More Gamification: Alix Levine Responds

Yesterday I posted some thoughts on an article by Jarrett Brachman and Alix Levine for Foreign Policy on the concept of "gamification." Today, Alix Levine has a thoughtful response on her blog. And yes, you're going to have to go back and read all of this in order to follow my short response.

First off, let me say that I do think there's some value in the gamification model and it may provide a very useful tool for analyzing the behavior of online jihadists. I objected to what I saw as an implication in the article that success at the "game" might correlate to violent acts in the real world.

Levine has two major criticisms of my analysis, which focused on the case of Zach Chesser. First, she points out that Chesser moved from Islamic Awakening to Al Qimmah after he started seriously losing the "game" at IA, and that Al Qimmah is also gamified.

I acknowledged that move in my original post. What neither Levine nor I have cited is a clean record of how Chesser fared from a gamification perspective at Al Qimmah. As I said before, my archives of the forums don't include reliable data on "thank yous" and "rep points," although that is an oversight I'm going to try to rectify going forward. Levine doesn't cite this data either, which I assume means she doesn't have it, since if the data showed Chesser racking up points that would make her argument more powerful. Without that data, simply making this observation doesn't refute my point.

My recollection is that both the quality and volume of Chesser's posts dropped off prior to his arrest. What I can point to for evidence of this is Aaron Zelin's interview with Chesser shortly before his arrest in which he states he was pulling back on his online activity (referring to blogging and other social media) because "it is no longer in my interests to do these things necessarily."

The second major criticism Levine has for my analysis is the characterization of a thread discussing Chesser's arrest on the Islamic Awakening forum as a "roast," which she calls a "major exaggeration." I think this characterization is reasonable.

Most threads devoted to Muslim prisoners on IA are hagiographies. The thread on Chesser was a combination of some extraordinarily harsh criticisms, a handful of real defenses of Chesser on his merits, and some tepid "let's not attack a fellow Muslim" responses. You can read the thread for yourself in the following PDFs, Part 1 and Part 2. When compared to threads on other prisoners, such as Tarek Mehanna or Daniel Maldonado, I believe that the Chesser thread was a shocking rebuke.

One last point where I think I do deserve to be challenged. It's not completely clear to me that Chesser was seriously on the verge of committing a terrorist act or becoming a foreign fighter. As I discuss in my book, Jihad Joe (out in just two weeks now), it seemed to me that Chesser may have wanted to get caught.

On a different front, the case of Tarek Mehanna is also probably one to study. Like Chesser, I question whether Mehanna was likely to act out in the real world (an argument I raise at more length in the book). And Mehanna, in contrast to Chesser, was exceedingly good at the "game" -- and still is, even from prison. Both Chesser and Mehanna were indictable, but that's not the same thing as being genuinely "close to action."

Overall I think there's a lot of interesting analysis yet to be done on gamification, which is certainly an interesting and useful approach to looking at online jihadist activities but I stand by my argument that a linear correlation between online success and real world violence is not likely to stand up when the data comes in.

What I suspect instead is that it may be possible to design some useful algorithms that can spot useful trends in online jihadist behavior using the metrics they have so helpfully provided. By allowing the users to rate each other, they allow us to see which users are most interesting. I'm guessing when the smoke clears that we should be concerned when someone with a high volume of posting shows a "rep" score that starts strong then plummets.

But we need real numbers to move this debate forward. I'm guessing that someone like Aaron Weisburd might be keeping score. I look forward to further input from all sides.

Labels: American-Jihadists, Jihad-Joe, Zach-Chesser

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Some thoughts on "gamification":
Where the loser takes it all

Jarrett Brachman and Alix Levine recently posted an interesting article at Foreign Policy on the concept of "gamification," arguing that the structuring of jihadist online forums specifically and jihadist social networks more generally are strengthened by the gamelike qualities of the interactions. They specifically cited "rep power" -- a point-based system by which other forum users confer status by voting on the merits of users and their posts.

Anwar Awlaki, in his approach to interacting with online admirers, is presented as the example of how this process can be dangerous. According to Brachman and Levine:

By gamifying his followers' Internet experiences, Awlaki has been able to rally a more engaged online fan club than any other hardcore Islamic extremist to date. Through the creation of an online community of like-minded individuals, al Qaeda has mobilized these e-recruits through a natural process: competing with their peers for status and reputation. Awlaki has used gamification to do what al Qaeda had been unable to do before him, at least in any systematic way: get Americans to compete with one another to put down their keyboards and pick up their weapons.

