The Long War Journal: A Profile in Terror: Abu Musab al-Suri

Written by Bill Roggio on July 12, 2005 1:54 AM to The Long War Journal

Available online at: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2005/07/a_profile_in_te.php

Abu Musab al-Suri (a.k.a. Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, Omar Abdel Hakim) is a prime suspect in the London 7/7 attacks. Counterterrorism expert Evan Kohlmann of Global Terror Alert and The Counterterrorism Blog provides a detailed profile of al-Suri (the Syrian) as well as video from in 2000. His connections to radical Islam run deep.

Abu Musab al-Suri (a.k.a. Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, Omar Abdel Hakim) was born in October 1958 in Aleppo, Syria. Nasar was a member of the radical Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and was forced to seek exile from his homeland during the 1980s, traveling throughout the Middle East and North Africa—and eventually finding his way to the ongoing jihad in Afghanistan. Abu Musab would later issue a statement clarifying his early involvement with Al-Qaida and the Arab-Afghans:

“I was honored to participate in the Afghani jihad against the Russians and the communists until we exterminated their forces and lowered their flanks and made an example out of them—as we will also do with America, with the help of Allah… I was honored to become acquainted with Shaykh Abdullah Azzam, and I worked with him during the days of the Afghani jihad in 1987. Then in 1988, I was honored by coming to know Shaykh Usama [Bin Laden]… I was honored to become a member of Al-Qaida, and I worked with the group until 1992. During that time, I trained its first elite fighters and I was an instructor at its camps and other Arab-Afghan camps in various military and organizational methodologies, especially given my own high-degree of specialized training in explosives production, special operations, and guerilla warfare that I received in Jordan, Iraq, and Egypt. All praise be to Allah for his blessing.”

Note al-Suri's training in Iraq, prior to 1992.

Mr. Kohlmann documents al-Suri's extensive ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, the Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA), the Taliban, and al Qaeda. al-Suri is quoted extensively in this profile, his own words are proof of his terrorist pedigree. As they say, read the whole thing.