For the first time, Al-Qa'ida organization officially admitted that it recruits foreigners of various nationalities, especially Americans and Europeans, who have converted to Islam. Al-Qa'ida also admitted to cooperating with non-Muslim groups with whom it has common interests in viewing the United States as an enemy. The idea is to use these people as a cover in the operations it has already carried out in many countries in the world, as well as those which it intends to carry out. Al-Qa'ida claims that it has recently succeeded in recruiting some soldiers from the US forces occupying Iraq who had converted to Islam recently, but did not elaborate on the matter, considering the fact that some of them have reached high ranks in Al-Qa'ida organization as something natural. Al-Qa'ida revealed that it is assigning crucial assignments to those it described as "blue-eyed" in more than one country in the world.

Abu-Muhammad al-Ablaj, a leading figure in Al-Qa'ida organization, said in answer to Al-Majallah's questions through e-mail that the fact that some members of foreign nationalities, especially US and European, assume leading positions in Al-Qa'ida is something quite natural and simple. He said that the expertise that these people gained in various areas in their countries was done under the instructions and the orders of the higher command of Al-Qa'ida. He said: "...In the organization, colors and races dissolve. There are no foreigners among us. We are all brothers, believers, and have a close relationship. There is no problem in these brothers reaching the rank of a leader in a group, although we often sense that they seem to shy away from anything that gives them the title of leader over their brothers. Their hearts yearn for God and paradise and they see the position of leader as a trust and a big responsibility. As for the expertise they acquired in various fields, they did so under our instructions."

Answering a question, he admitted that recruiting Americans and Europeans serves Al-Qa'ida from a security point of view to cover up military schemes and help carry out some operations in many countries, whether those that have already been carried out or those Al-Qa'ida intends to carry out in the future. This is because their movement in terms of security is easier than the movement of those with Middle Eastern or Arab features.

Answering a question on the same point, he said that this is something obvious, revealing the fact that Al-Qa'ida has entrusted blue-eyed members with many assignments that pertain to the organization. They hide their Islamic affiliations and their association with Al-Qa'ida and are all over US institutions. It is impossible, he said, to detect them just by observing their behavior, their looks, or their way of dealing with others. They are people who know exactly how to play their role, he said.

Asked if what he wants to convey is that Al-Qa'ida is succeeding in penetrating US institutions in the United States or abroad, he said: "We have already penetrated US institutions. What is coming is worse. I cannot go into any more details because the matter is very sensitive."

Al-Ablaj went on to say that hundreds of Americans who converted to Islam following the September 11 incidents recruited themselves without belonging to Al-Qa'ida organization in order to fight the United States from within and to tear it apart because they oppose what he called "the bohemian principle" which is based on a materialistic lifestyle and spiritual emptiness. He added: Successive US Administrations have entrenched this principle as a basis for the American lifestyle. He added that from talking to Americans who converted to Islam and who compared Islam and Jihad to the bohemian life they were leading, Al-Qa'ida sensed that there is this discrepancy. The fact that Usamah Bin Ladin urged Americans to convert to Islam did not come out of the blue, he said.

Answering another question, Al-Ablaj said that the majority of Americans and Europeans, as well as people from other nationalities who join Al-Qa'ida, do so with a full understanding of what they are doing because they believe in Islam and they believe in standing up for what is right and staving off injustice.

Asked if Al-Qa'ida is cooperating with non-Muslim groups, whether those who are hostile to the United States based on ideology or those that are after financial gains, he said: We believe that those with whom we share common interests and those who are only after financial gains and black market traders fall outside the organization. In the black market, everything has a price. The eastern market is a common place for these deals, whether the intention is to make money or to get back at the western camp to break it and tear it apart, just as the west tore them apart and overthrew their empires. Those from the eastern camp who cooperate with Al-Qa'ida believe in the need to deal with United States based on the eye for an eye principle.

Answering a question on the same point, Al-Ablaj refused to give any more details. He made sure he was ambiguous when he was answering the question about the validity of reports on the arrests of foreign nationals in Al-Qa'ida such as the case of the Jamaican who was supposedly intending to make a dirty bomb for Al-Qa'ida, Musawi who is being tried in the United States, and others. He was asked if these foreign members were among those who were arrested or they are the ones who assume certain responsibilities in the organization and are safe waiting for the right moment to carry out their operations. He said: "Although we do not wish to go into this matter, we will say this because it is being raised: There is no doubt. You have already seen something, and you should expect to see more. The matter is extremely serious and the leaders do not wish to go into the details. The hints I made earlier about this are sufficient."

Asked if the decision of Al-Qa'ida to recruit foreigners among its ranks has achieved its aspired goals, he said: "Yes, it has and it has already yielded fruit. Work is continuing. The war on us only made us more enlightened and more knowledgeable about the reality that surrounds us. In the past, it seemed as if we were in a minefield, and we do not know where to put our feet. But now that the cards are out in the open and the facts are known, we can safely say that we have better knowledge of the points of weakness and the points of strength of our enemy much more than before thanks to our experience and to previous confrontations with them. Our enemy has gone to the farthest limits to fight us. Let me illustrate this further by using the example of a land on which signs were planted saying "this is a minefield, take another road that is safer." A strike that does not kill me, makes me stronger.