Will McCants of Jihadica yesterday penned a good analysis of this analysis, which I am adopting pretty much in its entirety. But I want to go one further.

I questioned Brachman and Levine on Twitter about the implication in the paragraph quoted above, which is that "rep power" and success within the "game" correlates to violent acts. Brachman tweeted:

not necessarily that explicit. our goal was to elucidate an emerging trend. But chesser, begolly etc fit into the framework well

I would argue Chesser is actually a good example of how the premise has value but not as it's formulated here. Understanding gamification may provide insight into people who are moving toward action, but not necessarily as a correlation between "rep" type metrics and dangerousness.

Chesser was an avid user of the Islamic Awakening forum, one of those cited by Brachman and Levine in their article. Islamic Awakening is not the hardest of the hard-core forums. It falls more in the sphere of groups like Revolution Muslim and Sharia4UK, which carefully tread the line between very angry rhetoric and open embrace of terrorism. Posts are monitored and moderated to remove the most extreme sentiments (although the amount of moderation varies over time).

The archived pages I've saved from IA don't contain the rep metrics for Chesser and all of his posts have long since been deleted by IA moderators, but I know what his rep power was shortly before he was arrested while trying to join Al Shabab -- exactly zero. He had been banned from the forum and relocated most of his online presence to the Shabab-linked Al Qimmah forum, a much more militant venue, where he appeared to have done somewhat better (although, again, I don't have the stats archived).

Tracking mid-level forums like IA offers us a way to begin to diagnose users who might be moving toward violence because the moderators and users of IA are much better attuned to those who are dangerous to the game. When Chesser began shooting off his mouth about South Park and "Counter-counter terrorism," users on IA shunned him because they knew he was trouble, as did his buddies at Revolution Muslim, who fired him from the blog. Most IA and RM fans are much more interested in talking about jihad and winning gamification points than actually committing violence.

Of course, many IA alumni have graduated to real militant violence and terrorism. But my point is that the example of Chesser suggests that when they make the leap, they start to lose "rep" and start to lose the game. IA users admire and love Omar Hammami because he's out there at a distance, like a sports star, where they can root for him but he can't bring any heat down on them.

Chesser, on the other hand, was seen as a loose cannon. When a Muslim is arrested on terrorism charges in the U.S., typically IA sponsors a number of supportive threads for him. For Chesser, they hosted a roast, accusing him of having "loose lips" and "digging his own grave," among other charges.

I think that game theory has some legs as it pertains to the forums, but it has to be interpreted properly. All of this is based on my impressionist reading of the forums and middling large archive of postings -- I'd love to see some concrete data if someone has a complete-enough archive.

But here's my take based on my reading: When someone is close to violent action, they're probably going to start losing the forum game.

When you're vicariously admiring terrorists, you talk about them and argue to justify them and engage other people in this discussion.

When you're planning to become a terrorist, first your rhetoric gets edgier and more confrontational, alienating people (especially at the mid-level forums like IA) and driving your "rep" power downward.

When you've made the actual decision to become a terrorist or a foreign fighter, if you're smart, you're going to completely stop talking about it online. Now you have secrets to protect. You're going to become more guarded, much less publicly communicative. You'll be more focused on private conversations about the act you are planning, and less focused on the message boards. (Of course, anyone who gets busy in real life ends up having less time for Internet chat, not just terrorists.)

So I would argue that, from a counter-terrorism perspective, we should be scrutinizing those people who start losing the game. When a user's militant leanings cause the folks at Islamic Awakening to disrespect, shun and ban him, that's the guy we should be worried about, not the guy with 1,000 "thank yous" and 99 rep points.

This isn't a sole indicator, of course. There are a lot of reasons you might lose the game. But if you see a high-volume user suddenly lose status because his rhetoric is too militant, if you see his posts being deleted by moderators, if you see him banned and relocated to a more extreme forum, I would argue that you're looking at someone who is worth a little more investigation.

For more about American jihadists and their use of the Internet, check out J.M. Berger's new book "Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go To War In The Name Of Islam," the first comprehensive look at the phenomenon of American jihadists from the 1970s to the present, hitting bookstores May 15. Order now!

UPDATE: Alix Levine responds here, and I respond to her response here.

