Oslo streets | Music | 00:00 |
Travelling shots of Oslo streets | MARK CORCORAN: Oslo home of the Nobel Peace Prize. | 00:16 |
Krekar in car | In this city of peace, a man-of-war is on his way to court. | 00:34 |
| KREKAR: They send me to court I think more than thirty, thirty five times. | 00:41 |
| MARK CORCORAN: His name is Najmaddin Faraj Ahmad but he's better known as Mullah Krekar. | 00:50 |
Travelling shots | He's founder of Ansar al Islam, a Sunni Muslim group listed as an Al Qaeda affiliated terrorist organisation by the US, Australia and the United Nations. | 00:59 |
Krekar | KREKAR: Osama bin Laden is a very nice Muslim, great Muslim, leader of the Muslims. | 01:16 |
Krekar outside court | MARK CORCORAN: As we'd discover on our journey through Krekar's opaque world there are many unexpected turns. | 01:22 |
Paul Moran footage | Is he implicated in the murder in Iraq of Australian cameraman Paul Moran? A killing the Australian Government failed to investigate. | 01:31 |
Krekar walking down the street | And does he as the Americans and UN claim still covertly run a terrorist network from here? | 01:43 |
Krekar | MARK CORCORAN: What was the connection between you and Al Qaeda? | 01:52 |
| KREKAR: There is no connection between us we haven't anything. | 01:56 |
Krekar on the steps of the courthouse. | MARK CORCORAN: Charismatic, enigmatic, Krekar is a minor celebrity in Norway. This Kurdish Iraqi now insists he leads a quiet life as a refugee. | 02:03 |
Krekar walks down the corridor | Having beaten all terrorism charges he's now fighting a deportation order that would almost certainly end in execution if he's sent home to Iraq. | 02:16 |
Super: Sissal Maria Pettersen | PETTERSEN: He has returned several times to Iraq and that is contrary to the whole institution of asylum so for that reason his immigration status has been revoked. | 02:27 |
Krekar walks into courtroom | MARK CORCORAN: Norway has a long tradition of providing haven for those seeking political asylum. But the Government says Krekar has exploited the system and is a danger to the country. | 02:45 |
Sissal Maria Pettersen | PETERSEN: The second reason is for national security reasons due to his alliances or his work in Ansar al Islam and the future the possibility that in the future setting he might pose a threat to Norwegian security. | 02:58 |
Grønland Streets | MARK CORCORAN: The Oslo suburb of Grønland is home for migrants from Pakistan, Somalia and Iraq. It's also Mullah Krekar's neighbourhood and it's here outside his apartment that we first meet. | 03:31 |
Outside Krekar's apartment | MARK CORCORAN: Mullah Krekar how do you do Mark Corcoran. | 03:46 |
| Kept out of view during our visit are his wife and four children who now have Norwegian citizenship. The Mullah claims he relinquished command of Ansar in May 2002 - because he could not control the group while commuting from Norway. | 03:47 |
Interior apartment | Krekar's often accused of changing his message to suit his audience. A criticism only reinforced when he presents me with his autobiography published in both Norwegian and Arabic. | 04:05 |
Two copies of the book | MARK CORCORAN: So you have two different covers here. This is the Norwegian and this is the Arabic edition? | 04:20 |
Krekar with books | KREKAR: Yeah, that's right. This one the Norwegian printers, they choose this photo and the other one it's printed in London but I do not know why the man used this picture. | 04:23 |
Close up of cover of book | MARK CORCORAN: And this is from 9/11 a picture of an aircraft hitting the World Trade Centre? | 04:40 |
Krekar | KREKAR: Perhaps he like this and he use this. | 04:44 |
| MARK CORCORAN: He's certainly got plenty to write about. | 04:48 |
Archival footage of Krekar | This is a side of Krekar few Norwegians have ever seen the Mullah in Iraq rallying his supporters for the coming jihad just 2 months after the September 11 attacks of 2001. | 04:54 |
Archival footage of Krekar giving speech | KREKAR: It is the religious duty of every single member of this group to prepare themselves for holy war to prepare themselves as religious fighters with weapons and money. It is the religious duty for all of us in Kurdistan who are Muslims. | 05:15 |
Krekar in combat gear moving through the crowds | MARK CORCORAN: In the 80's Krekar studied in Pakistan under radical Sunni scholar Abdullah Azzam who was also mentor to Osama bin Laden. After obtaining asylum in Norway in 1991 Krekar began commuting back to his homeland the Kurdish region of Northern Iraq. He dreamed of creating an Islamic State in the Kurdish region which lay outside of Saddam Hussein's control. Declaring there was only one punishment for those who criticised his interpretation of Islam. | 05:36 |
