BACKGROUND ANALYSIS 22/11/2006

“OMAR NASIRI” BOOK: AN ANTI-FRENCH MANIPULATION

By Claude Moniquet, President of European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center

A book was just published in several languages a few days ago. It is called Inside the Global Jihad1 and is undoubtedly meant to create quite a stir. In the book, the author, Omar Nasiri shares his memories of being a “spy who infiltrated the Al- Qaeda network” and claims to have worked for the DGSE, France’s external intelligence services. It is quite a good story, fascinating and full of twists and turns. In short, it only has one real flaw: it is false. Undoubtedly motivated by a desire for profit and perhaps manipulated by certain individuals who would gain from doing harm to France’s “services”, Omar Nasiri made everything up.

Far from being the super-agent that he describes, the author is nothing more than a rather pathetic mythomaniac in search of glory and (especially) money.

First, a very important detail: Nasiri’s real identity. We have been investigating this act of manipulation for the last several days, and we agreed to publish only the name by which we initially knew him. But since a Flemish-language Belgian newspaper2 has partially revealed the author’s identity, we are no longer bound to secrecy. Omar Nasiri is, in fact, Said (and not Youssef, as the newspaper reported) al- Majda. He is one of several brothers who are “well known by intelligence authorities,” since two of them–Abdelfadel and Ali Mohammed–were arrested in the 1990s by the Belgian police for various matters connected to Islamic terrorism: the dismantling of the “Zaoui network” in March 1995 and a grenade attack upon two police officers in Bastogne (in southern Belgium) in March 1997. The third brother, Youssef, was also arrested for a matter concerning terrorism. And now a short summary of the book itself:

Nasiri/al-Majda explains, over the course of 440 pages –how he, on his own initiative, was recruited by the DGSE (Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, France’s “offensive” services) in Brussels in the 1990s and how he, under the joint auspices of the DGSE and the Sûreté de l’Etat (Belgium’s counter-espionage services), trafficked weapons and explosives on behalf of the Algerian group GIA (French acronym for the Armed Islamic Group). According to his version, he exfiltrated Belgium and was sent to Afghanistan via Turkey and Pakistan and infiltrated Al-Qaeda’s camps, once again for the DGSE. Afterwards, he returned to Turkey, was sent to London, and continued his infiltration work under joint French-British auspices.

We do not intend to discuss the entire book here, simply that which concerns al-Majda’s alleged relations with the French services. And here, we are able to state categorically: al-Majda was never a “French agent.”

To gain a clearer understanding of the matter, let’s picture ourselves in the context, the 1990s. In Algeria, terrorist acts perpetrated by the GIA left tens of thousands dead. In France, bombs were exploding, and all over Europe the GIA’s logistical networks were being dismantled. The Algerian terorists’ two main targets were the Algerian authorities and society (especially civilians) and France. Quite logically, French intelligence services were hunting for any piece of information concerning this Algerian Islamist sphere of influence. Anyone who walked into a police station, phoned the police, or made contact with any French Embassy and claimed to have “revelations” regarding the GIA was seen, questioned, and listened to (“debriefed” is the proper word).

This is exactly what happened to Said al-Majda: he got in touch with the DGSE via the French Embassy in Belgium and met with a contact at the local “post.” He saw al-Majda repeatedly, and then all contact was broken off. The analysis of the DGSE HQ was that the man was a petty thug, a trafficker (in drugs and weapons) acting as a mythomaniac who spun tales, being inspired by what he knew of his brothers’ adventures and relations and thus trying to make money and establish a “cover” for his trafficking.

That’s all there is concerning the DGSE. Neither the French nor the Belgian services ever used Said al-Majda as an agent or paid him. And, of course, neither organization ever authorized this man to traffic weapons and explosives for killers who were slaughtering Algerian and French nationals. At no point did the DGSE consider sending al-Majda to Afghanistan or “setting him up” in London to infiltrate Islamist mosques. In contrast, it seems that, after al-Majda arrived in Great Britain, he contacted the BSS (British Security Service, commonly known by the acronym “MI5”). Did he work for the BSS or for the“6”(MI6, Secret Intelligence Service), either in London or elsewhere? It is definitely a possibility, but we have no information about that.