Labels: American-Jihadists, American-Terrorists, Anwar-Awlaki, Jihad-Joe, Zach-Chesser

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

A Conversation About Jihad With Controversial Preacher Bilal Philips

The Islamic preacher Bilal Philips has long been a lightning rod for controversy. Born in Jamaica and raised in Canada, he converted to Islam in 1972 and studied Islamic theology in Saudi Arabia and the UK, eventually earning a doctorate.

During the first Gulf War, Philips ran a sort of Islamic tent revival for U.S. troops stationed in Saudi Arabia, which claimed to have converted thousands of soldiers to Islam. Subsequently, he used contacts made during that program to help recruit U.S. military veterans as volunteer trainers in the war in Bosnia starting in 1992. That program is described in great detail in my forthcoming book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, which hits bookstores on May 15.

Philips was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1995 prosecution U.S. v. Omar Abdel Rahman, in which almost a dozen people -- including Clement Hampton-El, an associate of Philips -- were convicted of conspiring to blow up the Lincoln and Holland tunnels in New York City, among other terrorism-related activities. Philips denies any wrongdoing in the case, blaming FBI informant Emad Salem for acting as an "agent provocateur" who actually instigated the plot and drew others into it. The extensive evidence in the case does not support this view.

Philips has not returned to the United States for some time, although he travels to his native Canada occasionally. In recent years, Philips has been banned from entering the UK and Australia on the basis of alleged links to terrorism (which he denies) and remarks at a UK mosque and elsewhere which appeared to say that it was Islamically acceptable for adult men to marry girls as young as the onset of puberty, or even younger. Philips spoke recently in Copenhagen, an appearance that was covered in advance with some apprehension by the local media, but which failed to deliver fireworks.

I contacted Philips during Ramadan last year primarily to discuss the Bosnia program. The results of that portion of the interview are detailed in the book. Afterward, we moved into a discussion of the evolution of the concept of jihad from the days when he was assisting Bosnian jihadists. The conversation took place late at night after a long day for both of us. I've edited the transcript significantly for readability, to remove verbal tics and trailing sentences from both participants, but I have not altered the views or content.

Whether or not one accepts Philips' statements at face value (and he tends to adjust his tone depending on his audience), his views shed an interesting light on one of the more difficult areas of Western-Muslim relations and one of the most challenging problems in counterradicalization -- preachers and opinion leaders in the Muslim world who clearly believe and preach in often stirring terms that Western civilization exists in sharp conflict with Islamic civilization, but who skirt, avoid, evade or simply stop short of openly endorsing violence.

Another example of this is Jama'at Al Muslimeen, a Baltimore-based Muslim organization I wrote about in February's CTC Sentinel (PDF).

Such people and organizations contribute to an environment that is a precursor to violent radicalization while engaging in self-protective qualifications, pitting Islam against the West in a scenario fraught with tension and extremes, while attempting to stop short of uttering the kind of rhetoric or taking part in physical acts which would lead to prosecution. For a long time, Anwar Awlaki was one such public figure, and his pre-radicalization rhetoric is likely more influential than what he has done since openly embracing terrorism.

The process of radicalization is not necessarily a sharp turn toward violence; it often begins in gray areas relating to ways of talking about the world and underlying assumptions about why people in both the West and the Muslim world do the things they do. In that spirit, I think there's a lot of food for thought in this interview. Comments are welcome on Twitter.

Q: How have attitudes about military jihad changed over the last 15 or 20 years? How do you determine what is a legitimate jihad?

Bilal Philips: In my view, much of what has been put under the general heading of jihad doesn't really comply with the shariah, or Islamic legal definitions. And many of the tactics which are being used, desperation-type tactics of suicide bombing, and these kinds of things, are illegitimate from the shariah perspective. So very few of the struggles that are going on are, from my perspective, really endorsable.

In some cases, like Chechnya, it went through certain stages. Afghanistan, in the earlier stages, when they were struggling against the Russians, then that was fine. But then what it evolved into, what it became, you know, is something that went awry.

And people began using techniques or tactics which are unacceptable, Islamically. So in terms of legitimate struggle around the world today, to me one is hard-pressed to identify. When people ask me, because of course, people ask me wherever I go, people may ask, you know, about something of that, "What about this struggle, what about that struggle?" and so on, I usually advise people that these things are confused.

