http://www.indianexpress.com/
Rukmini Callimachi
The turbaned gunmen who infiltrated Nairobi's Westgate mall arrived with a set of religious trivia questions: As terrified civilians hid, the assailants began a high-stakes game of 20 questions to separate Muslims from those they consider infidels.
A 14-year-old boy saved himself by jumping off the roof, after learning from friends inside that they were quizzed on names of the Prophet Mohammad's relatives. A Jewish man scribbled a Quranic scripture on his hand to memorise. Survivors described how the attackers from al-Shabab shot people who failed to provide the correct answers.
Their accounts, combined with internal al-Shabab documents discovered earlier this year by The Associated Press, mark the final notch in a transformation within the terror network, which began to rethink its approach after setbacks in Iraq. Al-Qaeda has since realised that the indiscriminate killing of Muslims is a strategic liability, and hopes instead to create a schism between Muslims and kuffar, or apostates.
"What this shows is al-Qaeda's acknowledgment that the huge masses of Muslims they have killed is an enormous PR problem," said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, director of the Center for the Study of Terrorist Radicalization. "This is a problem they had noticed going back to at least Iraq."
The evolution of al-Shabab is reflected in a set of three documents believed to be written by the terrorist group, and found by the AP in Mali. They include the minutes of a conference of 85 Islamic scholars, held in 2011 in Somalia, as well as a summary of fatwas they issued last year after acceptance into the al-Qaeda fold.
Baptised with the name al-Shabab, meaning The Youth, in 2006, the group began as an extremist militia, fighting the government of Somalia. As early as 2009, it began courting al-Qaeda, issuing recordings with titles like, 'At Your Service Osama'.
Until the Westgate attack, the group made no effort to spare Muslims, hitting packed restaurants, bus stations and a government building with hundreds of students. And until his death, Osama bin Laden refused to allow Shabab into the al-Qaeda, according to letters retrieved from his safehouse in Pakistan. These show he was troubled by regional jehadi operations killing Muslim civilians.
In a letter to Shabab in 2010, bin Laden advised the Somali-based fighters to review their operations "in order to minimise the toll to Muslims". Shabab did not get the green light to join al-Qaeda until February 2012, almost a year after bin Laden's death.
In an email exchange with The Associated Press, it made its intentions clear: "The mujahideen carried out a meticulous vetting process at the mall and have taken every possible precaution to separate the Muslims from the kuffar." However, even at Westgate, Muslims were among the more than 60 civilians gunned down.
Their attack was timed to coincide with the highest traffic at the mall, after 12.30 pm on a Saturday. More than 1,000 people, including diplomats, pregnant women and foreign couples, were inside when the fighters burst in.
Rutvik Patel, 14, was in in Nakumatt, the mall's supermarket, when he heard the first explosion. "They started shooting continuously, and whoever died, died," he said. "Then it became calm and they came up to people and began asking questions," he said. "They asked the name of the Prophet's mom. They asked them to sing a religious verse."
Just across from the Nakumatt supermarket, a 31-year-old Jewish businessman was cashing a cheque inside the local Barclays branch. The people there ran to the back and shut themselves in the room with the safe, switching off the lights. They learned, via text messages, that the extremists were asking people to recite an Arabic prayer called the Shahada.
"One of the women got a text from her husband saying they're asking people to say the Islamic oath, and if you don't know it, they kill you," said the businessman, who insisted on anonymity.
He threw away his passport. Then he downloaded the Arabic prayer and wrote it on his palm.
Al-Shabab's attempts to identify Muslims are clear in the 16-page transcript from the conference of Islamic scholars held in the Somali town of Baidoa. The scholars issued several fatwas defining who was a Muslim and who an apostate.
The document states it is halal, or lawful, to kill and rob those who commit crimes against Islam: "The French and the English are to be treated equally: Their blood and their money are halal. No Muslim in any part of the world may cooperate with them in any way," it says. Further it adds: "Accordingly, Ethiopians, Kenyans, Ugandans and Burundians are just like the English and the French because they have invaded the Islamic country of Somalia."
Former FBI supervisory special agent Ali Soufan, who investigated the bombing of the US embassies in East Africa as well as the attack on the USS Cole, said that the gathering of dozens of religious scholars in an area under Shabab control harkens back to an al-Qaeda conference in Afghanistan around 1997. That conference defined America as a target, Soufan said. "It's the same playbook."
In a second document dated February 29, 2012—two weeks after al-Shabab joined al-Qaeda—the organisation warns Muslims to stay away from buildings occupied by non-Muslims, chillingly justifying the death of Muslims at Westgate.
Yet at the same time it says: "The mujahideen are sincere in wanting to spare the blood of their brother Muslims, and they don't want a Muslim to die from the bullets directed at the enemies of God."
A similar tactic paid off in January after al-Qaeda-linked terrorist Moktar Belmoktar attacked a gas installation in Algeria, Atallah said. When his fighters freed hundreds of Muslim employees, a Facebook page dedicated to him exploded with 'Likes'.
Several hours after the gunshots at Westgate Mall, the people cowering inside the Barclays bank heard a commotion. The Jewish businessman spit on his hand to erase the words he had by then committed to memory.
The door opened. He exhaled. It was the police.
Several floors above, 14-year-old Patel looked for a place to hide on the roof. When the jehadists came up the stairs, he jumped, crushing his ankle on the pavement below.