Krekar giving speech | KREKAR: No fatwa is necessary for those who openly oppose Islam - no fatwa is needed. And if a Muslim comes across him in the street, use an axe to behead him - or fire a bullet through his brain. No need for fatwa. Don't worry about the security forces. If it is possible for me to kill him I will do it myself. Then let the authorities come and kill me too. | 06:15 |
Krekar outside court | MARK CORCORAN: Even today, faced with deportation he remains uncompromising in his views. | 06:41 |
Krekar | MARK CORCORAN: But you are calling for your followers to murder the man in the street or murder anybody who attacks Islam? | 06:48 |
Super: Mullah Krekar | KREKAR: Yes that's right when someone be in the Ministry and say something against Islam everyone can kill him, everyone can kill him in the Islamic countries I mean. | 06:55 |
Footage of Ansar fighting | MARK CORCORAN: Krekar founded Ansar al Islam to realise his dream. | 07:13 |
| This Ansar video shows its fighters overrunning a village as they carved out a Taliban-style enclave. | 07:20 |
| In late 2001, Ansar's ranks were swollen by jihadi veterans who'd fled Afghanistan following the US invasion there. | 07:46 |
Krekar | MARK CORCORAN: So you were training suicide bombers? KREKAR: Yes, yes. | 08:09 |
| MARK CORCORAN: And you regard suicide bombing as a legitimate tactic? | 08:15 |
| KREKAR: Oh everything, everything which is we can do it there's no different between suicide bombs and using Kalashnikov. What's the difference when you send the fighters to death what's the difference between someone only using on/off or someone who uses his finger. What's the difference it's the same. | 08:19 |
Abrams tanks firing | MARK CORCORAN: By early 2003 the US military was in the deserts of Kuwait practising for the coming invasion of Iraq. In attempting to justify the war to the United Nations. | 08:43 |
Colin Powell | American Secretary of State Colin Powell claimed that Krekar's group was the link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. | 09:00 |
2003 | COLIN POWELL: Baghdad has an agent in the most senior levels of the radical organisation Ansar Al Islam that controls this corner of Iraq. | 09:08 |
Capitol Hill | MARK CORCORAN: Like much of the Bush Administration's justification for the invasion the Krekar-Saddam link was never proved. | 09:20 |
Lydia Khalil | KHALIL: The US was very eager to use that link in order to link al Qaeda and the Baathist regime in Iraq. Since that evidence hasn't panned out although there are still a number of people who believe that that still is the case, there is a certain amount of suspicion that's attached to evidence that the US is bringing. | 09:29 |
US flag | MARK CORCORAN: Krekar remains a sensitive issue in Washington and today no US official will openly discuss his case. | 09:51 |
Lydia Khalil in front of Capitol Hill | One Ansar expert who can talk is Lydia Khalil an Egyptian-born American terrorism analyst. She served in Iraq with the Coalition Provisional Authority working closely with the Kurdish groups. | 10:01 |
| MARK CORCORAN: How badly does the United States Government, do you think, want to get Krekar? | 10:18 |
Super: Lydia Khalil | KHALIL: I think quite badly. I think that a lot of people are very frustrated by what he's been able to achieve in Norway, just namely being able to stay there and operate with impunity. | 10:22 |
Krekar walks along street | MARK CORCORAN: Accusing someone of being a terrorist is one thing. Proving it is extremely difficult. | 10:32 |
Lydia Khalil | KHALIL: A lot of the evidence that was taken about Mullah Krekar was actually from captured Ansar al Islam operatives who were taken into custody by Kurdish officials. Now Mullah Krekar's defence team later made it clear that these captured Ansar al Islam figures had given their information under torture. So that was one of the main pieces of evidence against him they had come to find out was extracted under torture and therefore inadmissible in a Norwegian court. | 10:38 |
Night time of Oslo Grønland district | MARK CORCORAN: Krekar was free again but the United States was still determined to get its man. | 11:20 |
Exterior Radisson Hotel | In April 2003 a CIA officer reportedly checked into this Oslo hotel, not all that far from Mullah Krekar's apartment. According to Italian investigators the same officer, had, just a couple of months earlier, participated in the kidnapping or "extraordinary rendition" to use Washington's terminology of a radical Islamic cleric then living in Italy. This time however, things didn't go quite to plan. One of Mullah Krekar's lawyers says he received a tip off from a source inside the Norwegian Government warning that his client should be extremely careful. It was apparently advice well heeded. Not long after, the CIA man and a number of other American spies quietly left Norway empty handed. | 11:31 |
