Boston’s Jihadi Terrorists & The Chechen Connection. By Rachel Ehrenfeld, Lorenzo Vidino. Aukai Collins, My Jihad. Small Wars Council > Small Wars Participants & Stakeholders > Adversary / Threat > Thoughts on 'My Life Inside the Jihad' PDA. George Romero was no stranger to stock music. Grammar in use by raymond murphy pdf. Aukai collins my jihad 8.89; How to choose the right bike tube 9.2. Paktia Province (Redirected from Paktiya Province. A conversation with Aukai Collins. He was a devout Muslim, devoted to holy war in defense of his faith, and there were times in the 1. Afghanistan and Chechnya that fellow soldiers called him Abu Mujahid, the father of warriors. He accepted that he might die in combat. He wished, in fact, for just that end. And yet, Aukai Collins is not the Islamic extremist of modern stereotype. He was born in Honolulu, grew up in Southern California. His father was a Marine who did a tour in Vietnam; after his discharge, the family drifted from Hawaii to Florida to Indiana and finally to California, by which time they were wearing love beads and tie- dyed clothes, and their little blue- eyed boy had long blond hair and a string of puka shells around his neck. But in “My Jihad,” Collins’ memoir of his Muslim warrior days, the red- bearded American casts himself in a Zelig- like role, as violent militant Islam becomes an international force through the 1. In 1. 99. 3, in an Afghan training camp, Collins befriended Ahmed Omar Sheikh, who was sentenced to death this week for his role in Daniel Pearl’s murder. In the late 1. 99. FBI informant based in Phoenix, he met Hani Hanjoor, who would later fly a jetliner into the Pentagon. Political Economy of Terrorism David A. Siegel Course information: Course Number: INR 5934 Time: Wednesday noon - 2:30 pm Place: Bellamy Building 113 Course website: Blackboard Contact Information: E-mail: [email protected] Tel. Collins, Aukai My Jihad, Guilford Connecticut. He was on his Jihad but did not consider himself to be a terrorist. He says that while he was working with the CIA, he was invited to meet Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, but that the agency denied him permission. He even claims that he’s mentioned — though not by name — in the infamous memo by Phoenix FBI agent Ken Williams that warned of a possible plot by Middle Eastern men in U. S. His story has parallels with two other American converts to Islam: John Walker Lindh, who traveled from Marin County, Calif., to fight with the Taliban, and Jos. But Collins’ odyssey is also singularly his own. He describes his nomadic childhood as anything but idyllic: When he was 4, his father split and his mother spiraled deeper into a world of bikers, criminals and drugs. When he was 8 and they were living back in Hawaii, she was murdered and her body dumped in a swamp not far from their home. But after a couple of years of bucking the system — both the CYA and its hardcore race- based gang system — Collins had a seeming chance encounter that would permanently change his life. One day, in a GED class, one of the other inmates left a Quran open on his desk. Aukai Collins, born on February 13, 1974, also known as Aqil Collins. After authoring My Jihad, Collins became a bounty hunter, which ultimately led to his arrest in Mexico on weapons charges. Collins took a look, and, he writes, he was transfixed. Within a couple of weeks, he had converted. Out of prison, he gravitated to a ghetto mosque in San Diego run by the pacifist Tabliqis. But soon he became restless with their approach, and set off on a journey that would take him to Croatia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Chechnya in search of the “true jihad.” The irony is that, especially in those early years, Collins had a hard time finding it. Even once he hooked up with other Muslims who shared his desire for jihad, he was constantly frustrated in his effort to penetrate war zones, by the dull routine of sitting around camps and waiting for battle. Though devout in his aims, he clearly loved weapons, all sorts of weapons, from handguns to rocket- propelled grenade launchers to tanks. In one Chechen camp, his delight in munitions and his impatience with authority earned him another nickname: Abu Mushakil, or father of trouble. Later, though, he would see people being killed up- close, and he himself would kill — and live to describe it all with an almost clinical lack of passion. Even after his right leg was mangled in Chechnya — it was later amputated — Collins might’ve been just another soldier of fortune, albeit with a higher cause. But then he turned himself over to the FBI and CIA, because he believed the growing movement of Arab jihadis wasn’t policing itself, was growing ever more lawless and turning to terror. His informant role was ultimately as frustrating as being a jihadi. In an interview, Collins said he believes Sept. Based on a deep cynicism developed during years working undercover with the FBI and the CIA, he thinks it impossible both agencies could be caught unaware by the attack. It’s entirely possible, he says, that they knew very well what was coming — and that they let it happen anyway. For its part, the FBI has confirmed that Collins was an informant who provided valuable information on Muslim extremists — but denies that he provided information that could have prevented Sept. Salon spoke to Collins about his experiences the same week that John Walker Lindh and Ahmed Omar Sheikh were sentenced for their crimes. Last