ISLAMIC EXTREMISTS Terror groups vied for key player

Inside the world of Islamic terrorism, there's rivalry.
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
WASHINGTON -- All the terrorists wanted Shadi Abdallah on their team.
Like many disenchanted Muslim youths in the late 1990s, the Jordanian-born 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 meeting, Osama bin Laden invited him to join Al-Qaida -- and 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, Zarqawi's rival organization.
Abdallah opted for Al Tawhid, in part because of Jordanian ties. He went to Germany to carry out attacks, but his plans were interrupted when German authorities arrested him in April 2002.
Vivid and surprising
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," said Bruce Hoffman, a terror expert at RAND Corp. in Washington. "It confirms that Zarqawi was running a parallel organization -- not completely divorced from Al-Qaida, 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 U.S. public, Islamic terrorism is symbolized by the thin, haunting face of bin Laden. They see him -- and the U.S. 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-Qaida and its relationship with the group led by Zarqawi, who U.S. officials say was also behind the October 2002 assassination of U.S. diplomat Laurence Foley in Amman, Jordan, as well as a recent string of foiled ricin attacks across Europe.
Way of life
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 said 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 that 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-Qaida'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 Zarqawi. It was Zarqawi who, according to U.S. officials, wrote the well-publicized 14-page letter earlier this year, exhorting bin Laden to help foment a religious war in Iraq.
Differing agendas
His organization, Al Tawhid, is based on the same religious tenets as Al-Qaida, but it has a different agenda. Zarqawi's raison d'etre is to overthrow the royal family of Jordan. To join his organization, Abdallah said, one must agree with its mission and be of Jordanian or Palestinian origin.
At the military camp, Abdallah said 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. 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.
But on the 20th day of his military training, Abdallah said, he was injured. After a short hospital stay, he moved to bin Laden's compound near the Kandahar airport. While there, he says he met bin Laden himself and was invited to join Al-Qaida.
However, he opted first to pursue his religious education and entered an Islamic institute in Kandahar. There, he befriended two other young men and eventually traveled with them to Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, to meet with Zarqawi.
Abdallah said Zarqawi asked him to return to his home in Jordan to help execute terrorist attacks there. Abdallah declined but said he would return to Germany and help Zarqawi carry out attacks on Jews who lived in Germany.
Returns to Germany
In August 2001, Abdallah returned to Germany, where he said he contacted Zarqawi's man in charge of running German cells, referred to in the interrogation documents as Abu Ali. Ali provided Abdallah with money to live on and later found him a job at a service station in Germany.
Abdallah said that because Ali suspected German authorities were watching him, Zarqawi replaced him at the beginning of 2002. The new man, referred to in the papers as "Aschraf," was from then on in charge of the cell that included Abdallah. Aschraf's assignment was to carry out "two or three" attacks against "Jewish institutions" in Germany. Zarqawi, Abdallah said, gave the orders for the kinds of attacks, in this case, suicide bomb attacks.
But the details had to be worked out locally.
Aschraf directed Abdallah to phone members of other cells to inquire about explosives, which they referred to as "black pills" and "Lebanese or Russian apples," the transcript said. Abdallah said he bought explosives from "Albanians in Hamburg."
But the plans were thwarted with his arrest.