You go there, you may have the best of intentions, but you don't really know what is going on, what is really behind the scenes, tactics and things we see that are not really legitimate, so I advise people to stay away from it. [I prefer] continuing to propagate the message of Islam, try to correct the media distortions, etc., help in that, if it's relief, medical, food, these kinds of things, ok. These can always benefit places, whether it's Chechnya, whether it's Afghanistan, whether it's anywhere.

So, you know, sending and supporting these kinds of things, fine. But to say, getting involved, on a military level, I think things have sort of deteriorated. The best of those struggles, that could come the closest to the definition of legitimate jihad, really have become corrupted. So, people are hard-pressed to find [just] causes, if that's the direction they would be involved in.

I think the effort now is a greater emphasis on community building, developing the kind of infrastructure to protect the Islamic faith, and to help it to grow in places like the U.S., Canada, U.K. Muslim schools have really come up in the last 20 or 25 years, there has been an explosion of Muslim schools. That people realize that this is the area that is really the big area that Muslims need to work on, in Western circumstances, to preserve the Islamic traditions, Islamic way of life, etc.

And it's just going farther and farther away from the military routes. Of course, those that are bent on that particular route, they are still there, trying to recruit people. And there are also agents, you know, causing people to be drawn into different circumstances. I know cases in the, in Canada where youths were drawn into ridiculous projects and ended up in jail.

But I think those are getting fewer and farther between. The overall leanings of the community is more towards community building than it is to going over and fighting, Islamically. This is my feeling in the communities that I have visited in the west.

Q: Have the conflicts changed? Or is it the people involved, who are steering the activity, that have changed? I guess the more direct would probably be, I listened to a lecture of yours from some years back, in which you said you believed in the "clash of civilizations," and that America was the enemy of Islam. Is the west at war with Islam in your view?

Yes, from the clash perspective, I mean, of course, Huntington's argument, and I'm not promoting his whole argument, just one element of it, which was this concept of globalized western civilization as portrayed in secular democracy, you know, being pushed down the throats of the rest of the world.

This is how I see it. Basically all societies have fallen to this. They've accepted it. In some cases it was better than what they had, and it was the best option they had to go with. You know, places like India, etc. But there is a clear conflict between the concept of secular democracy, and I have written a book on this, a book called, "The Clash of Western Civilization and the Islamic View." [...] Basically, it's identifying the elements of the clash, because of course, from a secular perspective, that secular outlook on life, is completely, completely opposite to the shariah perspective, where everything is looked at from the perspective of God and the law of God.

You have another perspective, which is, which is where God doesn't have any role to play in all of this. It's all looked at from humanist or human perspective, you know? Without God having any involvement, or shouldn't be involved. If you want to believe in God, that's your business, so and so. But it shouldn't come into public policy, and etc.

So that obviously is a foundational clash. It's a clash of concepts. I'm not necessarily saying it has to be a military clash, but it's a clash of concepts, right? And then the issue of democracy, you know, where the fundamental concept of human beings making laws for the whole society, in all aspects, again, in conflict with the shariah perspective, where that is the role of God.

That you may have a limited democratic principle, as we call it, shura, in Islamic law, where, you know, in areas that are not already prescribed by God. Through the Quran and through the Messenger, in those common, day-to-day areas, the people can come together and choose what they feel is most appropriate in their given circumstances.

So it this limited scope, which is acceptable. But this other approach, where it is, you know, you have to accept this, you know, "We are the most highly evolved civilization on the earth, and obviously if we are the most highly evolved, our systems must be the most highly evolved. So this is what, this is where mankind is headed, you know? And we need to help you get there. It's our duty to help you reach this point."

So, this attitude fuels the clash. I feel that with the rise in Muslim consciousness around the world, and awareness of the Islamic systems, and people looking to it now as alternatives away from the colonial heritage and legacy, I think that the powers-that-be sees this as the last frontier, the last major threat, the one to standing firm.

Even though governments have been undermined, and the Ottoman empire broken up, and replaced by British, German, French law, etc., still, with this consciousness in the scholarship, Muslim scholars around the world, it's not going away. It's the teachings and those teachings continue to be propagated, and it's reaching a wider and wider audience, in this last 10, 15, 20 years.

So with this heightened awareness, we see things in Algeria, we see things elsewhere, Sudan and elsewhere, where this consciousness is coming to a political arena, you know, even in Turkey, in Indonesia, in different parts of the Muslim world, you know, more and more we see this consciousness and awareness, taking a greater and greater role, a political role. So I feel that obviously, the forces that are behind this promotion of globalized secular democracy and western civilization naturally find this as their enemy.

