Muslim spy who infiltrated Bin Laden's terror network in London
Interview by Jake Tapper
The murder of a policeman and the discovery of a ricin factory are the
latest evidence of al-Qaeda activity in Britain, so why then did we abandon
Reda Hassaine, who infiltrated its London network?
“I’M VERY HAPPY," Reda Hassaine said, a few minutes before almost breaking
down in tears. His joy came from his role in gathering evidence against Abu
Qatada, an extremist Muslim cleric said to be a key al-Qaeda figure, who
had just been arrested in London. That was last October. Less than three
months later, his usefulness compromised after he was told his cover had
been blown, Hassaine has been dumped by his former handlers in the
intelligence services and left out in the cold, an unprotected target for
the Islamist extremists he once spied on. Hassaine, 41, is an Algerian
Muslim who has infiltrated militant Islamist groups for the secret services
in Algeria and France, for Scotland Yard’s Special Branch and for M15. He
says that Abu Qatada and Abu Hamza, another London-based Islamist, “raise
money, encourage people to kill, claim assassinations”. He knows because he
has seen them at work. Hassaine has a sad face and a stammer that improves
with each bottle of Chianti, though it is fast replaced by melancholy. He
chain smokes as he describes his journey from up-and-coming Algerian
reporter to down-on-his-luck London ex-spy. His story is a reminder that
Muslims themselves have been the biggest victims of the rise of Islamist
extremists. And it’s not difficult to discern the moral in his tale: that
worldwide indifference to the horrors of Algeria in the 1990s helped pave
Osama bin Laden’s path to the World Trade Centre. Moreover, Hassaine
suggests that the West has been — and probably still is — unprepared to
fend off the Islamist threat. “On September 11, I was happy in one way,” he
admits. He was, of course, horrified by the attacks, but “for years I’ve
been trying to warn people about what the Islamists are doing. Now I know
George Bush is with me. Now I know Tony Blair is with me. ” In the early
1990s, during Algeria’s brief flirtation with democracy, Hassaine was an
official in the populist hotchpotch of opposition groups known as the
Islamic Salvation Front, or FIS. He quit when he realised that the party’s
chosen path to power was a campaign of violence and murder. “The policemen
first. Then the journalists. They had lists of people to be killed,” he
says. More than 120 foreign citizens were murdered. A car bomb was driven
into the national police headquarters in 1995, killing 42 and wounding 265.
Entire villages were massacred. Human rights organisations estimate that up
to 100,000 Algerians have been killed since 1992. “They started to kill
everyone,” says Hassaine. “Kill, kill, as much as you can. How can I
explain this to Westerners? These kind of people, they had been brainwashed
in Afghanistan. When I left Algeria, people wanted to kill me. My closest
friend, 35 of my colleagues, had been killed by Islamists. They were taking
babies and putting them in ovens.” Hassaine says the West’s mistake was to
view such atrocities as an internal matter for Algeria. In fact, the
extremists behind them were already feeding Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda
network. In 1994, Hassaine and his family fled to London. “I was not going
to let my baby get put in an oven,” he says. He was able to leave only by
making a deal with the Algerian security services to help them spy on
Islamic extremists. Then in 1998, as France prepared to host the World Cup,
its law enforcement agencies anticipated terrorist violence. A man from the
French Embassy in London, whom Hassaine knew only as Jerome, recruited him
to obtain information about any possible attacks. “They were giving me the
chance to get revenge,” Hassaine says. A bin Ladenist newspaper was set up,
with Hassaine as editor. “People knew me as a journalist in Algeria, so it
was a nice cover.” He began providing the French with as much information
as he could glean from days and nights spent praying, eating, talking with
various extremists. When the French didn’t come through with an offer of
citizenship, Hassaine volunteered to help the British. In 1999, Special
Branch asked him to infiltrate the now notorious Finsbury Park mosque in
North London, where the imam, Abu Hamza, preached jihad to the likes of the
shoebomber Richard Reid. Hassaine was already familiar with Abu Hamza and
his ally Abu Qatada — both of them among the top supporters in London of
Islamic extremists in Algeria. He held them responsible in no small way for
what had happened in his home country. According to the BBC, Abu Qatada has
circulated a pamphlet revelling in the murders of Algerian policemen, while
Abu Hamza once issued a fatwa urging the assassination of various Middle
Eastern public figures as well as a two-year-old Algerian child. In
December 1998, 12 Britons, two Australians, two Americans and four locals
were taken hostage by Yemeni terrorists, who telephoned Abu Hamza within an
hour of the kidnapping. The Yemeni Government attempted a rescue, in which
four of the hostages were killed. The Yemenis also accused Abu Hamza of
