Wannabe U.S. jihadists fell prey to Al Qaeda con men

In this court sketch, Wesam El-Hanafi, centre, and Sabirhan Hasanoff appear on terrorism-related charges at U.S. District Court in 2010. Court records show they were cheated of funds they sent to an Al Qaeda contact in Yemen.

Three naturalized U.S. citizens who had fantasies of fighting for radical Islam were defrauded by their Yemeni contacts, court records show.

KANSAS CITY, MO.—As a Kansas City man learned, joining the global jihad against godless imperialism is harder than you’d think. Especially when the Al Qaeda leaders you’re dealing with are just as adept at conning their own recruits as they are at instigating mass murder.

The FBI’s recent disclosure that a Kansas City man’s terror cell had once cased the New York Stock Exchange was meant to demonstrate that the government’s electronic surveillance programs have disrupted real threats to the homeland.

But the case’s hundreds of pages of court records also show that federal investigators broke up a long-running fraud scheme in which an Al Qaeda leader in Yemen was less interested in stoking his recruits’ passion for holy war than exploiting their bank accounts for his own gain.

 

 

In a recent letter to a New York federal judge, the lawyer representing cell member Sabirhan Hasanoff acknowledged his client once had dreamed of jihad glory, only to get taken by a Yemeni con man.

“The defendants never had any authentic access to terrorism networks or Islamic extremists and were victims of a rudimentary fraud,” the lawyer wrote.

Fraud or not, the defendants contributed money, time and material to men involved in global terrorism, government lawyers responded in their own letter to the judge.

“While Hasanoff could not control how the recipients of his support would utilize those materials, he certainly intended for those materials to be used to support Al Qaeda’s goals and to facilitate his pathway to fight on behalf of Al Qaeda,” prosecutors wrote.

Forget the regimented terrorists you see on 24 or Homeland. Members of this cell, all naturalized U.S. citizens, preferred consensus to rigid military discipline. And they were squeamish about suicide missions.

The three are Khalid Ouazzani, a used auto parts salesman; Wesam El-Hanafi, an information technology security specialist who later took his family to Dubai about 2005; and Sabirhan Hasanoff, an accountant at PricewaterhouseCoopers who relocated to Dubai in 2007.

Three years after prosecutors filed terrorism charges against all three, how the men got together remains unclear. But prosecutors allege that in 2003, about the time of the invasion of Iraq, all three aspired to “support violent extremist Islamic causes.”

Hasanoff admitted recently in court records to being radicalized by the sermons of U.S.-born cleric Anwar al Awlaki, who died two years ago in an American drone strike in Yemen. Hasanoff said he needed to reconnect with his Muslim faith and reconcile that with the world around him.

“As best I can explain it, a sense of guilt at living a comfortable life, and not someone acting on my beliefs and standing up for fellow Muslims, led me, step by step, to start making plans to go and fight for my faith and my community,” Hasanoff wrote in a letter to his judge.

In mid-2007, according to court records, El-Hanafi connected with two experienced terrorists in Yemen. One of the men, referred to in court records only as “Suffian,” had recently left prison and eagerly wanted to resume his work for Al Qaeda.

The other, referred to only as “The Doctor,” was an experienced jihadi oozing with street cred — at least in the minds of the three Americans. The Doctor claimed to have fought the Soviets in Afghanistan and had pledged his support in the 1990s to an organization that later merged with Al Qaeda.

He also ran an automobile business in Yemen.

To prove they were serious about the cause, the three Americans began sending $300 a month to their new comrades in Yemen. Ouazzani also offered a generous $6,500 commitment to the cause, which he couldn’t afford, probably because he lost on real estate investments in Kansas City.

Hasanoff covered the contribution for Ouazzani, then pestered him with emails demanding repayment.

“It’s about time you put your akhirah (afterlife) before your dunya (current life),” Hasanoff wrote in an Oct. 11, 2007, email. “You have my wiring instructions. Let me know once you’ve sent so I’ll check my bank.”

Later, after being arrested by Yemeni authorities, Suffian and The Doctor admitted to the FBI that the Americans believed the money and equipment were being set aside for their military training, after which they would be sent to Somalia, Iraq or Afghanistan.

The Doctor said he and Suffian divided the loot between them instead, giving some of the money to the families of Islamic martyrs and buying a couple of automobiles.

 

Source: http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/07/04/wannabe_us_jihadists_fell_prey_to_al_qaeda_con_men.html