I mean, America thrives on an enemy, you know, where you can identify the bad guys, and then you can mobilize the military industrialized complex, all this stuff, you know, it works for them.

Q: But does Islam thrive on enemies? I've read 20, 30 years of the Muslim World League's journal, month after month, article after article, about the enemies that are constantly circling, and trying to close in on Islam. Can't the same thing be said about not Islam, but the Islamic world, the Islamic nations, the Muslims?

No. I think you know, when you look at it from the Muslim perspective, it's defense. You know, the sharks are circling, beware. Hey, the sharks are out there, you need to preserve by education, being aware, setting up institutions, whatever. These kind of projects, and things like this, supporting Muslim communities, so they don't get overrun completely, lost in the sauce, as they say.

So it's more a defensive. It's not, you know, an offensive, "We need to go out and make America an Islamic state." This is not what you are going to be finding in those kind of readings, what you've read from there. This is more identifying the problems that the Muslim world face to day. Because we've got to understand that, they came under a concerted attack, which decimated the Muslim body.

The Ottoman empire was the last of the Islamic states, you could say, which had to least a large degree, had that Islamic spirit of unity, of, of territory, you know, the Muslim nation, concepts, where people interacted on the basis that there were Muslims in this area, non-Muslims functioned OK under it, to varying degrees. That unity, which is something found in the Islamic teachings, that Muslims should be one. The state of affairs where Muslims are split up into different countries, this is an unnatural state.

From the shariah perspective, this is unnatural. Because, you've got lines, borders which were drawn, where you have half of people on one hand, and half, like the Kurds, for example, right? You've got Kurds in Turkey, you've got Kurds in Iraq, you've got Kurds in Iran. I mean, who drew these lines?

You know, if this area is without borders and lines, then those people are people of that area, and they can function and move freely back and forth. When you draw, draw those lines and set countries, and nationalities and these kind of things, then this is a formula for disaster. It's a time bomb.

So, I would say that the Muslim World League and others, when speaking of these kind of issues, they're really addressing more this kind of approach, where the Muslim world need to come back together. We should be able to do things together, ultimately come back as one nation.


Q: When you look at Americans who have become radicalized to the point of terrorism, within the last ten years. I'm not talking about a situation like Bosnia or Afghanistan, where the morality and the motivation is more obvious. I'm talking about these, these kids who are getting on the Internet, and then get up to go to Somalia, or who get involved with trying to bomb something. And their narrative starts with, "There is this war on Islam that is being perpetrated by the United States."

Does the narrative precede acts of war? Do you think that the United States is at war? Do you think [radicalized individuals] are just responding to a factual state of affairs, or are they receiving a message from people who want to manipulate them?

Well, I think in their case, you know, most of that is manipulated. The situation of America, America basically being the leading nation in this Western civilization, this globalized role, is that they're the leading force. I mean, they are the force. There's no ifs, ands or buts about it.

To what degree it is a focused, I don't feel that it is focused probably across the nation, that this is our enemy, and we're gonna go fight this enemy, and this. No. But there are powers within the country who are looking at globalized interests from other perspectives, which have to do with economics.

It's not necessarily a religion thing, per se, but these economics are there. Whether it's oil, or it's you know, minerals, or whether it's whatever, they would like to remove whatever will hamper their ability to exploit the resources of the rest of the world.

So Islam, and I mean, we have no end of statements, you know, we can put it under the general heading of Islamophobia, but we have no end of statements by leading figures in the American establishment, from the military and from elsewhere, you know, where they very clearly identified Islam as the enemy.

You do have these things. I mean, I won't say it is on the news, 24-7, but definitely in some circles it is there, it pops out, it comes out from time to time, in individual statements, that perception is definitely there. What I feel, personally, is that the struggle is fundamentally an ideological struggle.

Which, from the Muslim perspective, that's where or how they need to tackle it. You could say, from a Western civilizational perspective, it is ideological also, but the issues of economics and politics play a greater role.

