertain whether Mr Naser is in US control and/or his whereabouts have all been either ignored or met with a “neither confirm nor deny” response.

What is known for certain is that the US Government removed Mr Naser from the FBI’s most wanted list and its “Rewards for Justice” list shortly after his reported detention.

Helena Moreno’s only wish is to find her husband and, if the allegations against him are maintained, that he is given a fair and open trial.

Evidence that Naser was held at Diego Garcia:

Reprieve has complied many witness sources to confirm this, including: two recently retired CIA members confirming the fact in private conversation; Judge Balthazar Garzon from Spain (who was investigating Mr Naser) confirming it to El-Pais newspaper; Spanish police and Syrian officials confirming it off the record. Syrians have said off the record that the Americans handed Mr Naser to them and now they have him. If this has been done, Mr Naser was rendered to a state known for persecution in violation of the Convention Against Torture.

Renditions and Diego Garcia

Between October 2003 and January 2008, the US government provided numerous assurances that no detentions or renditions had occurred within the jurisdiction of British Overseas Territory Diego Garcia.

For almost five years the British government accepted these assurances, and to Reprieve’s knowledge did nothing to further inquire into these serious and persistent allegations.

Finally, in February 2008, Foreign Secretary David Miliband announced that his US counterparts had ‘checked their records’ and had discovered that two rendition flights, each carrying one prisoner, had passed through Diego Garcia in 2002.

Mr. Miliband maintained, however, that the planes had only landed for refuelling, and that no prisoner had ever set foot on Diego Garcia.

However, there is strong evidence that Diego Garcia was used to actually hold at least three prisoners (Abu Zubaydah, Hambali and Mustafa Setmariam Naser) at various times between 2002 and 2006. The former US commander of SouthCom, General McCaffery, has confirmed on two occasions that prisoners have been held on Diego Garcia, and the Council of Europe (June 2007) spoke of receiving ‘[c]oncurring confirmations that United States agencies have used the island territory of Diego Garcia, which is the international legal responsibility of the United Kingdom, in the “processing” of high-value detainees.’

Recent research and reports suggest that the rendition flights conceded by David Milliband are the tip of the iceberg in terms of Diego Garcia’s role in the US rendition programme, and that prisoners likely classed as “High Value Detainees” have been held on the island or off its coast over a period of five years.

The US government has admitted that prisoners held in its “High Value Detainee” programme were routinely subjected to “enhanced interrogation techniques,” including water-boarding, sleep deprivation, and sensory deprivation, in the context of prolonged incommunicado detention.

For further information, please contact Katherine O’Shea at Reprieve’s Press Office on 020 7427 1099 or katherine.oshea@reprieve.org.uk or the American Civil Liberties Union on (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org

Notes for Editors:

Reprieve, a legal action charity, uses the law to enforce the human rights of prisoners, from death row to Guantánamo Bay. Reprieve investigates, litigates and educates, working on the frontline, to provide legal support to prisoners unable to pay for it themselves. Reprieve promotes the rule of law around the world, securing each person’s right to a fair trial and saving lives. Clive Stafford Smith is the founder of Reprieve and has spent 25 years working on behalf of people facing the death penalty in the USA.

Reprieve’s current casework involves representing 33 prisoners in the US prison at Guantanamo Bay, working on behalf of prisoners facing the death penalty, and conducting ongoing investigations into the rendition and the secret detention of ‘ghost prisoners’ in the so-called ‘war on terror.’

Reprieve
PO Box 52742
London EC4P 4WS
Tel: 020 7353 4640
Fax: 020 7353 4641
Email: info@reprieve.org.uk
Website: www.reprieve.org.uk

Reprieve is a charitable company limited by guarantee; Registered Charity No. 1114900 Registered Company No. 5777831 (England) Registered Office 2-6 Cannon Street London EC4M 6YH; Chair: Lord Bingham Patrons: Alan Bennett, Julie Christie, Martha Lane Fox, Gordon Roddick, Jon Snow, Marina Warner http://www.reprieve.org.uk/2009_08_01_Naser_letter

Interview with the wife of Abu Mus'ab al-Suri
Written by Yvonne Ridley
Tuesday, 13 July 2010
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Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, commonly known as Abu Mus’ab al-Suri, is a Spanish national of Syrian origin who has been ‘disappeared’ since 2005. In November 2004, Nasar was identified on the FBI ‘Most Wanted Terrorists’ List and on November 18, 2004, the U.S. Department of State offered a bounty of $5 million US for information concerning his location. The US prematurely described Abu Mus’ab al-Suri as a‘leading al-Qaeda figure’. He was subsequently captured in Pakistan in 2005 and handed over to US authorities. It is believed he was held in secret detention in the British island of Diego Garcia before being rendered to the Middle East. Cageprisoners investigations have traced Abu Mus’ab’s location back to a secret prison in Syria - where it is believed he is at present.

Mustafa Setmariam Nasar has four children and a wife who have had no communication with him for six years and virtually no knowledge of his whereabouts or conditions.

