British man
who launched Isil suicide attack was Guantanamo Bay detainee awarded £1m
compensation Bomber named by the group as Abu
Zakariya al-Britani, by Gordon Rayner 5/22/17, Universal News
A British Islamic State fighter who carried out a suicide bombing in Iraq this week is a
former Guantanamo Bay detainee who was paid £1 million compensation by the
government. Jamal al-Harith, a Muslim convert born Ronald Fiddler who detonated
a car bomb at an Iraqi army base near Mosul, was released from the US detention
camp in 2004 and successfully claimed compensation after saying British agents
knew or were complicit in his mistreatment. He was freed following intense
lobbying by Tony Blair’s Labour government.
Al-Harith, who used the nom de
guerre Abu-Zakariya al-Britani, entered Syria via Turkey in 2014 to join
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, leading to questions at the time about
the monitoring of terrorist suspects.
It also raised the possibility that
compensation money paid by British taxpayers had been handed on by him to Isil. Earlier this week Isil released an
image of him sitting inside the bomb car grinning broadly, with wires and what
may be a detonation button in the background.
A statement released by the
terrorist group said: “The martyrdom-seeking brother Abu Zakariya al-Britani -
may Allah accept him - detonated his explosives-laden vehicle on a headquarters
of the Rafidhi army and its militias in Tal Kisum village, southwest of Mosul.”“Rafidha” is a derogatory term for Shiite Muslims, who Isil considers to
be heretics. His brother, Leon Jameson, told The
Times Al-Harith had “wasted his life”.
He added: "I didn’t think he’d
ever do anything wrong but, if he’s joining extremists, then, you know ... I’m
not ashamed of him, I never will be. But it’s his own decision. I can only just
give him advice if he needs any.”
The 5 main British jihadis who have died
fighting for Islamic State The 53-year-old said his brother had
been a keen sportsman in his youth, playing football, basketball and
table-tennis and winning a trophy for karate when he was a teenager. He
later converted to Islam after meeting Muslim friends at a sixth form college. “All
I know is one day he brought a Quran home,” Mr Jameson told the newspaper. “We
were supportive of it, yeah,we didn’t see anything wrong with it at the time
and the trouble only started later, seems like he’s been dragged into it."
The 50-year-old, originally from
Manchester, was arrested by US forces in Pakistan in 2001 as a suspected
Taliban sympathiser, before being sent to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba in 2002. At the time of his release, the then
home secretary David Blunkett said: “No-one who is returned...will actually be
a threat to the security of the British people.” Earlier this week Isil named him as
the man who had blown himself up in the car bombing at the Iraqi army base, and
released a picture of him.
Al-Harith’s wife Shukee Begum
travelled to Syria with their five children to try to persuade her husband to
return to the UK, but failed and was taken hostage before eventually managing
to escape.
Al-Harith, the son of Jamaican
immigrants, converted to Islam in the 1990s and worked as a web designer before
he travelled to the Pakistani city of Quetta in 2001 for what he claimed was a
religious holiday.
He has insisted he tried to enter
Iran when the US invaded neighbouring Afghanistan, but was captured and
imprisoned by the Taliban on suspicion of being a UK spy.
When US special forces found him in
a Taliban jail, they assessed him as a “high threat to the US” who was
“probably involved in a former terrorist attack against the US”.
Al-Harith’s prisoner file from
Guantanamo Bay, published online by WikiLeaks, refers to him travelling to
Sudan in 1992 with “Abu Bakr, a well-known al-Qaeda operative”.
After his return to the UK - where
he was released without charge - he joined three other former prisoners known
as the Tipton Three in a failed attempt to sue Donald Rumsfeld, the then US
Defense Secretary.
His legal action against the British
government was more successful, resulting in a payment of up to £1 million in
return for which he agreed not to talk about his ordeal.
Al-Harith profile still live on old
Cage website
Cage, the controversial human rights
group, still features a profile of al-Harith on a part of its old website,
Cageprisoners. It reads: Born Ronald Fiddler on November 20, 1966, to devout,
churchgoing Jamaican parents, al Harith converted to Islam in his 20s after
reading Malcom X's biography. He has two sisters, Maxine and Sharon.
His family say he is a gentle, quiet
man who rarely spoke of his faith unless asked, and after four years learning
Arabic and teaching English at Khartoum University in Sudan, he seemed happy
enough to return home where he started to study nursing. At this time, he also
established a computer business. He later moved back to Manchester, where he
worked as an administrator in a Muslim school.
He travelled from the UK to Pakistan
at the end of September 2001, retracing a journey he had made to Iran in 1993.
He paid a lorry driver to take him from northern Pakistan to Iran as part of a
backpacking trip, but they were stopped near the Afghan border by Taliban
soldiers who saw his British passport and jailed him, in October, fearing he
was a spy. He had been away from home only three weeks when he was captured.
As the operation to mop up al Qaida
forces went on into the spring of 2001, he was captured by US forces while
being held in Kandahar Jail. He was interrogated by the CIA in Afghanistan
before being taken to Guantanamo.
