FULL ARTICLES

EXTREMISTS JOINING FORCES

Extremists joining forces, CSIS warns
Unlikely partners: White supremacists allying with Islamists, document claims
By Stewart Bell
The National Post
February 21, 2003

White supremacist groups are working to expand their support in Canada, according to a top-secret intelligence document released yesterday as federal authorities tried to figure out what to do with Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel.

"We do have, unfortunately, our share of homegrown problems. By way of an example is the white supremacist movement," said the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) document, dated last Nov. 22.

The briefing report, obtained by the National Post under the Access to Information Act, cites efforts by hate groups "to increase their support and criticize the immigration policies of the Canadian government.

"In addition, over the past year, the firebombing of a Jewish community centre in Saskatoon and threats against the Jewish community in Ottawa have been troubling events."

The document did not present evidence of a link between these incidents and white supremacists.

Experts say Canada's extreme right has been largely in disarray since the 1994 collapse of the Heritage Front, a Toronto-based white supremacist group that united the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations and a U.S. criminal terrorist group called The Order.

But such hate groups have found a common cause recently with Muslim extremists in the Arab world who have been promoting Jewish conspiracy theories and attempting to deny the legitimacy of Israel, experts say.

"The threat from the far right has not disappeared, though it's been overshadowed by the threat from Islamism and Arabism," said Manuel Prutschi of the Canadian Jewish Congress. "And indeed, in some ways, they have re-energized each other. It's a bizarre alliance, but nonetheless there it is."

A source familiar with Canada's extreme right agreed, saying: "The people in leadership of the right wing are always looking for opportunities."

But he called the white supremacist and Islamist alliance a "blip," and said that while hate groups once targeted Jews, they are now focusing more on government.

"The situation with the right wing in Canada, it's cyclical. It has its ups and downs. We're at the low but you're going to see a resurgence. The next Canadian hate movement, I think, will be more directed against the government."

Mr. Zundel was "one of the pioneers" of the alliance between the anti-Israeli movement in the Middle East and the Holocaust denial movement in the West, Mr. Prutschi said.

When he was charged in 1984 with "spreading false news," Mr. Zundel had been distributing not only propaganda denying that six million Jews were killed by Nazi Germany, but also a four-page letter called "The West, War and Islam."

The letter was mailed to 1,200 addresses in the Middle East.

"Obviously he saw the Middle East as an area where his views would be well-received and also as a source of funding," said Mr. Prutschi, who has tracked right-wing extremists for many years.

In 1989, 17 Canadian white supremacists were invited to Tripoli to attend the 20th anniversary of the Libyan revolution, including Wolfgang Droege, a former KKK member and a founder of the Heritage Front.

Mr. Droege, an associate of Mr. Zundel's, hoped to obtain financing from the Libyans in exchange for supplying information on Canadian Jewish groups. But CSIS succeeded in planting an informant inside the Front and it eventually collapsed.

Evidence of the ties between the extreme right and Muslim extremists can be found on the Internet site operated by Mr. Zundel's spokesman, Mark Weber. He devotes significant space to the Middle East and one of his columns on the "powerful Jewish lobby" was republished by a newspaper in Saudi Arabia.

 

MIDLAND NAZI TURNS TO ISLAM

Midland Nazi turns to Islam
By Amardeep Bassey
The Sunday Mercury (Birmingham, UK)
February 16, 2003

A "Satanic Fuhrer" who urged neo-Nazis to fight a race war has turned full circle to become an Islamic fundamentalist.

Midland-based David Myatt, 51, was the political guru behind white supremacist group Combat 18 and has been the leading hardline Nazi intellectual in Britain since the 1960s.

Now the self-confessed Pagan and Adolf Hitler worshipper hails al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden as his inspiration and praises the World Trade Center attacks as acts of heroism.

Writing under various pseudo-nyms, including his Islamic name Abdul Aziz, the thrice-married Physics graduate has posted messages on Islamic religious websites supporting suicide missions and urging young Muslims to take up Jihad.

He is also believed to be the author of several anti-semitic and anti-West articles entitled 'The Crusader War Against Islam and The Zionist Quest for World Domination', written under the name Abdul Aziz ibn Myatt.