Cageprisoners patron, Yvonne Ridley, recently met up with Helena Moreno, Mustafa Nasar’s wife, who now lives with her family in the Gulf.



Cageprisoners: As-salaamu ‘alaikum. Can you please introduce yourself?

Helena Moreno: Wa ‘alaikum as-salaam wa rahmatullah. My name is Helena Moreno from Madrid. I became Muslim 21 years ago and took the name Sajidah. A few weeks later I married a man who taught me so much about Islam that he also became my teacher. His name is Mustafa Setmariam, and he was born in Syria in Aleppo 1958.




CP: Describe Abu Mus’ab Al-Suri, the man you know?


HM: I know my husband as Mustafa and I have to say I know him better than the man written about in the media by the name of Abu Mus’ab Al-Suri. I know Mustafa as a husband, a father and a teacher but I know very little about Abu Mus’ab other than what I have read.

I know that some sections of the media have wrongly stated that he belongs to al-Qaida and I know that he is not. In the 80s it is well documented he made a declaration making it clear he was not part of al-Qaida.

We were married at the end of 1988 in Madrid. He was very hard working and industrious, buying and selling handcrafts from Syria. He was very gentle and kind.

I felt very blessed when I married him. The most blessed thing that happened to me was embracing Islam and the second most blessed thing was marrying Mustafa. He was gentle and kind and explained Islam to me, always giving proof from the Qur’an and never, ever pushing me. He was very soft and very intelligent and very funny. He made me laugh, a lot. Not only at the beginning, even in the most difficult times when he was worried there was always a feeling of happiness and joy and looking to the funny side of things to make things go easier. He sacrificed a lot to help me out and get settled in to a new life as a wife, as a Muslim.

I was brought up as a strong, determined Western woman and was an atheist. I had a lot of opposition between me and my family who opposed my conversion, but he always worked to find a just solution.

The man I know was a peacemaker and a bridge-builder.

At the end of 1997 we had been living in London for three years and we decided to move to Kabul. I was very scared because all I knew about Afghanistan was what I’d read in the media. I thought I was going to live somewhere in a tent, without water and sheltering from bombs travelling everywhere by donkey or horse.

When we got there it was so different. We were living in Khost where we had a very nice, small house and he put in a lot of effort to turn it into a home. At that time I had only three children but they loved it and I have to say I loved it too.

The most difficult thing for me was loneliness because I couldn’t speak to my Afghan neighbours and I am a very social person. But the joy of sitting outside in a large backyard looking at the mountains was wonderful. The food tasted beautiful and the air was so pure.

May be I didn’t tell him right away but I loved it. We used to look at the sky and the stars and he would tell me where the polar bear was and which star was called what.

After a few months we moved to Kabul – life was so different. We had running water, electricity and although it was a city the air was still very fresh. My social life was more active as there were other families there.

He opened a grocery shop and worked in the Ministry of Information as a consultant – the Taliban were in power. It was not at all frightening. The media stories in the West said that women were not allowed out on their own, or even to speak in the street and could not even laugh. It was not like that at all. I met with female friends regularly and we would go shopping and talking openly in the streets.

I opened a clothes shop in my home selling clothes, toys, make-up and creams for the sake of the sisters because not everyone had an opportunity to go shopping. It wasn’t run for profit but more as a social vehicle for sisters – it became like a social centre.

If Mustafa was a good husband he was also such a great father, inshallah he is a good father. He was always very involved with the children and spent hours reading to them, playing with them and every evening he gave bedtime stories. The children just loved him.

I have four children – Abdul Kader, 19; Omar, 15, Daniah, 13, Thuraya, 11 – the youngest still remembers how her daddy used to put her on his shoulders and play with her. She often says ‘when’ never ‘if’ Daddy comes back he will still put me on his shoulders.

They last saw him in September 2004 when we left Karachi in Pakistan to move to Kuwait. When we left he went out on to the balcony at 4am in the morning, to say goodbye. That image, that balcony, that house is so fixed in my mind, subhanallah.

I had no idea, and neither did the children, that that was going to be the last time we saw him until now.

After the events of September 11, I was in denial. I wanted things to stay the way as they were but Mustafa knew something terrible was coming and so we left Kabul and lived for a few days in a small place outside.

I was petrified whenever I heard the planes passing every single night when the war started. We knew Kabul had fallen and we began to move south in groups of cars with others. There were 10 cars packed with women and children and we ran from city to city and village to village and always hearing these planes overhead.

I stopped being scared when we were in danger because our little convoys were being bombed all the way. We knew the cities were being taken and bombed by anti-Taliban forces. I was worried but I remained calm and looking back I wonder where that strength came from. But I sometimes think it was Allah’s way of preparing me for what was to come.

We made lots of dua. It was Ramadan and [we had] nothing to break our fast.

Our final destination was Karachi and we thought that was going to be temporary. It was the beginning of 2002 and we remained in Karachi until September 2004.



