American's odyssey to al Qaeda's heart

[Turborama]

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Army dropout Bryant Neal Vinas says he went to Pakistan to join al Qaeda
- He claims he was inducted into the group and authorized to attack U.S. troops
- During his travels Vinas says he met some of al Qaeda's top leaders

By CNN Senior International Correspondent Nic Robertson and Paul Cruickshank

Editor's note: This story is based on interrogation reports that form part of the prosecution case in the forthcoming trial of six Belgian citizens charged with participation in a terrorist group. Versions of those documents were obtained by CNN from the defense attorney of one of those suspects. The statement by Bryant Vinas was compiled from an interview he gave Belgian prosecutors in March 2009 in New York, and was confirmed by U.S. prosecutors as authentic. The statement by Walid Othmani was given to French investigators, and was authenticated by Belgian prosecutors.

(CNN) -- On September 10, 2007, almost exactly six years after al Qaeda attacked the United States, Bryant Neal Vinas, a 24-year-old American citizen born in Queens, New York, boarded a flight from the city en route to Lahore, in eastern Pakistan, determined to fight jihad in neighboring Afghanistan.

Brought up a Catholic by his Latin American immigrant parents, who divorced when he was young, Vinas tried to join the U.S. army in 2002 but dropped out after just a few weeks.

In 2004 -- for reasons which are still unclear -- he converted to Islam and started frequenting a mosque in Long Island near where he lived with his father. During the next three years he became radicalized, U.S. officials have stated, in no small part because of his exposure to pro-al Qaeda Web sites.

It is possible that Vinas was also influenced by people he came across in the New York area. A former U.S. Government official told CNN that youths influenced by the ideas of the British pro-al Qaeda extremist group Al Muhajiroun were known to have hung out in the vicinity of the mosque at the same time as Vinas.

Continues: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/07/30/robertson.al.qaeda.american/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

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1. “Al Qaeda” Who?

In 2004 British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook told the House of Commons that “Al Qaeda” was not really a terrorist group but a database of international mujaheddin and arms smugglers used by the CIA and Saudis to funnel guerrillas, arms, and money into Soviet-occupied Afghanistan.
A. We say they are doing bad things.
B. We blame them and use them for our causes de jour
C. They are everywhere and anywhere that we want them to be.
D. Add the Downing Street memos and you see clearly a massive fraud that goes on to this day.