month, federal agents arrested Josi Padilla, and charged he conspired with al- Qaida to build and detonate a “dirty bomb.” Most Americans are surprised to find Americans fighting alongside al- Qaida. In your years of active fighting in Bosnia or Chechnya or the Middle East, how many Americans did you encounter? First of all, with Padilla, I don’t think he actually ever fought anywhere. So if al- Qaida recruited in that picture, he’s just an errand boy or something. And Ashcroft turned that into stopping a bomber on his way to Washington. John Walker Lindh, now he volunteered with the Taliban. And if his contact was with al- Qaida, it was for the simple fact that the Taliban usually instructs foreign mujahedin to go with the other foreigners, which would be the Arabs, which loosely you could call al- Qaida. Now in Bosnia, the war lasted what, maybe five years? There was a handful of black American Muslims who had gone there to fight, probably no white American Muslims, maybe one or two. So probably just a handful. But is it your impression, having moved in this world, that there are a number of other Americans who might be fighting with the Taliban, fighting with al- Qaida? Well, what’s your definition of American? You know, American- American, or a naturalized American? Naturalized Americans, of course, you’re going to find you have Pakistani Americans, Afghan Americans, that are going to travel back to Afghanistan and fight with Taliban or someone else. American- Americans, that’s another story. After Padilla’s arrest, there was talk about there being an active Islamic movement with thousands of conversions in American prisons and detention centers. Could there be a class of people like Padilla who convert, and then go overseas to ally themselves with people who are fighting the United States? I think Padilla, whatever he is, is the exception, not the norm. There’s a lot of people who become Muslims in prison, but if you sat down and tried to figure out how many of those people ever went for anything close to jihad or anything like that once they got out of prison, you’re talking about a tiny, tiny — maybe low two- figures — number of people. I was watching a report on MSNBC that al- Qaida is recruiting people in the prisons. That’s the biggest load of crap I’ve ever heard. The Muslims who do become Muslims in prison, the imams who teach them are generally Pakistani- and Arab- Americans, and they’re completely against any idea of jihad or radical talks, so the Muslims coming out of prison naturally take those lines. I myself, I’ve had conflict with many American Muslims at the mosques throughout the country — we would have arguments, and they wouldn’t even support the idea of supporting Chechnya even with money. They’ve been taught that this is radical, this could be related to terrorism or whatever. The idea they’re being recruited in prison, that’s just absurd. Some of the accounts I’ve seen suggest Padilla converted to Islam while he was incarcerated, or maybe shortly after. Your conversion to Islam came while you were detained in the California Youth Authority. Do you see any parallels between yourself and Padilla? Not really. Do you see parallels between yourself and John Walker Lindh? To a certain extent. Just the simple fact that we both accepted Islam. The media isn’t talking about it, but from reading between the lines I can see he first got involved with the Tabliq — the pacifist movement. Was that in California? Yes, it seems that way. Because they’ve interviewed people that knew him, his friends at the mosque, and they’re obviously Tabliq by appearance and by speech. So he got involved with Tabliq and he probably came to a point like I did, that, . So he progressed on from there. I believe from there he went to Yemen to learn Arabic, and then from there he went to Pakistan. And I think from there it’s simple: In Pakistan, he probably had an opportunity to go up and do what in his mind he thought was jihad, which was the Taliban fighting against the Northern Alliance. That’s where this whole traitor thing really confuses me. Because he thought that he was going to Pakistan to help the Taliban fight the Northern Alliance to establish an Islamic state in Afghanistan, which I can understand. The Northern Alliance are very bad people, even the U. S. They’re criminals, the drug dealers, the warlords, and the Taliban was created to counter them. I don’t know what he did do and what he didn’t do, but if he believed that fighting for the Taliban was right, and all that stuff, then naturally you should plead guilty to it. If you did it, stand up and say: . But as a principle, I think pleading guilty is the right thing. Lindh faces the possibility now of 2. Is that punishment too harsh for what he did? You’ve got to figure out, what did he really do? As far as I can tell, he joined up with the Taliban and it seems that his intention was to fight for the Taliban against the Northern Alliance to establish an Islamic state. What happened after September, and whatever the ties there, that’s to the side. Just the idea of supporting the Taliban in their fight against the Northern Alliance, I mean, I myself had considered many times over the years starting back in ’9. Afghanistan just to see what they were about. Because if they were truly fighting to establish an Islamic state in Afghanistan, as an idea, that’s something I would support. Osama and all that, that changes everything.
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