It is a far cry from his previous literary works which included the 1997 fascist terrorist handbook 'The Practical Guide to Aryan Revolution'. The book inspired Brixton nail-bomber David Copeland, who is now serving six life sentences.

According to anti-fascist magazine Searchlight, Myatt was also the Grand Master of a secret occult sect called the Order of the Nine Angels, which was alleged to have practised human sacrifice.

But a Sunday Mercury investigation suggests that his sudden conversion to Islam three years ago may be just a political ploy to advance his own failing anti-establishment agenda.

We discovered that Myatt uses various online identities to simultaneously post supportive messages on right-wing nationalist websites, while calling for the creation of a global Islamic superstate on Islamic religious internet sites.

On one site, Aryan Nation, he attempts to reconcile the differences between both extremes under the title Islamic Liaison Group dating his messages with his trademark yf (Year of the Fuhrer).

On another he argues that Muslims and Aryans share the same common enemy in the Jewish nation and western capitalism, supporting his diatribe with claims that more than 60,000 Muslims joined Hitler's SS in the Second World War.

He also continues to publish newsletters for his own German Nazi-modelled National Socialist Movement (NSM) which counted Copeland as a branch organiser and advocated terrorist insurrection to spark a race war.

On Islamic internet discussion sites he likens the American attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq to the Allied occupation of Hitler's Nazi Germany.

One Muslim internet user told the Sunday Mercury that Myatt, who has an IQ of 187, had convinced other users he was an Islamic scholar with his eloquent arguments backed with Koranic verses.

He said: "After September 11 Abdul Aziz's messages started to become more extreme.

"But because he wrote with authority, many less-knowledgeable Muslims thought he was a holy man and began supporting his fundamentalist views.

"When his true identity was revealed by other users on the site, he changed his online name to Abdul bin Aziz and then al Haqq.

"Other e-mail addresses he used included sheikh@al-qaeda.com.

"He was a very popular and controversial figure until he was unmasked late last year, after which people became much more wary about what he was writing and his messages dried up."

Gerry Gable, from anti-fascist magazine Searchlight, said: "Myatt is an ethereal character who has used numerous aliases to post messages on extremist websites.

"He is a dangerous man who has twice been jailed for his violent right-wing activities and who openly asked for blood to be spilled in the quest for white Aryan domination.

"We believe that despite his claims to be a devout Muslim he remains a deeply intellectual subversive and is still one of the most hardline Nazi intellectuals in Britain today.

"Myatt believes in the disruption of existing societies as a prelude to the creation of a new more warrior-like Aryan society which he calls the Galactic Empire.

"Now he has has simply jumped on the Islamic extremist bandwagon to further his own wish of a society divided on ethnic lines.

"He believes they have common enemies but it is his disillusionment with the ineptitude of the Nazi movement that has led to this most unholy of alliances."

Michael Whine, Chairman of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, added: "Myatt has a long history of involvement with Nazi activity and anti-semitism.

"The fact that he has converted to Islam and allied himself with its extremist fringe is in line with the opportunist politics that have seen him dabble in Buddhism and Chinese Taoism in the past.

"I would advise all Muslims to have nothing to do with this man."

But one hardline Islamic group has defended Myatt and welcomed him with open arms.

Sheikh Omar Bakri, leader of the extremist Al Muhajiroun organisation, said: "When you become a Muslim you start afresh with a clean slate so it does not matter what views he held before.

"I am very keen to meet up with him as we both share a lot in common and I am sure he can help the Islamic cause."

Myatt was last night unavailable for comment, having moved from his Leigh Sinton home in Worcestershire some years ago.

 

GERMAN MUSLIM’S RADICAL PAST WAS PAVED BY SAUDIS

German Muslim's radical past was paved by Saudis
By David Crawford and Ian Johnson
The Wall Street Journal
February 24, 2003
[Extracts]

In a deposition that revealed rare details about how an Islamic extremist was recruited, a German man linked with last year's Djerba, Tunisia, synagogue bombing has told police how a respected Muslim leader in Germany sent him on a path of study that led him to Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Chechnya, and friendship with an al Qaeda suicide bomber. Mr. Ganczarski, a convert to Islam, was offered a chance to study at a university in Medina, Saudi Arabia. His deposition provides a glimpse of how Saudi educational institutions and religious leaders helped recruit young Europeans to study its puritanical strain of Islam.

 

ATTACKS ON JEWS INCREASE BY 15 PERCENT IN A YEAR

Attacks on Jews increase by 15 per cent in a year
By Marie Woolf
The Independent (London)
February 21, 2003

Violent attacks on Jews and the desecration of synagogues and Jewish sites have increased rapidly in the past year, evidence revealed yesterday.

Anti-Semitic incidents rose to 350 in 2002, the second- highest number recorded, provoking fears that the rising tide of hatred has been fuelled by tensions in the Middle East.

Forty-seven violent assaults against Jewish people, an increase of 15 per cent since 2001, included seven in which victims needed hospital treatment. There was also a marked increase in synagogue and cemetery desecration including the wrecking of a synagogue in Finsbury Park, north London, and attacks on seven Jewish cemeteries where graves were daubed with swastikas.

Since 2000 there has been a 400 per cent increase in attacks on British synagogues, including the attempted petrol bombing of one in Edinburgh.

Jewish groups blamed anti-Israel feelings and a rise in radical Islamic groups for the increase yesterday.

In one incident, a Middle Eastern man on a London Underground train pointed at a Jewish passenger, shouted "Yahud" (Arabic for Jew) and pretended to blow himself up like a suicide bomber.

One religious Jew was viciously beaten in London and left for dead on the street before being taken to hospital.

Two Jewish people were beaten by attackers from anti-Israel demonstrations and a woman was called a "filthy Zionist Jew Bitch" by someone on an anti-Israeli goods boycott demonstration outside a Marks & Spencer store in London.

Mike Whine of the Community Security Trust, which protects the Jewish community from abuse, said: "There was a worrying increase in violent assaults on Jewish people some of which were life- threatening. The majority of these were unprovoked and involved the use of anti-Semitic words or behaviour.

"More than any other trend this reflects the cumulative effect of the promotion of hatred against the Jews that come from the Middle East and from radical Islamist groups."

Of the 350 incidents recorded 100 involved references to Israel or the Middle East, while 48 were linked to right-wing or fascist groups or sentiments.

 

ANTI-SEMITIC “PROTOCOLS” PUBLISHED IN PALESTINIAN PRESS

Anti-Semitic "Protocols" published in Palestinian press
By IDF
February 21, 2003

In a new chapter appearing in the most recent edition of the A-Shuhada'a newspaper (no. 47), sections of the age-old, anti-Semitic forgery, "The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion", were published.

A-Shuhada'a, published by the political office of the Palestinian National Security Force, relates to many political, military, and economic topics in accordance with new developments in the Palestinian, Arab, and international arenas. For example, an editorial penned by Ahmed Hilas, the paper's Editor-in-Chief, addresses the current Cairo talks between Fatah and Hamas.

A-Shuhada'a is an official newspaper of the Palestinian Authority intended for officers of the National Security Force in the Gaza Strip. In a chapter that relates to military matters, there is an article that examines Israel's military industry, as well as an article that reflects upon Islam's stance vis-a-vis the Jews.

 

ISRAELI ARABS TAKE LESSONS AT YAD VASHEM BEFORE PLANNED TRIP TO AUSCHWITZ

Israeli Arabs take lessons at Yad Vashem before planned trip to Auschwitz
The Jerusalem Post
February 18, 2003

Yad Vashem is holding special preparatory classes about the Holocaust for an unusual delegation of Israeli Arabs that is planning to visit the site of the Auschwitz death camp.

Some 35 people are scheduled to take part in the trip to Poland, which has been entitled, "From Memory to Peace." In media interviews delegation members have said the purpose of the trip is to better understand the trauma experienced by the Jews and its role in the establishment of Israel.

Yad Vashem said it would hold classes on Wednesday for the group at its International School for Holocaust Studies, which will include a tour of parts of the memorial and a lecture by Avner Shalev, Chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate.

Participants are to be issued with literature about the Holocaust translated into Arabic.