sending ten jihadists (including his own son) there to attack Western
targets in Aden, and sought Abu Hamza’s extradition “to be tried on charges
of carrying out terrorist activities in Yemen and in several other Arab
states”. The request was denied; the British Government has no extradition
agreement with Yemen, a fact that has irritated numerous governments, from
Jordan to the United States, in their attempts to fight terrorism. As this
international struggle went on, British authorities asked Hassaine for
reports on Abu Hamza and his associates, as well as a detailed map of the
Finsbury Park mosque and all its escape routes. The information presumably
proved useful when Scotland Yard arrested Abu Hamza and two other men in a
morning raid in March 1999. Four days later they were released. The
authorities didn’t feel the case was strong enough. “I was shocked,”
Hassaine says. “There is a big problem in the law here in London. Islamists
can claim assassinations, they can do propaganda. And all these things are
‘freedom of expression’ — even if you call for killing people. The law is
very, very weak. In France, these people would have been in jail a long
time ago.” Having separated from his wife, at least partly out of concern
for her and their two children, and still seeking non-Algerian citizenship,
Hassaine was assured that his asylum application would soon be taken care
of. In the meantime, Special Branch passed his name on to MI5, which soon
had him hanging out with Algerian extremists in London plotting various
attacks.He saw a lot from the inside. Abu Qatada recruited the shoebomber
Richard Reid and the “20th hijacker” Zacarias Moussaoui, Hassaine says. “I
saw them. Abu Qatada is the best brainwasher there is.” In April 2000,
Hassaine, working with his MI5 handlers, “went to check on information
about somebody who went to Afghanistan to meet with Osama bin Laden”. At
the Finsbury Park mosque, he stumbled on to an odd gathering of the most
hardcore congregants and some bizarre talk of martyrdom and holy warriors.
Hassaine was chased down and beaten. “They tried to kill me,” he says. Had
his cover been blown? Who told them he was working for the Government? What
was his mistake? “I didn’t have time to ask them why they were doing it,”
Hassaine says. “I lost two teeth. See this?” he points to a scar on his
nose. “I was very scared.” MI5 wasn’t interested in pursuing his attackers.
“They told me, what do you want? Do you want the guy who beat you or Abu
Qatada?” M15 told him that he had been compromised, that he should be quiet
for a while. No such restrictions need bother Abu Hamza. Seeing him walk
the London streets infuriates Hassaine, as does reading his comments in
newspapers. Recently, Hassaine says, one of the leaders of the Finsbury
Park mosque “was calling for jihad against Americans and even the British
if they attack Iraq. So they are still free in Finsbury Park and saying
what they want. And doing what they want. And as long as Abu Hamza is free
the threat is here. Because his aim is to be killed one day by doing
jihad.” Although Abu Hamza’s assets have been frozen because of his alleged
membership of the Islamic Army of Aden, which has been linked to the
October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, he remains a free man — and an
outspoken one. After the al-Qaeda bombing of Israeli tourists in Kenya, Abu
Hamza told reporters that “by forcing al-Qaeda to scatter around the world,
Mr Bush has made a mistake. He has given the inspiration for a global
jihad.” Abu Qatada, meanwhile, is in prison in London, one of ten suspects
being held under anti-terrorism laws introduced after September 11.
Unfortunately for Hassaine, as his usefulness as a spy evaporated, so too
did the government pledge to honour his request for asylum, which was
rejected. He is permitted to stay in the UK, but unlike Abu Hamza — a
British citizen since 1985 — he is subject to deportation at any time. “My
life is f***ed,” he says. “I don’t know what I’m going to do now.” Hassaine
reserves his animosity for Islamists. I tell him that I think it odd and
not a little disappointing that he isn’t being employed by the British and
French governments, but all he says in response is that Algerians like him
do have a lot experience with Islamic extremists. “The British and the
Americans — of course they are doing their job, they are trying to solve
the problem,” he says. “But it will not be easy. They need the help of Arab
people. If they think that the technology or the power or the arms or
something like that will do it, yes, it does help. But it will not be
enough.” But in the end they didn’t treat you that well, I say. And it
doesn’t sound as if they had a firm grasp on what they were doing. Didn’t
he think they should have treated him better? “I don’t know,” he says. “I
did what I had to do. By myself. Nobody told me to do it.” He says he
doesn’t fear for his safety any more. “If I will be killed,” he says,
“Pffft! It will be as a martyr.” This article first appeared in The Weekly
Standard. Should Britain be doing more to root out terrorism? Send your
e-mails to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
and Carlyle.