He was released from Guantanamo and
returned to the UK on 9th March 2004. After a few hours of questioning he was released
without charge and reunited with his family. Jamal was the first of the British
detainees to speak publicly about his ordeal. He married in late 2004 and has
three children (aged 3,5, and 8) from a previous marriage. MPs attack
'scandalous' decision to award al-Harith £1 million
Tim
Loughton, a Conservative MP reportedly said:
"This is a scandalous situation. So much for Tony Blair’s assurances that
this extremist did not pose a security threat. "He clearly was a risk to
Britain and our security all along. It adds insult to injury that he was given
£1million in compensation because of Blair’s flawed judgement that he was an
innocent."
John Pugh, a Lib Dem MP, said: "This raises serious questions
about the reassurances Labour gave us that this man posed no danger. "It
is a kick in the teeth that he was given a fortune in taxpayers’ money after
claiming he was innocent only to flee to Islamic State and pose a risk to the
UK.
"The Home Office needs to
explain how he was able to leave the country so easily despite his background
mixing with those at the very top of Islamic terrorism." Britons fighting with jihadis in
Middle East As many as 850 people regarded as a national security concern have
travelled to fight with jihadis in the Middle East.
Just under half are thought to have
returned to Britain while 15 per cent are believed to have been killed. The
Foreign Office states: The UK has advised for some time against all travel to
Syria, and against all travel to large parts of Iraq. As all UK consular services are
suspended in Syria and greatly limited in Iraq, it is extremely difficult to
confirm the whereabouts and status of British nationals in these areas. The other 4 key British jihadis
known to have died fighting for Isil
1. Mohammed Emwazi / Jihadi John Emwazi was reported killed in a
November 2015 air strike, with US forces saying they were "reasonably
certain" he was dead. Isil later released what appeared to be an obituary
to the fighter, who it called Abu Muharib al-Muhajir. It featured a smiling
picture of the militant, who appeared unmasked looking towards the ground. Emwazi
shocked the world when he appeared in a video in August 2014 in which he
condemned the West and appeared to behead US journalist James Foley. He emerged
again in a number of other videos released by Isil, including those in which
American reporter Steven Sotloff and British aid workers David Haines and Alan
Henning were murdered. Kuwait-born Emwazi attended Quintin Kynaston Community
Academy in north London and was described by his former head teacher as a
"hard-working aspirational young man".He went on to gain a degree in
information systems with business management from the University of
Westminster.
2. Reyaad Khan
Khan was 20 when he appeared in an
Isil propaganda video titled, There Is No Life Without Jihad, in June last year
together with two other Britons urging Westerners to join the war. The man,
from Cardiff, is thought to have travelled to fight in Syria late in 2013. His
Facebook page revealed that he was a Chelsea FC fan who enjoyed playing
computer games FIFA 12 and Call Of Duty. After appearing in the video with a
Kalashnikov assault rifle against his shoulder his mother said she believed he
had been "brainwashed" into joining Isil. In a direct appeal to her
son, the woman, who asked to remain unnamed, sobbed as she said: "Reyaad,
please come back home. I'm dying for you. You're my only son." Before
leaving for Syria, Khan attended Cardiff's Al-Manar Centre (ACT) together with
Nasser Muthana, who was also filmed for the Isil recruitment video. The mosque denied the pair had been
taught extremist views there and blamed the internet as an "alarming
source for radicalisation". David Cameron, the then Prime Minister, said
Khan had been killed on August 21 2015 when he was targeted by an RAF remotely
piloted aircraft while travelling in a vehicle in Raqqah, Syria.
3. Ruhul Amin
Amin, 26, featured alongside Khan
and Muthana in the 13-minute Isil recruitment video under the name Brother Abu
Bara al Hindi. Wearing sunglasses and a white headscarf, he could be heard
saying: "Are you willing to sacrifice the fat job you've got, the big car,
the family you have? "Are you willing to sacrifice this, for the sake of
Allah? If you do Allah will give you back 700 times more." Also known as
Abdul Raqib Amin, he was born in Bangladesh and grew up in Aberdeen before
reportedly moving with his family to Leicester. In July 2014 he boasted on
ITV's Good Morning Britain that he had been "involved in a few combats"
in Syria. Explaining the moment he left
Britain, he said: "I left the house with the intention of not to go back.
I'm going to stay and fight until the (caliphate) is established, or I
die." A leading member of Aberdeen's
Muslim community, who did not want to be identified, said he was not someone
who "stood out in any particular way". He was killed in the same
airstrike as Khan.
4. Junaid Hussain
Computer hacker Hussain was
described as a key Isil operative before he was killed by a US drone strike on
August 24 2016. The 21-year-old, from Birmingham, was said to have been number
three on the Pentagon's "kill list" of Isil targets. It is believed
that he fled Britain to travel to Syria in 2013, and in June last year he was
linked to a plot to attack an Armed Forces Day parade in south London. The plan
to explode a pressure cooker bomb - killing soldiers and bystanders on the
route - was reportedly foiled after Hussain unwittingly recruited an undercover
investigator from The Sun to carry it out. In June 2012, aged 18, Hussain was
jailed for six months after he admitted making prank calls to a counter-terror
hotline and publishing former prime minister Tony Blair's address book. He was
a member of TeaMpOisoN (TeamPoison), a group which claimed responsibility for
more than 1,400 offences where personal and private information has been
illegally extracted from victims in the UK and around the world. Hussain was
reportedly married to a Muslim convert named as Sally Jones, a mother-of-two
from Kent who once was a member of an all-girl punk rock group.
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