COMMENT: Is John Howard linked to al-Qaeda?

Sydney readers beware! Osama bin Ladin's minions is on the prowl, seeking recuits for his grand jihad.

The Herald-Sun reports of ...

... a weekend recruitment drive by Muslim extremists espousing the teachings of Osama bin Laden.

The Hun also provides this amazing insight into the workings of anti-terrorist agencies:

Terrorist recruitment tactics have been in the spotlight since eight young professionals were arrested over the latest wave of UK bombings.

So until that thankfully-incompetent chap was found burning and screaming "Allah" at Glasgow, no one in the intelligence community bothered about how terrorist groups and cells recruit members.I can just imagine ASIO chief Paul O'Sullivan telling his researchers and operatives: "OK, fellas. I've just read in the Hun that a bomb's gone off. Let's find out how these people recuit!".

And what sophisticated methods are used by al-Qaeda to recruit in South Western Sydney? The Hun offers this insight:

Flyers for the event, the Islam Mercy to the Worlds Conference, have been dropped in cafes and restaurants around Sydney's southwest.

Mick Keelty had better send some of his blokes down to some of these places to watch these well-trained operatives in action.

With so much exclusive information, why would the Hun need to contact the organisers?

Conference organisers did not return the Herald Sun's calls last night.

I wonder why.

So what links these loud-mouthed and irrelevant imams to al-Qaeda? The Hun says they are ...

... devoted to bin Laden's poisonous brand of Islam, Wahhabism.

Wahhabism also happens to be the official religion of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It is also the sect followed and promoted by one of Mr Howard's closest friends in Aussie Muslim circles. The Hun article refers to the young Sydney graduate Kamal Taleb who

... returned to Australia after 15 years in a Saudi Arabian seminary devoted to fundamentalism.

I know Taleb personally. He studied at the Islamic University of Madina in Saudi Arabia. Mr Howard's friend facilitated Taleb's enrolment and even wrote him a reference.

I guess, using the Hun's logic, John Howard is directly linked to al-Qaeda. So am I. And because you are reading this article, so are you!

I'm no fan of Wahhabism. But seriously, to claim all Wahhabis are linked to OBL is as lame as suggesting all Irish Catholics were and are linked to Sinn Fein. Or suggesting all Tamils are linked to the LTTE.

© Irfan Yusuf 2007

CRIKEY: The Oz – Always alarmed but rarely alert?

Today’s front cover of The Australian has a story splashed about a “Home-grown jihad threat”. The story is then referred to in The Oz’s editorial entitled “Vigilance alone will not win this war”.

Both the editorial and the story cite the arrest of a number of Australians by Lebanese authorities for being involved in terrorist activity. The same article and editorial then cite as an authority on radical Muslim youth a young chap who is associated with another Islamist group (known as the al-Ahbash) whose representatives have been arrested in Lebanon in relation to the assassination of Rafik Hariri.

That isn’t all. The Oz claims that Mustapha Kara-Ali ...

... was given a $200,000 grant by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship in June last year.

This is absolute nonsense, and the journalists who wrote the story know it. In fact, Mr Kara-Ali is not the recipient of a single cent of government funding.

This is amateur and sloppy journalism most unbecoming of a national broadsheet. Surely the journalist has an obligation not to just repeat what his source tells him. Surely where the information can be independently verified, the journalist can check the facts.

All Richard Kerbaj et al had to do was look up the website of DIAC and see for themselves that Kara-Ali hasn’t received any money. Further, the grant was actually awarded to al-Amanah College, an independent school run by the Lebanese al-Ahbash sect. The amount awarded was not $200,000 but rather $157,866.

Kerbaj then faithfully reports Kara-Ali’s outlandish claims about “ideological sleeper cells” representing some 3,000 Sunni Muslim youth. No indication is given of how that figure is calculated, what research methodology was used, what criteria were used to determine whether a young person has become radicalised and which ethnic groups are involved in the research.

Most tellingly, Kerbaj doesn’t bother to ascertain whether Kara-Ali is qualified to make such alarmist statements or to carry out such research.

(It’s interesting to note that Kara-Ali’s qualifications are predominantly in engineering. He has no social science, sociology, demography or anthropology qualifications whatsoever.)

Kerbaj doesn’t question Kara-Ali’s statement that

... the Muslim community in Australia is still new.

How can this be when the current Mufti appointed by the Australian National Imams’ Council has lived in Australia since the early 1950’s? And isn’t Kerbaj aware of Albanian and Bosnian (formerly Yugoslav) Muslims who have lived in Australia since the 1920’s?

All in all, it is sloppy journalism, written and presented with a view of supporting a clear editorial slant on these issues.

A version of this was first published in the Crikey daily alert for Monday July 02, 2007.

© Irfan Yusuf 2007


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