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Al Qaeda strategist orders kidnapping of foreigners | Veteran al-Qaeda adviser Mustafa Hamid alias Abu Walid al-Masri, who was married to Australian Rabiah Hutchinson in Afghanistan in 2001, has issued a directive to kidnap foreign civilians, including Australians in Afghanistan, in retaliation for the capture, detention and torture of al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners by the US and its allies.
Hamid has been detained in Iran since 2003, but remains an influential figure
in the militant movement and has maintained contact with his followers through
jihadist websites, despite his imprisonment. In an edict titled "The US Soldier
in Afghanistan - the first step for the release of all prisoners of the war on
terror", Hamid argues that the capture of an American soldier by Taliban forces
earlier this year should be used as a precedent in a campaign of abducting Western
civilians to use as bargaining chips to negotiate the release detainees. In the
document uncovered by former Australian Federal Police senior counter-terrorism
intelligence analyst Leah Farrall, Hamid argues that the US has "changed the rules
of the game" on the treatment of prisoners of war by its detention and torture
of inmates at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere, The Australian reports. He says it
is now time for the Afghan mujahideen to change the rules and accept the principle
approved and implemented by the enemy - the abduction of civilians who have nothing
to do with the battle. Hamid writes that soldiers from foreign countries such
as Australia are fair targets. Farrall, formerly a senior counter-terrorism intelligence
analyst with the AFP, who is currently completing a PhD on al-Qaeda at Monash
University and specialises in unearthing al-Qaeda documents, discovered the document.
"This is one of the most important things I've seen for a very long time. I have
not (previously) seen any senior militant figure sanction a targeted campaign
in direct response to American detainee policies and I find this extremely concerning,"
she said. Hamid advocates that mass abductions should be carried out under the
direction of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar in areas of Afghanistan that
his troops control. |
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