CP: In what circumstances were you separated?

HM: For two years we lived very quietly in Karachi. We were afraid to speak Arabic because we knew Arabs were being sold and [were] disappearing. At that time they were taking only the men but it was still a trauma for the children and their mothers.

The children were not allowed out and were told to remain quiet – they couldn’t play with the local children. We explained to them that we have to wait for a little while and that we would remain together.

We’d left Afghanistan with planes bombing us and so for the children we were safe. We waited to see what was happening and were thinking of returning to Spain.

In the end we decided that I would take the family first to Kuwait and then I would apply to have his passport renewed and if he was wanted it would emerge then. Of course we knew nothing and could not imagine at all that the name of Mustafa was a high value target for the Americans.

So I headed with the children for Kuwait in September 2003. Our options were limited. I knew we couldn’t remain in Pakistan because the children needed to be educated. We kept in touch by phone and internet and the last communication I received was in May 2005.

I am still in the Gulf.




CP: Where is your husband and how is he faring? What is the latest news and how old and credible is it?


HM: I last heard from him in May 2005. On November 3 2005, it was Eid ul-Fitr, I got a call from someone I trust telling me my husband had been arrested and he asked me to be patient. I was speaking on the phone in my bedroom and it was lunchtime.

I tried to compose myself. I knew that his arrest did not mean a conventional arrest with lawyers. I knew he was going to be ‘disappeared’ and only God would know if I was going to see him again. I knew that he would suffer and I knew that I would be alone for a long time and I hoped that I had not lost him forever. But I could not have imagined that it would get this bad.

I know that some time around the beginning of 2006 he was in Diego Garcia but not on the island. The US denied having him on the island but there are ships around the island.

I’ve asked the Spanish Embassies to find out what they can. What they agree that is in cases like my husband’s there are no official records.

So far the Spanish authorities have been unable to find out any information and I find this appalling. They know he is Spanish citizen and the father of four Spanish children.

The story hit the media in the November 2005 and there was a frenzy of speculation for two months and then nothing. The media said he had something to do with September 11; he was then called the mastermind of the Madrid bombings and the London bombings. Suddenly his name was linked to so many things. He was the mastermind of everything according to the media – none of it was true but that did not stop them.

I’m 99 per cent sure my husband is in Syria. Again the information has come from trusted sources. The last credible information was around the autumn of 2008. This has also been corroborated by a Western NGO.



CP: How has he come to be in the situation he is in?

HM: I think we are living in an age where it is dangerous to be a thinker and a writer. He was never a man of action in terms of being a fighter. When the children used to ask where is daddy I would say he is a writer and some people do not like what he has written. Now they are growing up and it’s not so easy. I do not lie to my children but even when I try to tell them the truth it’s not easy because none of this makes sense.

I’ve speculated, it’s in my head but it may have been that he was betrayed by some poor Pakistani, but then why it happened is not important now. What is important is that my husband has been gone for six years and the children do not know their father anymore. I carry his photograph in my purse and [keep] one in my closet – but I don’t want him to become a blurred picture to them. Sometimes they still talk about their daddy as though he left for work in the morning and he’ll return by the afternoon.

If his name was Antonio or Phillippe my government would have done something different. If I was not covered with my hijab they would have acted different. He is the only European that I have heard of who is ‘disappeared’.

Pakistan is not admitting anything officially nor is America or Syria.




CP: What do you think his current situation is after the latest news you have heard, if any?


HM: I try to lie to myself otherwise I cannot cope with what is happening. I try and believe that he is well and that he is just sitting in a cell. I cannot bear to think he is being tortured. I know that he is a very clever person and he loves talking and that somewhere he is talking to his Syrian guards and they will not harm him and be easier on him.




CP: How have you and your children coped without your husband?


UM: This is a terribly difficult situation. Every time I eat a piece of fruit or chocolate I feel guilty and whenever I catch myself laughing and enjoying my children’s company I feel like a traitor. Everything in my life is connected to him. I love him.




CP: There are allegations that your husband was somehow connected to the London and Madrid bombings. What do you think is the truth behind these claims?


The journalists needed something to fill their newspapers. They knew they could target him because he cannot defend himself but they know they have no proof to connect anything with him. The Spanish Secret Services have even visited my parents and they said they knew he had nothing to do with that. He even called my parents and told them not to believe this because it was not true. My parents have been very, very supportive. My father cannot understand how in the 21st century how a man can just disappear without any information at all. It’s not like he drowned in a ship in the middle of the ocean. Someone has taken him and someone must know where he is and if he is still alive. It has been very difficult for my parents.

Will someone tell me if I’m a widow now?




CP: In the book Architect of Global Jihad: The Life of Al-Qaeda Strategist Abu Mus’ab Al-Suri, the author describes your husband as a ‘thinker and ideologue’ more than an operational figure. Why do you think he is seen as such an important figure?


HM: I have read that book last summer in the hope that I might find out something new. I didn’t get the impression that he was being given such a significant role. What is important is that he continually describes him as being a thinker and a writer – are words so dangerous? You have to be empty, silly and ignorant and then you are not considered a threat.




