(CNN) World's Untold Stories: One Woman's Online Propaganda War

[Turborama]

Run time: 07:42 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOveeyCf0Qg   Posted on YouTube: February 12, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: February 15, 2009 By DU Member: Turborama Views on DU: 775

 
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiMa9gccm_Q

Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMMP4SprD1o

When Malika El Aroud was arrested for suspected terrorist offenses before Christmas last year Belgian police claimed they had detained no less than an "al Qaeda living legend." As the wife of the al Qaeda operative who assassinated Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Shah Massoud in a suicide bombing just before 9/11, her words are said to carry substantial weight in terror circles.

In this edition of the World's Untold Stories, CNN, which obtained an exclusive interview with the woman counterterror forces simply call "Malika," tells the extraordinary story of how she once used to party in Brussels nightclubs, fell in love with a militant extremist, then found herself living with Osama bin Laden's inner circle in Afghanistan. Eloquent, passionate, and persuasive she is now accused of being one of al Qaeda's most prominent online propogandists. Authorities say she may have inspired an entire cadre of radicalized Muslim men across Europe to take up arms. Their number may include her new husband, who is believed to have joined forces with al Qaeda in the tribal areas of Pakistan. CNN's documentary will shed extraordinary new insight on the continuing global security threat posed by Bin Laden's global Jihad.

LONDON, England -- When I got off the Eurostar train I’d taken from London to Brussels there was nothing to suggest I was in a city that has ties to radical Islamic terrorism.

Quite the reverse, the very nature of Euro train terminus at the Gare du Midi is, dare I say it, quintessential busy modern Europe. Neat Euro bistros bustle with a cosmopolitan collection of travelers from as close as the suburbs to people like me who’ve taken the short two-hour ride from Britain.

So I suppose it felt a little strange to be here in a city that on the surface doesn’t have a terrorism problem.

Indeed, compared to many places I travel like the Middle East or Afghanistan, it felt positively tame.

I’d come to tell the story of Malika el Aroud, a 49-year-old Belgian-Moroccan woman who had one husband killed in a high profile al Qaeda suicide attack and has herself been convicted in Switzerland of running a Web site promoting terrorism.

Somehow I felt in the wrong place. Not so, when barely an hour later we are being accosted by a bunch of angry young men while filming in a neighborhood barely five minutes' drive from the station. I was coming face to face with an undercurrent that passes most people by. It was to be an undercurrent I would come across again and again during my stay.

The Belgian police chief told us that because of high levels of immigration, seven out of 10 children at schools in Brussels cannot speak either of Belgium's mother tongues -- French or Flemish. He explained that Brussels' immigrant population has become segregated, in some places physically, from the rest of society.

That segregation has heightened resentment over poor housing, poor education and poor job prospects for many immigrants and their children.

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By the time we ready to board the Eurostar train back to London I’d learned a lot. Not least, according to the police, the most radical mosque in the city, the Tawhid Mosque, was in fact barely a stones throw from the cobbled taxi rank at the Gare du Midi.

Sinking in to my seat as the train pulled out of the station I was struck by the scale of the task Europe’s police forces face.

-- By CNN Senior International Correspondent, Nic Robertson

http://edition.cnn.com/CNNI/Programs/untoldstories/blog/2009/02/one-womans-war.html">CNN

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