You know, people might go into Iraq for weapons of mass destruction, which were made up, as an excuse to go in. Bin Laden becomes an excuse for Afghanistan, to stop any trends of that nature. I mean, I have my own doubts, though I've heard about bin Laden's things, and what he's involved in, and no doubt he may be dedicated to what he perceives, how he sees it. But I wouldn't be surprised if 50 years from now, it came out that somehow he was connected with the CIA, FBI, whatever. Actually, he was a plant, and this was this. The way things go, I just wouldn't be surprised. I would not be shocked that, wow, that was the case.

Because really, I see him, when I look at his role, in terms of what happened with Afghanistan, he became a reason for the destruction of the Islamic state of Afghanistan. Which, initially, was something which was quite innocent, I felt. It was innocent Muslim people trying to bring that country back together after how many years of destruction, with what happened in the country. And there was a lot of positive, good things happening.

I feel maybe their knowledge, Islamic shariah knowledge base, you know, needed upgrading, whatever, but their intent was good. They were trying to do good things, and then this thing just turned into something else altogether. And it seemed to me that you know, bin Laden played the biggest role in turning it around. He had another agenda; their agenda was Afghanistan. Let's get this thing together, make an Islamic state here, run this country and benefit the country. Whereas his thing was, it's about America, we need to attack America. We need to hit them this way, that way and the other way.

However, when I look back at what happened with Emad Salem, you know, I just hear things like that in the background when I think of bin Laden. So, it may not be him. It may be those around him. Ayman Zawahiri or others, who were the ones that changed the direction. Maybe initially bin Laden wasn't in that direction. From what I heard, he really wasn't.

But that change took place, at the later point, when people from the former Ikhwan, the extremist Gamaat, Al Jihad and all this, came around him, and started to feed. So that changed his direction. So there's that element that does have a desire to want to bring about change immediately and by any means necessary. And by any military means necessary. That is really a very dangerous group which remains, and has its offshoots which continue to pick up innocent, ignorant young people who have no Islamic background.

This is why my philosophy, my encouragement is more in the area of education, because where people are properly educated, and they understand, the Islamic shariah as a totality, and understand what is acceptable and what is not acceptable, they're better able to resist those kinds of attempts to recruit them, and to draw them into these kinds of illegitimate conflicts.

But when they are ignorant, then they become susceptible. So this is why I have tried to, my focus is encouraging the establishment of formal education institutions which would spread knowledge about Islam on a wider scale in the Muslim community.

Labels: American-Jihadists, Bilal-Philips, Bosnia, J-M-Berger, Jihad-Joe

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

State Department Put 'Political Pressure' On FBI To Deport Brother-in-Law Of Osama Bin Laden In 1995

By J.M. Berger
INTELWIRE.com

"Pressure from the political portion of the State Department" contributed to the end of a 1995 FBI investigation into Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, who the FBI believed was a terrorist financier, according to a newly released document.

Read the document

The FBI teletype was written on May 11, 1995, just days after Khalifa was deported to Jordan after five months in U.S. custody.

Khalifa, a brother-in-law of Osama bin Laden, was arrested in December 1994 by the INS after his visa was revoked. The revocation was predicated on terrorism charges filed against Khalifa in Jordan.

Khalifa was subsequently acquitted of those charges. He steadfastly denied any connection to terrorism until his murder in Madagascar in 2007.

Shortly after Khalifa's arrest during a business trip to San Francisco in December 1994, authorities in Manila broke up a terrorist cell led by World Trade Center bombing mastermind Ramzi Yousef, who had been planning to simultaneously bomb 11 U.S.-bound airliners over the Pacific. Assisting him in this plot was Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, future mastermind of the September 11 attacks.

Wali Khan Amin Shah, an associate of Yousef implicated in the airliner plot, was in contact with Khalifa during his U.S. trip. The FBI and CIA believed Khalifa also had direct contact with Ramzi Yousef, according to sources and documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. The FBI also believed Khalifa was connected to Omar Abdel Rahman, the radical sheikh whose followers in New York had helped carry out the World Trade Center bombing.

After spending some months fighting deportation to Jordan, where he was expected to stand trial for an alleged role in a series of cinema bombings, Khalifa agreed to be deported at the end of April 1995, shortly after the Oklahoma City bombing.

According to the FBI teletype, Khalifa was thought to have agreed to the deportation "his retrial in Jordan will result in his quick acquittal."

"Khalifah's deportation to Jordan, although conforming to the express intent of the U.S. Secretary of State, likely will not result in Khalifah receiving any punishment for his criminal and terrorist activities, and will more likely lead to his quick acquittal and departure from Jordan," the teletype stated.