Krekar | MARK CORCORAN: What happened you're still here what happened? | 12:25 |
| KREKAR: Yes of course, I don't know, I believe that God decided our age decided everything for us. | 12:26 |
Lydia Khalil | KHALIL: That attempt failed because apparently somebody tipped him off in terms of the CIA's presence there. Nobody knows exactly who did it, but the CIA officials of course denied this. They say that they were there just to aid their Norwegian prosecutorial team in their case against Mullar Krekar. | 12:39 |
| MARK CORCORAN: And what would be the fate of Mullah Krekar perhaps if he'd been placed in US custody? | 12:55 |
| KHALIL: Most likely he would have probably been sent to Guantánamo to be interrogated and then prosecuted later on. | 13:00 |
Krekar walking to prayers | MARK CORCORAN: Fearing further kidnap attempts Krekar now lives under a kind of self-imposed house arrest only venturing out for court sessions and Friday prayers. He has few friends in Oslo. His supporters in the peace movement have faded away as details of his past have emerged. And Krekar is feared by many in Norway's Muslim migrant groups. | 13:16 |
| KREKAR: I think that some politics groups when they didn't success against me in the court they tried to move the society against me. | 13:43 |
Krekar walks into prayer hall | MARK CORCORAN: The Mullah insists he now offers only spiritual guidance to his followers. Others claim he's still active behind closed doors. | 13:58 |
Archival footage. Attacks in Northern Iraq. | Ansar al Islam now also known as Ansar al Sunna still contributes to the anarchy that is Iraq routinely wreaking havoc with suicide car bombs. | 14:17 |
US Treasury and UN statements | In December 2006, both the US Treasury and the United Nations declared Krekar an Al Qaeda facilitor stating that he was still covertly financing Ansar through a European network in Germany and Bulgaria. | 14:37 |
Super: Mullah Krekar | KREKAR: This is the sixth year I am in my home. I didn't travel to another towns in Norway. How they say that I went to Germany and to Bulgaria and I send money from these countries to Iraq? They haven't anything! | 14:59 |
US treasury document highlighting: "two sniper teams in Iraq" | MARK CORCORAN: The US Treasury also claims he is active as a recruiter and still commands fighters in Iraq. | 15:21 |
Lydia Khalil | KHALIL: I know what is stated publicly, and that is, he is responsible for sniper teams in Iraq who they claim have publicly declared their loyalty to Mullah Krekar and saying that he is their public, publicly that he is their leader and they're answerable to him. | 15:30 |
Sissal Maria Pettersen | MARK CORCORAN: Does Norway believe that he is still head of Ansar al Islam? | 15:47 |
Super: Sissal Maria Pettersen | PETTERSEN: Well I can only refer to what Mullah Krekar has said himself about his position in Ansar al Islam and we don't exactly know at what time, at what stage, he has left the organisation or what his formal position is at present. |
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Peshmerga fighters | MARK CORCORAN: Given the intense scrutiny of Krekar by Norwegian and US authorities there is one incident that, oddly, seems to have been ignored by investigators. | 16:23 |
Eric Campbell in trench and Paul Moran | In March 2003 ABC journalist and Foreign Correspondent reporter Eric Campbell and freelance cameraman Paul Moran were in the Kurdish region covering the opening days of the Iraq war. | 16:35 |
Eric Campbell with Peshmerga | The previous night the US had launched a cruise missile attack on the Ansar enclave. The ABC team was with Kurdish fighters known as the Peshmerga at a nearby roadblock. | 16:54 |
Eric Campbell | ERIC CAMPBELL: This is now the frontline against Ansar al Islam. The remnants of the Islamic fighters are just a kilometre beyond this trench. There's been machine gun fire in the past few minutes but the Kurdish troops have completely surrounded their camp. If the Peshmergas get their way they have just hours to live. | 17:12 |
Armed Peshmerga checking vehicles | MARK CORCORAN: Not far away an Ansar suicide bomber was preparing to strike. | 17:32 |
Krekar | KREKAR: Who is this man, he is from Saudi Arabia, his name is Yassin, he came to Ansar al Islam he bought the car, they did suicide bombs and he paid the money which he had about 5 thousand dollars to the Kurdish friends and he change his shoes also. It was new he changed with another one old shoes. | 17:43 |