CP: Despite the title, the same book suggests that your husband was not only opposed to 1998 attacks on the US embassies in East Africa and the 9/11 attacks but, was known to be highly critical of Al-Qaeda. What, if any, is his real position on this?


HM: I cannot speak for my husband, inshallah one day he will be able to explain his position but remember my husband was always the one who wanted to build bridges and open dialogue with non-Muslims.




CP: Your husband is a Spanish citizen: what has the Spanish government done for him?


HM: As far as I am aware, the Spanish government has not done so much for him. I went to Spain in February 2010 and I am working with Amnesty International there and we had lots of meetings with politicians. They were kind and showed a certain interest but one woman in the Foreign office said she thought his file had gone missing because they’d moved office. How on earth can my Spanish government say they’ve lost papers simply by moving office?




CP: What do you hope to achieve in the case of your husband?


HM: I want to have him back. I need him as a husband, a partner, a father. We, as Muslims, need to know the truth because this injustice is being done to all of us. This case is much bigger than simply me wanting my husband back.




CP: What has been the response of the Spanish people?


HM: My husband’s name has been in the shadows but when ordinary people hear about his story they all ask the same thing: How on earth can someone disappear like this.




CP: What has been the response of the Muslim community?


HM: The response of the Muslim community is very sad. In the country in which I live almost no one knows who I am or who my husband is. They don’t ask many questions. I don’t get emails of support. If I go in forums I don’t hear or see Mustafa’s name. Occasionally, very occasionally I’m told to be patient. And the Arab community is too afraid to even write his name or show support to a woman living on her own with her children.




CP: What has been the impact of your husband’s disappearance on your family?


HM: It has been devastating. The children have been without their father for more than half their lives. They miss their father a lot, especially the eldest. He was very attached to his father and he is not doing well. He has very difficult times. He gets depressed. The girls are coping better than the boys.




CP: What is the worst thing about this situation?


HM: Everything is bad – it is the not knowing. If I were not to know anything at all it would be bad but knowing little pieces of information from people who have been ‘disappeared’, tortured and returned that is killing me inch by inch. If I am watching a film and there’s a comment or a scene involving torture I have to switch it off. I don’t think I could watch the film Rendition. Every image I see coming out of Bagram, I put Mustafa’s face on it and it’s not easy.

They are torturing me terribly and I don’t think they even care.




CP: What, if any, is the best thing about this situation for you?


HM: In general I am an optimistic person and I always try and look for the good things. I am sure I will learn someday what the good things are. This has made me a stronger person and I’ve learned how to accept Allah’s will. I know that I am able to fight for me and my children but to fight for him also … alone, again. I could never imagine that I could be this strong. I am very thankful that Allah (swt) has given me patience, al-hamdullilah.




CP: Do you have any message for our readers?


HM: To whoever has been ‘disappeared’, or arrested in Guantanamo, on ships, in jails and are free now. I want to remind them that not everyone has been so lucky and I want them to remember those who are still in the darkness. We are going to be asked, all of us, what we have done for those people. I would like to say, especially to the sisters who are in my situation, better or worse, just say al-hamdullilah from the deepest of your heart because not everyone has been blessed with this exam or test. Please anyone who knows anything, even the smallest thing then contact me through Cageprisoners.




CP: Who can help and why?


HM: We should also send a message to those who are responsible for this. I try to understand what is the point for these evil actions? I hope and I wonder if you can sleep at night - what sort of a spirit and soul do you have, when you kiss your children at night think about those children of the ‘disappeared’? We are all human beings and we have our weaknesses. We have to learn how to forgive.

This has been six years of not knowing.

I want to give a huge thank you for those few ones who have been there from the Muslim community and the non Muslims, NGOs and others who have helped.

Please write to your local Spanish Embassy and ask them what they are doing. Write about Mustafa. We have to keep his name alive to keep him alive.

CP: Thank you and may Allah ease your hardship.

Siria sigue sin aclarar si tiene preso a Mustafá Setmarian

EE UU reconoce en informes secretos su traslado a ese país

JOSÉ MARÍA IRUJO - Madrid - 03/06/2011

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/espana/S ... nac_14/Tes

El Gobierno sirio de Bachar el Asad no responde a los requerimientos que desde hace dos años le ha trasladado la Audiencia Nacional para que aclare si tiene en su poder a Abu Musab al Suri, Mustafá Setmarian, de 52 años, sirio nacionalizado español, casado con una madrileña y presunto número cuatro de Al Qaeda, reclamado en varias causas por la justicia española, según señalan fuentes judiciales. La amnistía general que anunció el martes el Gobierno sirio para los Hermanos Musulmanes ha despertado la esperanza en familiares de algunos presos vinculados a actividades yihadistas y desaparecidos en el oscuro laberinto de las siniestras cárceles sirias.