The rest of the book –the “Afghan part”–is credible and well-documented, but it doesn’t reveal anything new: it may simply be a very good compilation of open source intelligence. Nothing actually enables us to confirm or deny that al-Majda ever set foot in Central Asia.

Now we come to this book’s fabrication. According to our information, several months ago, al-Majda provided his publisher with a 120-pages manuscript (nearly a quarter of the entire work) written in English. The rest of the book (several hundred pages) was “rewritten” by English-speaking editors who claim to have based their work “on interviews” with al-Majda and that they had not “added a single word to what he had said.” Let’s accept this, but there is still, however, a serious problem. According to those who met with him, al-Majda would have been completely incapable of writing a 100-page narrative in French –one of the individuals given the job of studying his case even said, with a bit of dark humor, that he had an IQ close to “that of a sink.” So it’s hard for us to imagine that this man could have “churned out” 120 pages in English.

Another problem is the media hoopla surrounding the simultaneous publication of this book in several languages in a number of countries (thus, a big-budget project requiring a large investment...). Once again, the English-language media – with a special mention for the BBC! - have embarked upon a bona fide promotional operation that is not very journalistic because it has not been examined from all angles: at no time have al-Majda’s “revelations” inspired the least bit of hesitation or questioning. Everything that he said is accepted as pure gospel or, in the case, pure Koran. Even worse: we have contacted certain media and (as others like us have done) explained in great detail the ways in which this matter is dubious. We were obviously not asking them to simply take our word for it, but not one single word of our claims was subsequently repeated by any of them. When we look at the lessons of professional ethics in journalism, which have taken quite a beating from the British press and its big American sister, such attitude make you wonder.

Just as we have to wonder at the “revelation” stating that “the DGSE confirmed the entire story.” Let’s be clear on this: since the sad affair of the Rainbow Warrior 21 years ago, and except perhaps one or two very rare exceptions (including the murder of “Jacques Meurant,” an officer working for the DGSE, in Beirut on 3rd February 1988)–the DGSE has never confirmed or denied anything whatsoever. On one hand, it has no communication policy (this is not its purpose) and, on the other hand, the only ones who can “confirm” it would be the officers responsible for the act of manipulation being discussed (although, as we have seen, there was never any “manipulation”), top intelligence service leaders (who are paid to keep quiet) or certain officers within the BCS, the Bureau Central des Sources (the central office, inside the DGSE, which monitors the agents careers) , who alone have access to all information pertaining to agents and the missions on which they are assigned. We must specify that the men and women working for the BCS are hardly in the habit of spilling the beans to the media. So what “confirmation” are they talking about? Are they referring to some “source close to the DGSE”? But what value would such a source really have?

There are also other “confirmations,” those, for example, made by “former authorities in the Osama Bin Laden cell set up by the CIA in the late 1990s,” quoted by CNN, which claim that it is “the most detailed first-hand account.” Given the stunning results achieved by the CIA in this area (no offence, but we cannot consider the work of this U S agency to be “flawless” considering the tragedy of 9-11...) we have to take these “confirmations” for what they are worth: the price of the ink used to print them.

And there is still one more question: why is this book appearing now, ten years after the events supposedly took place?

There are undoubtedly several answers to this question. The first is obvious: for Said al-Majda, it is the chance to make money. But there may be others: who really wrote the original 120 pages of the manuscript? Who put al-Majda in touch with the redacts? Exact, detailed answers to these questions could reveal a lot and, who knows, might lead us to some agency on the other side of the English Channel or on the shores of the Mediterranean that may feel that it has scores to settle with France’s intelligence services...

Only one thing is certain: the journalists and editors who took part in this act of manipulation undoubtedly would have behaved more appropriately if they had given the matter further thought. Unless, of course, the only thing that matters to them is selling paper..

1 Omar Nasiri, Inside the Jihad: My Life with al-Qaeda, published by Basic Books (Perseus Books Group) for the English version. Aucœur du Djihad, published by Editions Flammarion for the French version.

2 Het Laatste Nieuws, the 22nd November edition, page 7.