| ERIC CAMPBELL: This is before the attack. | 18:13 |
| KREKAR: Before he, yeah he started after that. | 18:15 |
Kurdish soldiers | ERIC CAMPBELL: We suddenly saw some Kurdish soldiers to our left who just ran across the road and | 18:23 |
To black |
| 18:30 |
Super: ‘Australian Story' 2003 | Paul who was still filming instinctively followed the action and he walked across the road after them still filming and then a car pulled beside the soldiers stopped and exploded just without warning, it just stopped and exploded. | 18:31 |
To black |
| 18:43 |
Up from black |
| 18:46 |
Aftermath of bomb attack | MARK CORCORAN: Paul Moran, at least five Kurdish soldiers, and the bomber died. | 18:51 |
Wounded in hospital | Dozens more including Eric Campbell were wounded and rushed to hospital. | 19:03 |
Paul Moran photo | Before the ABC assignment Paul Moran had once worked as a cameraman for a pro-Kurdish, anti-Saddam TV station funded by the US Government. | 19:11 |
Wounded being treated | Later, some Australian press reports speculated that he'd been deliberately targeted. At the time Krekar was back in Norway having allegedly relinquished command of Ansar. | 19:22 |
Eric Campbell with head bandaged | He insists the suicide bomber's target was the enemy Kurdish soldiers not the ABC crew but he makes no apologies. | 19:36 |
Krekar | KREKAR: How he know that this man is Australian and he is photographer only, he don't know anything and he is innocent? He came to kill this line, which is in this line this military's line. He cannot choose until your friends, he stopped photography who are with the other soldiers, I think it is, like you say Muslims not say this but you say it the wrong time, the wrong work in the wrong time. I think in Norwegian people say this. You stopped in the wrong time. | 19:48 |
Aftermath of bomb | MARK CORCORAN: Do you feel that you take any responsibility for this? KREKAR: If there was something against me Norwegian people or Australian people. | 20:30 |
Krekar | John Howard can send also some people or some papers, some letters, to court in Norway. He can say that yes, Mullah Krekar, you can ask him about this also but when no one ask me about this which mean that I haven't any contact with this. | 20:39 |
Mark Corcoran | MARK CORCORAN: What do you say to the widow of Paul Moran | 20:58 |
Krekar | and to the other family members who may be watching this?' KREKAR: I say to all of the western women's don't send your sons to kill us. MARK CORCORAN: Well he wasn't killing anybody he was a cameraman. KREKAR: Yes. He was also with our enemy. | 21:02 |
Lydia Khalil | KHALIL: Well if it is proven that he did have operational control of Ansar al-Islam at that time then I think that his role in that attack should be taken a look at quite closely. | 21:21 |
| MARK CORCORAN: Would you see it as grounds for extradition to Australia perhaps? | 21:31 |
| KHALIL: That I don't know. I'm not as familiar with Australian laws as I am with US laws but I think it's kind of our responsibility within the counter terrorism community to really pick a fine toothcomb in terms of what he's been involved in exactly how he's been involved in various attacks and to really see, not just for our own benefit in terms of intelligence but in order to bring certain issues to light and bring justice to people who've been affected by his actions through Ansar al Islam. | 21:35 |
Night time Oslo | MARK CORCORAN: Krekar remains the target of numerous police and intelligence agencies but one woman believes humour is the best weapon against the Mullah. | 22:08 |
Shabana Rehman walks into room | Comedian Shabana Rehman was born in Pakistan and raised in Norway. She specialises in skewering Islamic extremism, | 22:21 |
Montage of Shabana in burkha and body paint | deploying burkhas, nudity and body paint in her campaign. | 22:30 |
Super: Shabana Rehman | REHMAN: We can't confront fundamentalists in Pakistan. As a woman I will get killed but here in Europe in Norway we can confront them and we should do that because here we can experience we can develop | 22:47 |
Shabana performing at dinner | and we can re-educate the fundamentalists to understand what freedom is. | 23:01 |
Dinner crowd | MARK CORCORAN: Her act has prompted death threats and shots being fired at her sister's Oslo restaurant. But it's also increased her popularity and she now works the threats into her routine. | 23:12 |
Shabana Rehman performing at dinner | REHMAN: I receive a lot of death threats. This guy he wrote to me, you have to die bitch, someone like you will never be a good Muslim wife. And you know what I will never be a good Muslim wife because it has been a long time since I was nine year old. | 23:26 |