Setmarian fue detenido en 2005 en Pakistán y entregado a agentes de la CIA que lo trasladaron a cárceles secretas, posiblemente a un barco prisión en la base naval de Diego García, una isla británica en el océano Índico. Desde entonces su paradero es un misterio. EL PAÍS reveló hace varias semanas documentos secretos del Ministerio de Defensa de EE UU, fechados en 2008 y redactados por militares en la cárcel de Guantánamo, donde se asegura que el presunto terrorista fue entregado a Siria. Es la primera vez que se hace público un documento oficial norteamericano sobre el paradero del jefe de Al Qaeda por el que el Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) ofrecía en su página web de los terroristas más buscados una recompensa de cinco millones de dólares por su captura.

"Siria no ha respondido aunque reclamamos su respuesta dos veces", señala Baltasar Garzón, titular del Juzgado de Instrucción número cinco de la Audiencia Nacional cuando se trasladó la comisión rogatoria internacional. Desde 2009 este juzgado ha insistido en su petición a los servicios de información sirios sin recibir respuesta. Garzón reclamó también información sobre el paradero de Setmarian a EE UU y el FBI contestó con una lacónica y escueta respuesta: "No está localizable en EE UU". La petición se envió también a Reino Unido, Afganistán y Pakistán. En 2001, Garzón dictó una orden de búsqueda y captura contra Setmarian que todavía sigue vigente.

Recientemente un testigo protegido le reconoció en una fotografía publicada en la prensa como presunto autor del atentado en el restaurante El Descanso, en Madrid, en 1985, en el que murieron 18 personas. La víctima, que perdió a su pareja y a otra persona que les acompañaba, asegura que el hombre que colocó la bomba tiene un "extraordinario" parecido físico con Setmarian que durante aquellos años residía en la capital española. La causa está archivada provisionalmente, a la espera de que aparezca el autor y contiene un retrato robot elaborado por esta y otras víctimas de aquel ataque, el primero de la yihad en España.

Setmarian fue el presunto fundador de las primeras células yihadistas en España, dirigió la revista Al Ansar del GIA argelino en Londres, se trasladó a Afganistán en los años noventa, donde trabajó en el Ministerio de Defensa talibán con el mulá Mohamed Omar, alcanzó la cúpula de Al Qaeda junto a Osama bin Laden y Ayman Al Zawahiri, y dirigió un campo de entrenamiento terrorista para sirios. En el otoño de 2001, meses después de que EE UU invadiera Afganistán, Osama Bin Laden le encargó que diseñara la nueva yihad, la denominada guerra química y bacteriológica.

ANTONIO HERRERO

http://www.laprovincia.es/mundo/2011/05 ... 70057.html

Se llama Mohammed Bahaiba, alias Abu Khaled, natural de Siria, donde nació el 1 de enero de 1963 y vivió en el barrio de Las Alcaravaneras, en Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Según fuentes de la lucha antiterrorista, este hombre es considerado el hasta hora correo del fallecido líder de Al Qaeda a manos de los grupos especiales estadounidenses, Osama bin Laden, entre Afganistán y Europa.

Abu Khaled, actualmente huido al estar incurso en el sumario 35/2001 del Juzgado Central de Instrucción número 5 de la Audiencia Nacional, vivió en Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, antes de incorporarse a la Yihad como correo de Osama bin Laden entre Afganistán y el continente europeo. Abu Khaled, con Número de Identificación Extranjero (NIE) X-1603276-S, vivió durante varios años en la calle Alemania bajo 24, cerca de la zona portuaria de la capital grancanaria, ciudad a la que llegó en el año 1994.

Fue el 9 de enero de 1998 cuando Mohammed Bahaiba -íntimo amigo de Abu Qutada, cuyo verdadero nombre es Omar Mahmood Otham, imán establecido en la capital británica, donde eran conocidas sus llamadas a la guerra santa-, se ausentó definitivamente de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

Los funcionarios de la Unidad Central de Información Exterior del Cuerpo Nacional de Policía lograron averiguar solo dos años después de su marcha que Bahaiba había acompañado a Mustafá Setmarian, el presunto líder español de Al Qaeda, hasta el propio Bin Laden en Afganistán.

En Junio 2010 diversos medios informaron de la publicación del primer número de Inspire, el boletín de Al Qaeda en la Península Arábiga en inglés.11 En el había un artículo publicado bajo el nombre de Abu Mu'sab al-Suri junto a la foto de Setmarian.12 Este artículo se titulaba: "Las experiencias yihaidistas: escuelas de yihad".

The report also identified international factors
affecting the Dutch threat level:
- The prominent role of the Netherlands in international CT
efforts;
- Prominent mention of the Netherlands in statements by Al
Quaeda ideologists. For example, Abu Musab al-Suri's recent
fatwa against a several countries included the Netherlands.
The report also noted the ambition by some radical Muslims
to set up a Jihad umbrella organization in Northern Africa,
which might raise the terror threat in Europe.