Hervey Luwazo

Real Name: Hervey Luwazo Nom De Guerre: Jamal Born in Paris on March 21st 1973. He converted to Islam while serving in the military in the military airbase of "Colmar," in northern France. After being dismissed from the military, he began to go to mosques where Algerian extremists go in the neighborhood of "Balville" in the 10th district in Paris. He was sent to Afghanistan in the late 1999 where he received his training in the camp of "Khalidin," south of Kabul. He participated in the fight against the US forces in Afghanistan and his body was found in the mountains close to Tora Bora after he died from the cold on December 24th 2001.

Gazavier Gavo

Real Name: Gazavier Gavo. Nom De Guerre: Mas'ud al-Banin. Born in 1971 in Bordeaux, southern France, of a French mother and a black father originally from Benin. He became a Muslim in London in 1993 and went to Finsbury Park Mosque where the followers of Abu-Hamzah al-Masri usually went. In 1994, he joined the ranks of Arab Mujahidin in Chechnya after having met his leader Khattab in Bosnia. He was seen in Chechnya, Georgia, and in Al-Qa'ida camps in Afghanistan. He visited London for the last time in 1999. He was martyred in a battle against the Russian Army in Groznyy on April 12th, 2000.

Louis Jose Gilan Gonzales

Real Name: Louis Jose Gilan Gonzales. Nom De Guerre: Yusuf Ghilan. Comes from Basque-Spanish origins. He began his secret activity in the ranks of the Basque leftists (Abricelli). Then in 1999 he converted to Islam and joined European networks of Al-Qa'ida. He was arrested in Barcelona on September 18th, 2001 with the network of Imad al-Din Barakat, also known as Abu-al-Dahdah, which is the same network that took in Muhammad Ata, Ramzi Bin-Al-Shibah, and Khalid al-Shaykh Muhammad between 7 and 19 July 2001 at the Spanish resort of Sallo where they put the final touches on the September 11 attacks.

Jose Padilla

Real Name: Jose Padilla Nom De Guerre: Abdallah Al-Muhajir. He was born in 1971 in Brooklyn, New York, of an American family that originally came from Puerto Rico. When he was a teenager, he joined a criminal gang in Chicago and was imprisoned for being an accomplice in a murder crime. He converted to Islam in prison and married an Egyptian after he was released from jail in 1991. A year later, he went to live in Pakistan and connected with Islamic groups there. Then he joined Al-Qa'ida and lived in Egypt for a short time between 1997 and 1998. He was arrested in Chicago airport on 8 May, 2002 with the charge of planning a terrorist attack using a radioactive bomb.

John Walker Lindh

Real Name: John Walker Lindh. Nom De Guerre: Abd-al-Hamid. Born in 1981 in Washington of a white American family. His father is a Catholic lawyer and his mother is a Buddhist nurse. They named him John after the Beatles Star John Lennon. He became a Muslim at 16 following in the footsteps of the African-American leader Malcolm X. As soon as the US war against terrorism in Afghanistan began, he suddenly disappeared from his parents' house in California. Then he sent them an e-mail from the Pakistani city of Panu, telling them that he decided to fight in the war with the Taliban forces. He was arrested during the rebellion of Al-Qa'ida prisoners in the Jhangi Fortress near Mazar-e Sharif. Currently he is in the cell that is adjacent to the cell of Zakariyah Musawi in the US prison of Alexandria, Virginia.

Richard Reed

Real Name: Richard (Colvin) Reed. Nom De Guerre: Abd-al-Rahim Tariq al-Raja. Born on August 12 1973 in Bromley, southeast of London of an English mother and a Jamaican father. He was imprisoned several times for robbery. He became a Muslim in prison. He met Zakariyah Musawi in Brixton Mosque, southwest of London in 1997 and attended with him a training course in the same year at the "Khalidin" camp in Afghanistan. He was arrested in Boston in December 22d 2001 after he tried to blow up an American Airlines plane heading from Paris to Miami using explosives he hid in his shoes. This is why he was known by the media as the "shoe bomber."

Antoine Robert

Real Name: Pierre Richard Antoine Robert. Nom De Guerre: Abu-Abd-al-Rahman. Born on January 30th 1972 in the city of Chambon-Feugerolles, south of France. He became a Muslim in 1989 and went to a small mosque in the neighborhood of (Kuton) in the town of (San Ghust), near Saint-Etienne where the majority of the residents are Moroccan immigrants. Early in 1996, he moved with his Moroccan wife Fatimah to the city of Tangiers. He went on a trip to Afghanistan in 1997 and stayed there for several months in the training camps of Al-Qa'ida. Last year he was made leader of the "Salafi Jihad" groups in Tangiers. He is considered the mastermind of the recent explosions in Casablanca.

Christian Gancarski

Real Name: Christian Gancarski Nom De Guerre: Abu-Ibrahim. Born in 1966 in (Hut Silizay) in Poland. His parents fled the communist rule in Poland in 1976 and settled in Germany. He became a Muslim in 1990 after marrying a Muslim woman. Two years later, he got a scholarship to attend a course in the Islamic Sciences University in the Medina, Saudi Arabia. He visited Pakistan and Afghanistan before returning to Germany to resume his normal life. Investigators into the case of the Jewish Synagogue in Djerba were shocked that Nizar al-Nawwar, the suicide bomber, had contacted him before he carried out the operation. He was arrested on 15 April 2002, but the German police never found any evidence that implicates him and so they released him. After leaving Germany clues were discovered that proved his connection to Munir al-Mutasaddiq and the Hamburg cells which were led by Muhammad Ata. He was arrested in Paris on 3 June 2003.

(Description of Source: London Al-Majallah in Arabic — London-based Saudi-owned weekly; sister magazine of Al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper providing independent coverage of Arab and international issues)