Additional Notes: Talha Ahsan's Story
I am trying my best to include additional material that the specialists will find useful which goes alongside the article on Talha Ahsan available to everyone.
Why did Ahsan talk? As he puts it:
“There has never been a proper truth and reconciliation investigation of 90s jihadists turned 21st century humanitarians who normalised Wahabi-Islamism for millennial sons of immigrant Muslims to regard killing thousands of their neighbours as a strategic not a moral decision”
In the article several figures were mentioned all are from Tooting, South London. Mobeen Muneef was caught in Ramadi, Iraq, one of the heartlands of the Sunni insurgency, with a group of foreign fighters supposedly there according to the Times to: “assist a humanitarian relief organisation”. No credentials could be provided during his arrest for this humanitarian organisation.
The other figure mentioned in my article was Suraqa al-Andalusi who was also associated with Azzam publications as the the eulogy page below shows:
I have deliberately kept his real name out of this article to protect the family of the deceased purely for ethical reasons. I feel that his family has suffered enough. His story illustrates that Jihadist ideas existed well before the invasion of Iraq and indeed 9/11.
Who was Suraqa al-Andalusi?
Ahsan travelled to Afghanistan with Suraqa, a Tooting pharmacist whose nom de guerre was Suraqa al-Andalusi. They were meant to be correspondents. But their jobs as ‘correspondents’ were one the whole uneventful. They had a fleeting cup of tea with the late Ayman al-Zawahiri who seemed to have been stand offish in the meeting them. Ahsan remarks wryly that al-Qaeda had an “unenviable talent for screwing things up”.
According to Ahsan, Zawahiri was annoyed that the camera man had fallen asleep and therefore couldn’t capture the the USS Cole attack, where an American navy ship was attacked by a small skiff laden with explosives in 1998. They also met Saajid Badat and Zacharias Moussaoui who Ahsan had met on his first visit. The latter two had remained behind and climbed up the ladder mixing with the upper echelons of al-Qaeda.
During his second visit Ahsan is certain that something big was being planned as al-Andalusi told him. “Any moment now our brother is going to do something.” Kandahar and Kabul were abuzz with the rumour of this big event. Ahsan never got to find out what this “something” was because he fell ill and had to return leaving Andalusi behind. The latter Azzam publication’s eulogy recounts died in Tora Bora, Afghanistan, having seen in a “good dream” that towers were collapsing. Ahsan is indignant of those 9/11 conspiracy theorists who point to it being an inside job.
Suraqa al-Andalusi was not as the name suggests, Andalusian or Spanish for that matter but of Levantine extraction. But many Jihadist add ‘Andalusi’ nostalgically to imply that he is a Westerner. Sometimes it also implies a wish to reconquer Spain. After all, they believe that it is Muslim land and that Muslims had been there for nearly seven hundred years or so. Even the name Suraqa refers to the warrior Companion of the Prophet and is used by many jihadists in the same way Abu Dujanah and others are used. The Jihadist wishes to emulate these Companions.
Suraqa was a pharmacist by training and worked in Tooting. He was someone who associated with Azzam publications but was also heavily influenced by Abu Muhammad Maqdisi and Abu Qatadah’s teachings. He attended both the Tooting and indeed Four Feathers club where Abu Qatadah held his sermons on Friday.
The reason I am making these points is to illustrate that the ideology of the nineties and the early noughties were not very different from what we are seeing now. The argument that some ex-Jihadists make that they were different and not the same as the current batch of jihadists is unconvincing, nor is it accurate and perhaps a tad bit insincere.
Rather the difference we have between those activities then and now, is simply a case of scale and Jihadi activism being more readily consumable for our social media age. Arguably some of these ideas were pretty normalised.
Below is a book on the saved sect and jihad delivered by Ali al-Tamimi in Al-Muntada mosque in Parsons Green, London that Ahsan showed me. Ali al-Tamimi was a prominent Salafi proselytiser who was later convicted for terror related offences in the US.
Anwar Awlaki
Ahsan also reveals that he attended circles with Anwar Awlaki. He highly recommends Christopher Melagrou-Hitchens’ biography of Anwar Awlaki Incitement.
I would also recommend Morten Storm’s Agent Storm: A spy inside al-Qaeda, Aiman Dean’s Nine Lives: The Spy Inside al-Qaeda and also Omar Nasiri’s Inside the Jihad: My life with al-Qaeda, a Spy’s Story.
Ahsan isn’t convinced by the thesis that Awlaki was radicalised by his incarceration in Yemeni prison; an idea posited by some activists and advocacy groups. Storm’s account is also useful here on Awlaki’s prison experience.
Ahsan attended secretive meetings held by Awlaki whilst the latter was at the same time being hosted by Muslim Brotherhood affiliated organisations in the UK. He was lecturing and drawing in crowds of Muslims all over the country. But Ahsan suggests that Awlaki was dissimulating. Whilst going on speaking tours he was privately advocating the use of slave girls etc etc. What he advocated IS later applied in practice. And it was also something that some Salafi-Jihadists were adopting on the streets in the nineties and noughties.
Ahsan recalls going on a camping trip to Wales which was not too far from the Four Lions movie. But some of those who went in the camping trip ended up fighting for al-Shabaab and being killed in Somalia.
Futuwwa
Attached are two pictures of the principles of Futuwwa or chivalry that I found on Ahsan’s wall. Futuwwa or chivalry, is a tradition that is very strong in the Muslim world and used to be in the West.
Futuwwa is considered the peak of manly virtue and is still celebrated in popular culture to this day in Muslim countries. It often manifests itself in friends fighting over who is going to pay for the bill in a restaurant. See for instance Usama ibn Munqidh’s biography during the Crusades to get a sense of what it used to mean in Muslim culture. However, Futuwwa is not only associated with martial fervour but also with the spiritual. See the work of the medieval scholar, Muhammad Ibn al- Husayn al-Sulami, the Book of Futuwwa which concerns itself with the inner aspects of the soul.
Martyrs of Bosnia
Below are the links of the iconic films called the Martyrs of Bosnia: Part 1 and Part 2 which had an immense influence on the likes of Talha Ahsan. Note the screen grab here that is contrary to the idea that old-school jihadism was different from the new batch. Note how Bin Laden is idolised and sanctified in not unlike a Sufi sheikh or holy man.
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