El presidente sirio, Bachar el Asad, juró a mediados de mes golpear “a los terroristas con mano de hierro”, refiriéndose a los cientos de miles de manifestantes que exigen que marcha, pero, paradójicamente, poco antes había puesto en libertad al que fue un fue el número cuatro de Al Qaeda, Mustafá Setmarian, que posee la nacionalidad española y está reclamado por la justicia española.

Setmarian, de 53 años, fue excarcelado a finales de diciembre junto con otro terrorista, Abu Khalid, según reveló primero Sooryoon.net, una web informativa de la oposición siria en Londres. Otras webs especializadas en Oriente Próximo, como MeTransparent, aportaron este mes más datos como que salió de la prisión de Alepo, su ciudad natal.

Una fuente española conocedora del caso lo confirma y en los foros yihadistas, donde los radicales islámicos debaten, se alegran de esa liberación exigida, a principios de diciembre, junto con la de otros terroristas, por Ayman el Zawahiri, el sustitito de Osama Bin Laden el frente de Al Qaeda. A cambio ofrecía liberar al rehén estadounidense Warren Weinstein secuestrado en Pakistán.

La familia española de Setmarian –en 1987 contrajo matrimonio con la madrileña Helena Moreno con la que tuvo tres hijos- asegura, sin embargo, desconocer la excarcelación de este terrorista de origen sirio que las fuerzas especiales de EE UU capturaron en 2005 en Pakistán y trasladaron, probablemente, a la base naval de Diego García, en el Océano Índico. Después de interrogarle le enviaron a Siria.


El Gobierno sirio responde así a las sanciones de la Administración del Barack Obama

El régimen de El Asad lo ha puesto ahora en libertad no para ceder a las exigencias de Zawahiri sino para advertir a Washington de que da por terminada la cooperación antiterrorista que desarrolló estos últimos años, según interpretan unánimemente las webs de la oposición siria y fuentes académicas especializadas en Oriente Próximo.

Responde así a las sanciones que la Administración del presidente Barack Obama ha ido promulgando contra el régimen sirio por su despiadada represión de una oposición que, en sus orígenes en marzo, era pacífica. El castigo consiste básicamente en la congelación de los habres sirios en EE UU, la renuncia a comprar petróleo sirio y prohíbe a los ciudadanos norteamericamos hacer cualquier negocios con el Estado sirio. Europa también aplica sanciones similares.

Damasco nunca ha respondido a los requerimientos de la Audiencia Nacional española para que aclare si tiene preso a Mustafá Setmarian, también conocido como Abu Musab al Suri, reclamado en varias causas por la justicia española y contra el que el juez Baltasar Garzón dictó, en 2001, una orden de búsqueda y captura. Un documento oficial de EE UU de 2008 sí confirma que fue enviado a Siria.

Tras ver una fotografía suya en la prensa un testigo protegido le reconoció como el presunto autor de la voladura, en 1985, del restaurante El Descanso, en Madrid, que causó 18 muertos, la mayoría estadounidenses. Es el tercer mayor atentado de la historia de España después del 11-M, en Madrid (2004), y del de el supermercado de Hipercor, en Barcelona (1987). http://politica.elpais.com/politica/201 ... 42958.html

Este atentado suicida y los que están por llegar con la ayuda de los opositores sirios financiados por occidente, ES EN RESPUESTA A LA DETENCIÓN DE CIENTOS DE JIHADISTAS SIRIOS Y SU LÍDER DEL LEVANTE, ABU MUSAB AL-SURI, Mustafa Setmariam, detenido en una cárcel Siria. Según los jihadistas, el jeque abu musab al-suri se encuentra detenido en Damasco en la sección 215 del ala reservada a prisioneros provenientes de la inteligencia militar islámica. http://jihad-e-informacion.blogspot.com ... icida.html

An old face appears poised to play a new role in the jihadist movement. On Feb. 2, plugged-in online jihadists confirmed that one of the jihad's most original and respected theoreticians, Abu Musab al-Suri, had been released from a Syrian prison.

While not a household name like Osama bin Laden, Suri enjoys a burgeoning influence on the global jihadist movement, and particularly those based in the West. The veteran Syrian jihadist, whose real name is Mustafa bin Abd al-Qadir Sitt Maryam Nasar, is best known for his 1,600-page treatise Dawat al-Muqawamah al-Islamiyyah al-Alamiyyah (Call of Global Islamic Resistance), which articulates a strategy of decentralized jihad, rather than one that depends on clandestine organizations. If there is an architect of the jihadists' post-9/11 line of attack, it's Suri.

Suri's ideas have been popularized in jihadist circles over the past few years. They have been taken up by prominent figures like the head of al Qaeda's media department, Adam Gadahn, and Yemeni-American jihadist Anwar al-Awlaqi, as well as being featured by Samir Khan in al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's Inspire Magazine.