The FBI had petitioned the State Department to delay the deportation in order to allow more time for investigation.

At the same time, the CIA had informed State that deporting Khalifa would likely result in him being freed, according to CIA analyst Michael Scheuer, who worked on the Khalifa investigation at the time and afterward.

"When it got to the State Department, all the State Department wanted to do was get it off our plate," Scheuer said.

Even the State Department's own embassy in Amman warned that deporting Khalifa would likely result in his release, according to cables obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

"Embassy continues to believe that Khalifah will be acquitted if tried in Jordan," read the last of these warnings, sent the same day that Khalifa was extradited.

In addition to information from the embassy, the FBI has sent a team to Jordan to liase with officials there. Jordanian officials expressed "indifference" about prosecuting Khalifa there and suggested the U.S. should consider its options for criminal charges, the May 11, FBI teletype states.

"[Prosecutors in] the Southern District of New York and the New York [FBI] office attempted, in every way, to have visa fraud charges presented against Khalifah in the Northern District of California," the teletype stated. "The pressure from the political portion of the State Department, as well as the problems that were evident in the case, assured that DOJ did not insist on a prosecution in California." The teletype does not state what the "evident" problems were, nor do other documents obtained by INTELWIRE make those problems clear.

"It is unfortunate that the time needed to possibly tie Khalifah to [name redacted, likely Ramzi Yousef] and to develop more serious terrorism charges on Khalifa could not be accomplished while Khalifah was in U.S. custody," the telegraph concludes, noting that a grand jury investigation against Khalifa had nevertheless been initiated.

The ongoing FBI investigation was later closed due to the unlikelihood of Khalifa ever returning to the U.S., according to other records.

Previously on INTELWIRE:

U.S., Interpol Tracked Khalifa In Days Before Madagascar Murder

Mohammed Jamal Khalifa: Life and Death Secrets

Labels: Bojinka, Jamal-Khalifa, Philippines, Ramzi-Yousef, Wali-Khan-Amin-Shah, World-Trade-Center-Bombing

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Publisher's Weekly: J.M. Berger's "Jihad Joe" Is "Timely" and "Chilling"

Publisher's Weekly is out with the first official review of Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go To War In The Name Of Islam. "Jihad Joe" hits bookshelves on May 15.

Investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker Berger lifts the veil on the phenomenon of American jihadists in this timely and chilling examination. [...] Berger's exposé painstakingly lays out the scope and character of the American jihadist movement and points the way to a national debate on solutions.

Read the full review

Pre-order "Jihad Joe" today

Book Web site

Table of contents

Labels: American-Al-Qaeda, American-Jihadists, American-Terrorists, J-M-Berger, Jihad-Joe

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

USA v. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed et al.: The Trial That Might Have Been

The Justice Department announced today that it will drop plans to hold civilian trials Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and others accused in the September 11 attacks, instead of trying them before a military commission at Guantanamo Bay.

The debate over which approach is best has been dominated by a steaming pile of nothing. While both the criminal and military approaches have their merits and disadvantages, the political conversation in this country consists of "You don't think we're at war!" vs. "Yes, we do, but..." This conversation is almost entirely emotional in basis and profoundly lacking in substance.

I've written before about my view on this issue, and it's a utilitarian view. The U.S. public is better served by a criminal trial. Contrary to popular belief, holding a trial isn't *just* about protecting the rights of the defendants. It's also about making government transparent to the people, an issue President Obama has talked about but largely failed to deliver.

Specifically, in this case, a criminal trial serves the purpose of educating the public about terrorism and the adequacy of the government's response.

If it had not been for USA v. Usama bin Laden, the criminal trial prosecuting the 1998 East African embassy bombings, Americans would have known precious little about Al Qaeda on September 11, 2001.

USA v. Usama bin Laden et al. was then and remains today the single most important publicly accessible primary source on terrorism for the 21st century. The rules of court and the push-pull between defense and prosecution provide a rigorous vetting of the data entered into the record. That doesn't mean all the data is perfect, but its weaknesses are on display for all to see.

USA v. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed et al. would have created the definitive public record of the September 11 attacks, almost certainly eclipsing the 9/11 Commission Report. The loss of that information is an incalculable loss to the American public.

Labels: 9-11, 9-11-Commission, Al-Qaeda, Khalid-Shaikh-Mohammed, Osama-Bin-Laden

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink