Four men charged with recruiting fighters for Al Qaeda

WARNING: Article contains propaganda!

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By Rana Husseini

AMMAN - The State Security Court (SSC) prosecutor has charged four men with recruiting individuals to join Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations.

The four men named in the charge sheet are Issam Barqawi, known as Abu Mohammad Al Maqdessi, Iyad Quneibi, Ayman Abul Rub and Baha Edin Alan, who is at large.

The three men have been in detention since September, according to the charge sheet.

The four men were also charged with plotting illegal acts that would ruin the Kingdom’s relations with other countries, recruiting men from Jordan to join terrorist organization abroad and collecting funds for terrorist groups in violation of the Anti-Money Laundering Law.

The charge sheet said the main suspect in the case, Barqawi, adopted the takfiri ideology and has been spreading his ideas among extremist groups and the general public over the past few years.

Barqawi had issued several fatwas (religious edicts) and published articles on Al Qaeda network websites and other websites promoting jihad, according to the charge sheet.

The charge sheet said Barqawi met with a Kuwaiti man and collected funds to help Abu Mussab Zarqawi’s wife buy a house.

Zarqawi, who was wanted in Jordan on several charges, including the terrorist attacks against three Amman hotels in 2005 that left over 60 people killed, was killed in Iraq in 2007.

In May 2010, Barqawi went to Quneibi’s house and they agreed to collect money for Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, the charge sheet added.

“Quneibi gave Barqawi JD850 for the fighters in Afghanistan and he contacted an Al Qaeda fighter through the Internet,” the charge sheet noted.

Barqawi also supervised the recruitment of the third defendant, Abul Rub, and trained him on raising his physical fitness so that he could join the fighters in Afghanistan, the charge sheet said.

Meanwhile, the fourth defendant Alan volunteered to travel to Afghanistan and deliver financial support to Al Qaeda fighters there, the charge sheet added.

The three defendants were arrested shortly after authorities received a tip about their illegal activities, according to the charge sheet.

A senior judicial source told The Jordan Times that the SSC is expected to set a date soon to start trying the defendants.

“It is still not clear when the trial will commence but we expect it to be soon,” the source said.

24 December 2010

Source: The Jordan Times.
Link: http://jordantimes.com/?news=32912.