Rumors about Suri's status had been flying around online since Dec. 23, when Sooryoon.net, a Syrian opposition newspaper, published a story saying Suri and his assistant Abu Khalid had been released. It is surprising that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would release a man who is not only a confirmed enemy of his regime, but that of his father Hafez as well. By releasing a major jihadist figure, Assad is playing a dangerous game with the West, which is already debating whether to intervene in the bloody uprising in Syria.

Suri is a divisive figure, quick to pick a fight even with his fellow jihadists. In his biography of Suri, Norwegian scholar Brynjar Lia describes him as "a dissident, a critic, and an intellectual in an ideological current in which one would expect to find obedience rather than dissent."

If Suri has indeed been released, al Qaeda's current leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, will not welcome him back into the fold with open arms. Suri, who quit al Qaeda in 1992, has feuded with the jihadist organization over their differing strategies regarding global jihad. Suri criticized the 9/11 attacks because he believed that Afghanistan, which was being used as a base by the Taliban, was crucial to the global Islamic resistance. "The outcome [of the 9/11 attacks] as a I see it, was to put a catastrophic end to the jihadi current," Suri noted. "The jihadis entered the tribulations of the current maelstrom which swallowed most of its cadres over the subsequent three years."

Suri's involvement in the jihadist world traverses the Middle East, South Asia, and its bases among Muslim communities living in the West. In 1980, at the age of 21, he dropped out of the University of Aleppo to join up with the militant offshoot of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, which was calling for a jihad against the Syrian regime. As Hafez al-Assad's security force cracked down on the group, Suri fled to Jordan and remained there until 1983.

Suri later moved to Spain, married a Spanish woman, and obtained Spanish citizenship. In the late 1980s, toward the end of the anti-Soviet jihad, he made his way to Peshawar and became a military instructor for one of Palestinian jihadist Abdullah Azzam's training camps. That is where he first came into contact with bin Laden. In his work the Call of Global Islamic Resistance, Suri recounted that he worked as a military instructor as well as provided lectures on politics, strategy, and guerilla warfare at al Qaeda's training camps until 1991.

After shuttling back and forth between Madrid and Afghanistan for several years, Suri moved to London in the mid-1990s. It is believed he moved because he was under pressure from Spanish security, which suspected that he was connected to terrorist attacks by the Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA) in France in 1995. In Britain, Suri became deeply involved with the "Londonistan" jihadi underground. He helped produce and wrote articles for the GIA's magazine al-Ansar, but quit the magazine in 1996 as a result of the organization's over-the-top and sadistic tactics.

Suri returned to Afghanistan a year later, and maintained a loose affiliation with the Taliban. He is also known for having facilitated Peter Bergen's famous CNN interview with Bin Laden in 1997.

In 2000, Suri opened his own training camp -- called al-Ghuraba ("The Strangers") Camp, located in Kargha, near Kabul. It was not affiliated with al Qaeda's camps, and Suri did not have a large following. He stayed there until the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, when he fled along with many other jihadists. He wrote his 1,600-page treatise in Pakistan before his arrest.

It is hard to determine Suri's intentions or capabilities now that he has reportedly been released. After being imprisoned for the past six or seven years, his psychological state remains a mystery. And even if he wanted to, it is not clear whether Suri could muster a large base of supporters in Syria. He has not lived freely in the country since the early 1980s -- his following may be larger online than in the real world.

But Suri does have a number of advantages working in his favor if he wants to once again play a role in the jihadist world. The fact that so many of the old guard -- such as bin Laden, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Mohammed Atef, and Atiyyatullah Abu Abd al-Rahman -- are dead or captured would bolster his status instantly, especially since his ideas have become more accessible and popular through translations of his work.

Additionally, his lore will grow in light of an alleged vision he had this past August, which was relayed by online jihadist Jundi Dawlat al-Islam ("Soldier of the Islamic State"), a member of the important Shamukh al-Islam Arabic Forum. "I have been informed that the Shaykh [Suri] saw in the past days a vision that he will have an important role in Bilad al-Sham (Syria), we ask Allah that it becomes true," the jihadist wrote. Suri's release will be seen as a vindication of that vision by his supporters, and no doubt boost his influence.

Just because he's reportedly out of Syrian prison doesn't mean Suri is out of danger. The Spanish government may try to extract him from Syria due to his believed involvement in 2004 Madrid train bombings. Suri may also seek refuge in Yemen, which he has written is the best location for jihad and establishing an Islamic state other than the Taliban's Afghanistan.

The past 5 years has seen a rise, especially in the West, of Suri's leaderless jihad strategy. But while attacks such as the 2009 Fort Hood shooting have proven traumatic, solo attacks, by and large, have had a low success rate. Upon his release, Suri may well reevaluate this strategy and offer new thoughts on how to implement it. Whatever the case, his release will only re-energize his followers and provide new motivation for individuals to join the global jihad.

The Syrian government has freed a dangerous al Qaeda leader and strategist who was captured in Pakistan in 2005, released to the US, and then transferred to Syria in 2006, according to Internet jihadists at a prominent al Qaeda-linked forum.

A "prominent member of the jihadist forum community" claimed that earlier rumors of the release of Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, who is better known as Abu Musab al Suri, from a Syrian prison sometime last year are true, according to a translation of the message by the SITE Intelligence Group. The Internet jihadist's message was posted on the Shumukh al-Islam forum on Feb. 2, and was endorsed by the forum's administrators.

Al Suri's release has not been confirmed. US intelligence officials contacted by The Long War Journal would not comment on the reports of his release.

He was first reported to have been released by Syrian's security services along with his deputy, Abu Khalid, in late December 2011, by the Sooryoon Syrian news website. Internet Jihadists debated his release in mid-January. The reason for his release was not given.

Al Suri, a Syrian who is a Spanish citizen by marriage, is a longtime jihadist whose involvement in the global jihad has spanned four decades. He has extensive ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, the now-defunct Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA), the Taliban, al Qaeda, and other local and international terror groups.

In the early 1980s, he joined the Syrian Fighting Vanguards, an Islamist group involved in the uprising in Hama in 1982. He spent time in Europe after the failed uprising, then traveled to Peshawar and met Abdullah Azzam, Osama bin Laden's mentor and the co-founder of al Qaeda. Al Suri served as a military trainer for foreign fighters who battled the Soviet Union and the Communist regime in Afghanistan. In the mid-1990s, he served as an editor for a GIA-linked jihadist magazine along with Abu Qatada, the radical cleric who is considered to be al Qaeda's ambassador to the United Kingdom.

Al Suri returned to Afghanistan in 1997 and worked as a military trainer at al Qaeda's notorious Darunta camp, where the terror group experimented with chemical weapons. In 2000, he established the Al Ghuraba training camp near Kabul. The camp was established under the aegis of the Taliban's Ministry of Defense. In 2004, the US State Department issued a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture, and said that al Suri "trained terrorists in poisons and chemicals" at both Darunta and Al Ghuraba.

He was a prolific writer on strategy, and has been the main advocate of so-called "leaderless jihad," which urges Muslims to establish their own cells without linking up with al Qaeda's global network, in order to escape detection. Al Suri advocated that jihadists use the Internet and other methods to gather their information to conduct attacks.

Spain has sought al Suri for his connections to two terrorist attacks: the 1985 bombing at a cafe near Madrid that killed 18 people; and al Qaeda's March 11, 2004 bombings on trains and at stations in Madrid that killed 191 people.

Al Suri was captured in Quetta, Pakistan, in November 2005 and transferred to US custody shortly afterward. He is said to have been held at a CIA black site at the Diego Garcia military base in the Indian Ocean before being transferred to Syrian custody.

Fuente: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/ ... z1ljWNyL00

El líder islamista radical de al-qaeda en Siria, Emad Hosari, rechaza la propuesta del Grupo de Acción para Siria
Como era de esparar, los takfir del Consejo Nacional Sirio (CNS), el principal órgano de los islamistas radicales de ideología takfir de la oposición siria en el exilio, rechazó hoy la propuesta planteada por un grupo de países para formar un gobierno transitorio con representantes del régimen y la oposición en Siria.

El llamado Grupo de Acción para Siria (en el que participan China, Rusia, EEUU, Francia, Reino Unido, Turquía, la Liga Árabe, la ONU y la Unión Europea) acordó ayer proponer la creación de un "órgano de transición gubernamental", con participación del Ejecutivo de Al Asad y de los grupos opositores, como elemento clave para pacificar el país.

"Con los terroristas NO se habla ni se pacta nada, se eliminan en asesinatos selectivos para que no haya daños colaterales."

Esto es lo que decían antiguamente los EEUU.OTAN y demás aliados ACTUALES DE AL-QAEDA. Hemos pasado de "luchar" contra los islamistas a ser sus aliados.

Para quién no sepa quien es Emad Hosari, les diré que es el líder de la Hermandad Musulmana de Siria A LA QUE PERTENECE EL LÍDER DEL MOVIMIENTO TAKFIR EN EL LEVANTE, MUSTAFA SETMARIAM, mas conocido por abu musab al-suri, el líder español en la cúpula de al-qaeda, pero eso era antes de "la primavera negra", ahora ocupará un alto cargo dentro de la Hermandad Musulmana de Siria, un cargo de ministro de Defensa, como ya ha sucedido en Libia. Dos pesos pesados del ala militar de al-qaeda ocuparan carteras en el Ministerio de Defensa de Libia y Siria.

Mustafa Setmariam estaba detenido en Siria hasta que fué liberado por LOS REBELDES SIRIOS CON LA AYUDA DE 2 COMANDOS DE OPERACIONES ESPECIALES, GRAN BRETAÑA Y FRANCIA.
En la actualidad se encuentra al mando de los Batallones de "Mártires de Hama" y la sección 3ª del Batallón de Tripoli (Libia) en Damasco al que corresponde ésta foto. ¿Sorprendidos...? Cuando hay intereses económico-político todo es posible...

http://jihad-e-informacion.blogspot.com ... qaeda.html