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bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful === News Update === Fake Muslim : Doubt cast on Anani's terrorist claims Jihad adviser says story of holy war in Lebanon rings false Trevor Wilhelm Windsor Star Saturday, January 20, 2007 Zachariah Anani, a self-proclaimed former terrorist who now warns against Islam's so-called teachings of terror against Canada and the West, is imagining his past exploits as a mass murderer, according to a top jihad expert. Tom Quiggin, Canada's only court-qualified expert on global jihadism and a former RCMP intelligence and national security expert, said Anani's tales of terror and murder just don't jibe with the time and place he claims to have been killing. "Mr. Anani's not an individual who rates the slightest degree of credibility, based on the stories that he has told," said Quiggin, also a Senior Fellow at the Centre of Excellence for National Security in Singapore. "To have Mr. Anani described as a terrorist grants an impact to his words that simply is not rated. "Whatever else he may have been, he was not a Muslim terrorist in Lebanon in the early 1970s. "He may have been a low-level militant, radical, street fighter or insurgent, but he was not a terrorist of any description based on his stories." Anani, 49, touched off a controversy last week when he gave an anti-Islamic lecture at Campbell Baptist Church called The Deadly Threat of Islam. He says Islamic doctrine teaches the worship of a god who "strikes with terror" and allows no prisoners in the battle against Christians and Jews. Anani, now an evangelical Christian, claims to be an expert on the topic because he killed 223 people in Allah's name, "two-thirds of them by daggers." He even claims to have killed a man for waking him up at 3 a.m. to pray. Anani, born in Lebanon, said he joined a militant Muslim group in the early 1970s at age 13, and made his first kill shortly after. "I was trained to fight and kill Jews, and to hate Christians and Americans," Anani has said in varying versions of his story. He said he was soon promoted to troop leader and formed his own regiment, but later met a Christian missionary and converted. Anani said he was persecuted for his conversion -- even his dad hired assassins to kill him. He said he was soon promoted to troop leader and formed his own regiment, but later met a Christian missionary and converted. Anani said he was persecuted for his conversion -- even his dad hired assassins to kill him -- and he was technically dead for seven minutes after narrowly escaping a beheading. He fled to the West and moved to Windsor about 10 years ago. His wife and three daughters joined him three years later. Even in Canada, Anani said he's been physically attacked, and his house and car have been burned in Windsor for speaking out against Islam. POLICE LACK RECORDS Staff. Sgt. Ed McNorton said Windsor police don't have a record of physical attacks against Anani, and his house wasn't burned. McNorton said someone did torch his car, but it wasn't for the reasons Anani has claimed. "There is nothing in the report we have to indicate it was in retaliation to his religious beliefs," said McNorton. Anani's bio also states he lectured at Princeton University. Cass Cliatt, Princeton's media relations manager, said that never happened. She said Anani was scheduled to lecture there in late 2005 with the Walid Shoebat Foundation. But the event was cancelled and the foundation held a news conference at a nearby hotel. Anani has refused several requests from The Star to revisit his past in detail. Following a sermon Thursday night from Campbell Baptist Church Pastor Donald McKay -- Anani was scheduled to speak but his lecture was cancelled -- he again refused to answer questions. "I've already spoken enough about that," he said. "There is no need to repeat that, especially when there is people waiting to see me. So make it quick please.... If there are no more essential questions, please, let's wrap it up." But Quiggin said there are some important details in Anani's story that don't add up. "It appears to be that Mr. Anani is nothing more than an extremist who is trying to create an imaginative history from a contemporary set of fears and stories," said Quiggin. "Mr. Anani's myths that he has built up around himself lack validity on a number of key points." One key point, he said, is Anani's claim that he killed 223 people. FIGHTING BEGAN IN 1975 Anani has said he's 49 years old, which would mean he was born in 1957 or 1958, said Quiggin. If he joined his first militant group when he was 13, it would have been in 1970 or 1971. But the fighting in Lebanon did not begin in earnest until 1975, Quiggin said. "His story of having made kills shortly after he joined and having made 223 kills overall is preposterous, given the lack of fighting during most of the time period he claims to have been a fighter," Quiggin said. "He also states he left Lebanon to go to Al-Azhar University at the age of 18, which would mean he went to Egypt in 1976. In other words, according to himself, he left Lebanon within a year of when the fighting actually started." He also pointed to a story on WorldNetDaily in which Walid Shoebat, another ex-terrorist and friend of Anani, also claims to have killed 223 people, two-thirds of them with daggers. "What a coincidence," Quiggin said. Quiggin said Anani's description of himself as a Muslim terrorist also "defies logic" based on the time frame. "Most the groups involved in the fighting in Lebanon were secular and tended to be extreme leftists or Marxists," he said. Quiggin said religious-based terrorism as part of the warring in Lebanon didn't begin until after 1979, following the revolution in Iran, the Soviet attack on Afghanistan and the attack on the Grand Mosque in Mecca by Sunni Muslim extremists. Anani's claim to have survived a beheading attempt is also questionable, said Quiggin. "This was not a common practice in Lebanon at any time and again it appears as though he is attempting to build up his past mythology by playing on current Iraqi-based fears," Quiggin said. YOUTH OF ALI He also questioned Anani's assertion that the militant group he killed with was called the Youth of Ali, named after the prophet Muhammad's cousin. Quiggin said a group called Youth of Ali wasn't even known to have been in existence during the civil war period in Lebanon that Anani is talking about. "This story makes less sense as it goes along," said Quiggin. That is one detail Anani was willing to discuss Thursday, when he revised his story to say the group wasn't named after the prophet's relative. "Actually, Ali was the top-notch guy in the area," said Anani. "That's why they called it that. The Youth of Ali is the wrong word. You could say the Boys of Ali. That means the guy who was leading the group in the area." He said the group no longer exists. "They were a small fragment," said Anani. "It's a more minor group. It was a long time ago. " [EMAIL PROTECTED] or 519-255-5777, ext. 642 THREAT DOUBTED Michael Bell, a former Canadian ambassador to Israel, Egypt and Jordan, doesn't buy Zachariah Anani's claim that Muslims pose a risk to Canadian society. He said new groups were often looked on with suspicion in Canadian history. "We have to take a long run perspective on this and not be spooked," Bell said. "For Muslims in Canada, this is not a primary preoccupation. They're a group of people looking for a place within Canadian society. I don't agree Islam in Canada is an overwhelmingly united force bent on very specific and unacceptable goals." Ran with fact box "Threat Doubted" which has been appended source: http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=4a479502-4490-408e-bdb5-f2638619a62c For background see: http://www.montrealmuslimnews.net/anani.htm === -muslim voice- ______________________________________ BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
