Omar Nasiri

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Omar Nasiri is the pseudonym of a Moroccan spy who infiltrated al-Qaeda, attending training camps in Afghanistan and passing information to the UK and French intelligence services. He claims in an exclusive interview presented on the BBC's Newsnight programme on 2006-11-16 that the UK intelligence services were warned in the mid-1990s about the threat posed by al-Qaeda, but failed to act quickly enough. He also claims that Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi deliberately gave interrogators acting on behalf of the USA false information in order to encourage the USA to overthrow Saddam Hussein, thus allowing al-Qaeda to use Iraq as a jihadist base.

1 Introduction to Abdullah and Abdurahman Khadr
2 References
3 Publications
4 External links

[edit] Introduction to Abdullah and Abdurahman Khadr

Nasiri's book Inside the Jihad: My Life with al Qaeda, a Spy's story contains Nasiri's account of meeting two boys he was to learn were Abdurahman Khadr and Omar Khadr.^[1] Nasiri states that, when he was attending the Khaldan training camp, ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, the camp's director, introduced the two boys as "Hamza" and "Osama".^[2]

According to Nasiri the two boys constantly fought with one another.^[2] He said their fights were unlike those of normal brothers, and gave an account of an incident on the marksmanship range, where the two boys were yelling at one another, turned their guns on one another, and all the other people on the firing range thought they were going to open fire on one another.

Nasiri's account of Omar's character was that he was "almost hyperactive", and was constantly talking, bragging.^[2] According to Nasiri, he bragged about how important his father was, and offered Nasiri his first hint of Osama bin Laden's role in running the camp -- telling him "the other Osama" paid for all the food consumed there.

Nasiri described Abdurahman as much quieter, but he did tell about an incident, when Abdurahman was present in a public square, during the siege of Khowst, in 1991.^[2] A mortar shell landed in the square, but didn't go off. Nasiri said that Abdurahman told him the Afghans were so desperate for money that a crowd started to try to dismantle the mortar shell, in order to sell the parts to the fighters. Nasiri said Abdurahman told him that everyone trying to dismantle the shell was killed in the explosion when one of the salvagers tried to get it open by hitting it with a hammer.

According to Nasiri:

"Hamza smiled as he finished the story. 'Isn't that stupid?' He laughed and shook his head. 'The Afghanis are so stupid.'"

Nasiri thought witnessing this event must have left a lasting traumatic effect, for him to be describing it five years later.

[edit] References

[edit] Publications

Also, he authored the following books:

ISBN 978-1-85065-861-0 "Inside the Global Jihad: How I Infiltrated Al Qaeda and Was Abandoned by Western Intelligence"
ISBN 978-0-465-02388-2 "Inside the Jihad: My Life With Al Qaeda, a Spy's Story"