In the beautiful new world of Ahmad Wali Sidiqi, there were no more bills to pay. Rent, electricity, even weddings -- the "baet-ul-mal," or people's treasury, paid for all of these things for him and the others. And thanks to his computer skills, he even had his own office and staff working for him, he bragged in a telephone conversation. When his father asked about his health in a conversation in February 2010, he replied that where he was now living, "there is a cure for all illnesses." For the family, which lived in a high-rise apartment development in Hamburg, it sounded as if Sidiqi had discovered a sort of Islamic Shangri-La in the Hindu Kush region, a paradise on earth.
But the world intelligence agents reconstructed, with the help of wiretapped telephone conversations and statements Sidiqi made later on, was completely different. It was dusty and bleak, full of hardships, threats and arduous training. It was the world of the terrorist training camps run by al-Qaida and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), where Sidiqi learned the art of killing. In fact, for Sidiqi, life in the training camps was more hell than heaven. He was afflicted by a knee injury, and he also contracted malaria.
The Higher Regional Court in the western German city of Koblenz will address this reality on March 19. The case against the 37-year-old German of Afghan descent will revolve primarily around al-Qaida attack plans that triggered a wave of terror alerts in Europe. In the fall of 2010, the German interior minister at the time, Thomas de Maizière, stood in front of the TV cameras and explained, with great concern, that terrorists were planning an attack in Germany "before the end of November." De Maizière sent armed federal police officers to airports and train stations, and he had barriers erected around the Reichstag, the building in Berlin where the German parliament meets. » | Hubert Gude | Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan | Tuesday, February 28, 2012
