The College of Islamic and Arabic Studies in
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...
was an organization where American
intelligence analysts asserted was tied to
al Qaeda
Al-Qaeda (; , ) is an Islamic extremist organization composed of Salafist jihadists. Its members are mostly composed of Arabs, but also include other peoples. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military targets in various countr ...
.
[
]
They reported that
Mahfouz Ould al-Walid
Mahfouz Ould al-Walid (Arabic: محفوظ ولد الوالد), kunya Abu Hafs al-Mauritani ( ar, أبو حفص الموريتاني), is a Mauritanian Islamic scholar and poet previously associated with al-Qaeda. A veteran of the Soviet–Afgh ...
, better known as ''"Abu Hafs al-Mauritani"'', the director of the institution, was a senior member of al Qaeda's leadership circle.
When analysts went over the grounds of the institute they found what they characterized as ''"
martyrship videos"''.
[
]
Guantanamo captive
The Guantanamo Bay detention camp ( es, Centro de detención de la bahía de Guantánamo) is a United States military prison located within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, also referred to as Guantánamo, GTMO, and Gitmo (), on the coast of Guant ...
Abd Al Rahim Abdul Rassak Janko testified that the recording of him was not a martyrship video at all, but rather a confession. He acknowledged that he had travelled to Afghanistan, in 2000, to offer his services to the
Taliban
The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state (polity), state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalism, Islamic fundamentalist, m ...
, but he had inadvertently triggered the suspicion he was an Israeli or
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
spy. He asserted that the Taliban turned him over to the Taliban to torture a confession out of him, and that the recording was the confession that followed his torture. He asserted he was interrogated and tortured at the institute for two weeks.
According to
Gabriel Weimann
Gabriel Weimann is a Professor of Communications at the University of Haifa and a former fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Weimann is known for having begun to track and study terrorist web sites in the mid 1990s, "lo ...
, in ''"Responses to cyber terrorism"'', the institute ran a virtual magazine dedicated to promoting global jihad, entitled ''"
Sawt al-Jihad"''.
[
]
References
Schools in Afghanistan
Arab studies
{{Afghanistan-stub