| MARK CORCORAN: Shabana Rehman's most memorable act came on the night Krekar launched his autobiography in a nightclub. Her impromptu stunt would trigger a national debate on religious tolerance versus political-correctness-gone-wrong. | 23:52 |
Shabana Rehman | REHMAN: It was a really multi cultural audience and people were afraid of this man and they were angry at this man and they didn't agree with him. And I just decided that we have to show him that no we are not afraid because the fear, the fear is giving him power as a mullah. So what if we remove the fear, what will happen then? And then in a happy comic way I just took around his legs and lifted him up and he was smiling all the way up. I don't know what happened up there. So he freaked out and I put him very nice down on the ground again and. | 24:09 |
Krekar walking along street | MARK CORCORAN: The Mullah was not amused later filing a sexual harassment charge against the comedian. | 24:54 |
Shabana Rehman | REHMAN: The case was dismissed because everyone could see it wasn't a sexual harassment I was doing, I was actually trying to help him to show that you are not a dangerous man. | 25:01 |
Krekar | KREKAR: They did this against me like Islamic symbol, and they try to destroy this symbol, but they couldn't. | 25:10 |
Krekar puts headset on | MARK CORCORAN: Undaunted, Mullah Krekar now fights his jihad online running regular chat rooms and a web page. | 25:23 |
Laptop | MARK CORCORAN: So you have replaced the Kalashnikov with the laptop? | 25:35 |
Krekar | KREKAR: Kalashnikov is also necessary in Kurdistan, laptop is necessary all over the world. | 25:40 |
Krekar talking on chat room | MARK CORCORAN: In addition to giving spiritual advice he encourages his followers to kill American and Australian troops in Iraq. | 25:50 |
Super: Mullah Krekar | KREKAR: If you say to me Mullah Krekar I have a Muslim friend he want to ask you about jihad. Can he go to jihad in Iraq against Australian occupation? I say yes of course he can. Yes it is jihad and yes he can go also he can travel. If I have money I will buy the ticket for him also because it is jihad. | 26:03 |
| In this area it is allowed for me in Islam to kill him, to kill his translator, to kill the people which give him food, give him water, give him medicine. All of them is in the line of the war. I don't mean that I can kill the soldiers, Australian soldiers who return back to Sydney because they left the zone of the war. Because it is allowed for me to kill Australian soldiers in Iraq | 26:32 |
Archival Krekar with Ansar fighters | MARK CORCORAN: Krekar claims to have severed all links with group he created now known as Ansar al Sunna. But the fighters still follow his doctrine | 27:10 |
Ansar Al-Sunnah clip | In this Ansar clip posted online just two months ago, two kidnapped Iraqi Government employees are accused of abandoning Islam and in accordance with Krekar's beliefs, executed. | 27:26 |
Krekar walking up steps of Supreme Court | Today is Mullah Krekar's last chance. His final appeal against deportation is being heard by the Supreme Court of Norway. | 28:05 |
Media | His case is causing Norwegians to engage in some soul searching over their cherished ideals of asylum. | 28:19 |
Sissal Maria Pettersen | PETTERSEN: It's always been important for us to have a generous refugee policy. The problematic side with Mullah Krekar is the fact that it sort of made us question rather the whole institution of resettlement. | 28:30 |
Krekar in court | KREKAR: We must wait. | 28:45 |
| MARK CORCORAN: It's in the hands of the judges or God? | 28:48 |
| KREKAR: We must wait. | 28:51 |
| MARK CORCORAN: Krekar lost this appeal but he is unlikely to be going anywhere. Norway has a strict policy of not deporting individuals to countries that engage in torture or have the death penalty. Even one of his fiercest critics says he should stay. | 28:52 |
Shabana Rehman | REHMAN: I think that if he stays here we will give him less power. Yes, and a democratic, humanistic tradition more power. | 29:10 |
Court room | MARK CORCORAN: Mullah Krekar regards every extra day spent in Norway as a victory and a defeat for the Americans. He fights for the creation of an extremist Islamic State. In one sense Norway as a secular, democratic society symbolises everything he despises. Yet ironically the Norwegians inherent sense of justice may be the only thing keeping him from the Iraqi hangman's noose. | 29:24 |
| Music | 30:05 |
Credts | Reporter - Mark Corcoran Producer - Mansour Razaghi Research - Bronwen Reed Janet Silver Camera - Quentin Davis David Martin Editor - Bryan Milliss
Special thanks; Kurdsat TV
| 30:10 |