He said he would not have known how to answer their questions. AP
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Al-Qaeda’s Muslim rewrite
Associated Press : Nairobi, Tue Oct 01 2013, 03:18 hrsRukmini Callimachi
The turbaned gunmen who infiltrated Nairobi's Westgate mall arrived with a set of religious trivia questions: As terrified civilians hid, the assailants began a high-stakes game of 20 questions to separate Muslims from those they consider infidels.
A 14-year-old boy saved himself by jumping off the roof, after learning from friends inside that they were quizzed on names of the Prophet Mohammad's relatives. A Jewish man scribbled a Quranic scripture on his hand to memorise. Survivors described how the attackers from al-Shabab shot people who failed to provide the correct answers.
Their accounts, combined with internal al-Shabab documents discovered earlier this year by The Associated Press, mark the final notch in a transformation within the terror network, which began to rethink its approach after setbacks in Iraq. Al-Qaeda has since realised that the indiscriminate killing of Muslims is a strategic liability, and hopes instead to create a schism between Muslims and kuffar, or apostates.
"What this shows is al-Qaeda's acknowledgment that the huge masses of Muslims they have killed is an enormous PR problem," said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, director of the Center for the Study of Terrorist Radicalization. "This is a problem they had noticed going back to at least Iraq."
The evolution of al-Shabab is reflected in a set of three documents believed to be written by the terrorist group, and found by the AP in Mali. They include the minutes of a conference of 85 Islamic scholars, held in 2011 in Somalia, as well as a summary of fatwas they issued last year after acceptance into the al-Qaeda fold.
Baptised with the name al-Shabab, meaning The Youth, in 2006, the group began as an extremist militia, fighting the government of Somalia. As early as 2009, it began courting al-Qaeda, issuing recordings with titles like, 'At Your Service Osama'.
Until the Westgate attack, the group made no effort to spare Muslims, hitting packed restaurants, bus stations and a government building with hundreds of students. And until his death, Osama bin Laden refused to allow Shabab into the al-Qaeda, according to letters retrieved from his safehouse in Pakistan. These show he was troubled by regional jehadi operations killing Muslim civilians.
In a letter to Shabab in 2010, bin Laden advised the Somali-based fighters to review their operations "in order to minimise the toll to Muslims". Shabab did not get the green light to join al-Qaeda until February 2012, almost a year after bin Laden's death.
In an email exchange with The Associated Press, it made its intentions clear: "The mujahideen carried out a meticulous vetting process at the mall and have taken every possible precaution to separate the Muslims from the kuffar." However, even at Westgate, Muslims were among the more than 60 civilians gunned down.
Their attack was timed to coincide with the highest traffic at the mall, after 12.30 pm on a Saturday. More than 1,000 people, including diplomats, pregnant women and foreign couples, were inside when the fighters burst in.
Rutvik Patel, 14, was in in Nakumatt, the mall's supermarket, when he heard the first explosion. "They started shooting continuously, and whoever died, died," he said. "Then it became calm and they came up to people and began asking questions," he said. "They asked the name of the Prophet's mom. They asked them to sing a religious verse."
Just across from the Nakumatt supermarket, a 31-year-old Jewish businessman was cashing a cheque inside the local Barclays branch. The people there ran to the back and shut themselves in the room with the safe, switching off the lights. They learned, via text messages, that the extremists were asking people to recite an Arabic prayer called the Shahada.
"One of the women got a text from her husband saying they're asking people to say the Islamic oath, and if you don't know it, they kill you," said the businessman, who insisted on anonymity.
He threw away his passport. Then he downloaded the Arabic prayer and wrote it on his palm.
Al-Shabab's attempts to identify Muslims are clear in the 16-page transcript from the conference of Islamic scholars held in the Somali town of Baidoa. The scholars issued several fatwas defining who was a Muslim and who an apostate.
The document states it is halal, or lawful, to kill and rob those who commit crimes against Islam: "The French and the English are to be treated equally: Their blood and their money are halal. No Muslim in any part of the world may cooperate with them in any way," it says. Further it adds: "Accordingly, Ethiopians, Kenyans, Ugandans and Burundians are just like the English and the French because they have invaded the Islamic country of Somalia."
Former FBI supervisory special agent Ali Soufan, who investigated the bombing of the US embassies in East Africa as well as the attack on the USS Cole, said that the gathering of dozens of religious scholars in an area under Shabab control harkens back to an al-Qaeda conference in Afghanistan around 1997. That conference defined America as a target, Soufan said. "It's the same playbook."
In a second document dated February 29, 2012—two weeks after al-Shabab joined al-Qaeda—the organisation warns Muslims to stay away from buildings occupied by non-Muslims, chillingly justifying the death of Muslims at Westgate.
Yet at the same time it says: "The mujahideen are sincere in wanting to spare the blood of their brother Muslims, and they don't want a Muslim to die from the bullets directed at the enemies of God."
A similar tactic paid off in January after al-Qaeda-linked terrorist Moktar Belmoktar attacked a gas installation in Algeria, Atallah said. When his fighters freed hundreds of Muslim employees, a Facebook page dedicated to him exploded with 'Likes'.
Several hours after the gunshots at Westgate Mall, the people cowering inside the Barclays bank heard a commotion. The Jewish businessman spit on his hand to erase the words he had by then committed to memory.
The door opened. He exhaled. It was the police.
Several floors above, 14-year-old Patel looked for a place to hide on the roof. When the jehadists came up the stairs, he jumped, crushing his ankle on the pavement below.
He said he would not have known how to answer their questions. AP
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