Churchill's Colonial Karma

(This is an edited extract from this essay)

Mr. Moazzam Begg, the cause celebre of the so-called ‘British Muslim’ community because of his cruel and inhumane detention at the hands of the United States government in Guantanamo Bay is also one of the founders and directors Cage International, a human rights advocacy organisation. In an interview with Dilly Hussain, an editor of the British Muslim website, 5 Pillars on its official podcast “Blood Brothers”, Begg shared his thoughts about the regime change war on Syria in the 2010s and in doing so, he opined on the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) regime change war in Libya in 2011. Begg himself establishes there is a link between the western backed Libyan and Syrian regime change wars. As he says:

“Interestingly many of the people who had started the revolution in Libya and taken part in it militarily had some experience actually went on to set up and support some of the first resistance movements in Syria. So these very Libyans had gone from Libya and joined and fought…with this Free Syrian Army.”

Anyone paying attention to the 2010s regime change wars should immediately note there is nothing interesting or remarkable about this. To express it bluntly, it was simply a case of NATO moving its unofficial foot soldiers or Muslim mercenaries from one arena of conflict to another to implement pro-western regime change. According to a Daily Telegraph report, in the month after Colonel Ghadhaffi was lynched by NATO’s Libyan “moderate rebels” in the Libyan city of Sirte in October 2011, a leading player in NATO’s war, Abd al-Hakim Belhaj travelled to the Syrian-Turkish border to meet so-called leaders from the Free Syrian Army (FSA). Dividends from this journey seemed to have paid off in early 2012 with the formation of a jihadist group called Kataib al-Muhajireen, which according to the Syrian regime change propagandist and Zionist, Charles Lister in his book, The Syrian Jihad, was “initially dominated by Libyans who had travelled to Syria after the fall of” Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Ghadhaffi. This group was eventually led by the veteran jihadi the Chechen, Omar al-Shishani.

Another Libyan led fighting group called Liwa al-Ummah was formed in May 2012 by Belhaj’s right hand man, Mahdi al-Harati. The legendry investigative journalist, Seymour Hersh also wrote an article in early 2014 about this aspect of the Libyan-Syrian mercenary conveyor belt titled, The Red Line and the Rat Line. He argued that weapons were supplied from Libya’s arsenal, after the fall of the Ghadhaffi, government into Syria. According to Hersh, the Rat Line was, “authorised in early 2012, [and] was used to funnel weapons and ammunition from Libya via southern Turkey and across the Syrian border to the opposition.” Hersh relates a “highly classified annex” to an American report that describes

“a secret agreement reached in early 2012 between the Obama and Erdoğan administrations. It pertained to the rat line. By the terms of the agreement, funding came from Turkey, as well as Saudi Arabia and Qatar; the CIA, with the support of [Britain’s] MI6, was responsible for getting arms from Gaddafi’s arsenals into Syria.”

One could also argue the emergence of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) was a consequence of the NATO Libyan regime change operation. According to Begg’s acquaintance the pro-Zionist author, Lister, by the spring of 2013, Kataib al-Muhajireen had merged with other jihadi groups such as “Kataib al-Khattab, Jaish Mohammed” and other “smaller Syrian jihadist cells to form Jaish al-Muhajireen wa’l Ansar” with the Chechen, al-Shishani remaining the leader of the merged group.

By November 2013, Shishani split from Jaish al-Muhajireen wa’l Ansar and formerly joined ISIS taking with him some of his acolytes or as Lister writes, “al-Shishani and his loyal supporters within Jaish al-Muhajireen wa’l Ansar would effectively become ISIS combatants.”

Connection with Begg?

According to the Defence Editor of the London Times, Deborah Hayes, the notorious British ISIS head chopper Mohammed Emwazi aka ‘Jihadi John’ entered Syria in late 2012 or early 2013 and then specifically joined the aforementioned Kataiba al-Muhajireen “a 700-strong brigade of foreign fighters thought to have included up to 80 Britons.” The Daily Mail at the time claimed that he is believed to be “one of more than 700 foreign fighters in the Kataiba al-Muhajireen.”According to a Foreign Policy Magazine(FP) article Begg,

“…stayed with a group of British fighters who were part of the newly formed Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar, or “Army of Immigrants and Supporters.” Begg provided a group, mostly composed of Brits, with fitness training, teaching them jumping jacks, push-ups, and similar exercises…”

Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar was the group that included Kataiba al-Muhajireen and was later to de facto merge into ISIS. If we take the FP article as credible, then knowingly or unknowingly, Begg may have conducted training to future ISIS combatants some time in 2013. Begg also admits to Dilly that he provided training to fighters.

It is within this context, that in February 2014 Begg was arrested by British police even though he had meetings with British intelligence, MI5, before travelling to Syria between 2012-13.

Conclusion: Seeing through Collusion

As Begg writes in his autobiography he comes from an Indian family that served western interests for decades, possibly even more than century, during the British Raj, that is, the British predacious occupation of India. He risibly calls this family inheritance “strong military tradition” and indeed his support and training of fighters in Syria in support of western backed regime change can be seen as in keeping with this “tradition” of doing the West’s bidding. Old family habits die hard, if they ever do.

Furthermore, it is the moral and logical duty of the ‘British Muslim community’ to exercise basic common sense in that you can sympathise with Begg’s ordeal at the hands of the Americans in Guantanamo Bay but totally reject his regime change propaganda when Begg hypocritically joins United States in regime change campaigns.

Obviously, for legal reasons, this author does not claim Begg must’ve met or even trained fighters who later joined ISIS.

(This is an edited extract and to read the essay in full, click here.)