On January 25, 2019, Al-Malahem, the media wing of the Yemen-based Al-Qaeda In The Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), released the second part of its “Demolition Of Espionage” series featuring a group of men expressing their regret for spying and addressing various recruitment tactics used by intelligence agencies. The video, which was posted on the Al-Malahem Telegram channel, included a phone conversation allegedly between a CIA officer and a potential spy.
The video, which was posted on Al-Malahem Telegram channel, also featured the group’s commander Qassem Al-Rimi and senior official Khaled Batarfi several times condemning the spies and the agencies behind them.
According to the video, those most suitable to be recruited as spies are “the anarchists, the temperamental ones, those with weak personalities, impious people, the greedy ones, the troublemakers, and those who chose their emotions over the rules of shari’a…”
The video then said that recruiters used intimidation and temptation to lure people into becoming spies, promising them positions or money. The intimidation tactic, the video stressed, is more widely used. According to the video, in some cases recruits are threatened with imprisonment, while in others the recruit himself, one of his female relatives, or his wife are filmed being raped and then the recruit is given the choice of working as a spy or having the video become public.
To warn Muslims not to spy, the video featured a phone conversation allegedly between a CIA officer and someone the intelligence agency tried to recruit. In the conversation, the potential recruit was asked if he knew anything about a kidnapped U.S. citizen who was believed to be in Ma’rib. He was also asked if he had noticed any foreigners in his area. The person was told that he had been contacted because he was intelligent and was offered cash and assistance for him and his family. The potential recruit said he was afraid that the communication with the recruiter would be leaked, saying that he learned AQAP executes those who work with Americans. The recruiter then assured the man that his safety was a top priority and that they would ensure that the relationship would remain secret.
After mentioning that intelligence agencies use social media to recruit people, the video then displayed a WhatsApp message allegedly sent by a U.S Embassy to an influential person expressing the intention to cooperate with him in the interests of the province, the name of which was blurred.
AQAP then praised Jordanian national Hammam Al-Balawi, who had been recruited by Jordanian intelligence and whose suicide operation at Camp Chapman in Khost, Afghanistan, in December 2009 killed seven CIA officers.
Condemning pro-government religious scholars, the video called on Muslims not to listen to them and instead follow the “true” scholars who are either imprisoned or killed by tyrants.
Khaled Batarfi, one of the senior commanders of AQAP, also appeared several times in the video. In one segment, he stated that AQAP “has understood the dirty methods the U.S. and its tails from the treasonous governments use to recruit.” This was followed by a segment in which one of the accused spies noted that he was filmed while being raped and was asked to work as a spy.
A man identified as Abu Hamza Al-Maghribi said that he was recruited by Swedish intelligence to spy on Muslims in Sweden and that he was offered Swedish citizenship. Al-Maghribi, who was executed and crucified in 2014 in Yemen, said that he did not know that when someone agrees to become a spy, it would be difficult to quit.
Addressing spies inside or outside AQAP, the group called on them to repent and inform the mujahideen and that in return the group will protect and pardon them.
The video then featured a child saying that the Yemeni intelligence agency had recruited him to place a tracking chip inside a car used by an AQAP operative Adnan Al-Qadi, who was killed in U.S. airstrike in November 2012. The child’s father was sentenced to death for forcing his son to place the chips in Al-Qadi’s car and the child was set free for being underage.
Al-Qadi and AQAP member Lutfi Bahar, according to the video, were behind the 2008 attack on the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa’ and that Al-Qadi loaded explosives into the cars used in the operation, which belonged to the sons of former Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Saleh.
Source: Telegram.me/ January 25, 2019.
