http://youtu.be/DM96XaOJ854

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DM96XaOJ854 – 15/2014.

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What if Abdul Wahid Majid had deliberately detonated his bomb early?

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Relatives told how the dad-of-three was a former lorry driver had worked for the Highways Agency but gave up his job six months ago to join a convoy running aid into Syria.

Abdul Waheed Majeed: First picture of ‘Mad Max’ Brit who ‘blew himself up in Syrian prison break’ – Mirror Online – 2/12/2014.

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Someone asks Majeed to give final words, but Majeed says, in English, that he “is not a very good speaker” and “his tongue has, got like a knot in it.” He then notes that anything he says “should come from the heart.” “I can’t do it,” he says.

Related: Jihadists release video of British suicide bomber in Syria – The Long War Journal – 2/14/2014.

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While the west worries about the return of citizen-cum-“foreign jihadis” to their own soil, they may be overlooking the notion that the same carry their Dutch, English, or other national zeitgeist with them on their way to taking part in “charity work” in Syria’s civil war.

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Clapper, citing the intelligence community’s new Worldwide Threat Assessment, estimated that 1,600 militant groups were operating inside the war-torn country, including a sizable chunk of extremists. Between the 75,000 to 110,000 fighters inside Syria, “about 26,000 we’d rate as extremists,” he said.

Intel Chiefs: Syria a ‘Huge Magnet’ for International Terrorists – 1/29/2014.

James Clapper‘s citing 26,000 western irregulars in the Syrian theater as extremists would seem to leave between 49,000 and  84,000 of the same as other than “extreme.”

So, if they are not extreme, what are they?

Evidently, among other things, good for suicide missions.

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 The most prominent casualty amongst this foreign fighter contingent was Omar Hammami, the American who rose within al-Shabaab to become its unofficial poster-boy. Increasingly angered by what he saw as the “authoritarian” approach adopted by Godane, he lashed out through videos and on his Twitter account, claiming he was under threat from the Shabaab leadership. Hammami survived one attempt on his life before succumbing to an assassin’s bullet on September 12. Dying alongside him was Osama al-Britani, a British-Pakistani national believed to be Habib Ghani, a long-standing British fighter in the region who was closely linked to the semi-mythical “white widow” Samantha Lewthwaite, widow of one of the July 7, 2005 bombers of London’s underground system (Daily Mail, September 13).

Refworld | Foreign Fighters in Somalia and al-Shabaab’s Internal Purge – 12/3/2013.

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One year ago, American foreign fighter Omar Hammami detailed how Shabaab and al Qaeda betrayed and sought to kill him in Somalia (See here). Shabaab did this because Omar suspected Godane was killing off al Qaeda leaders and foreign fighters that had traveled to Somalia. Omar’s prophecy came true when Shabaab killed him in September 2013.

The past month we’ve again seen unprecedented infighting amongst al Qaeda affiliates, this time in Syria.

American Foreign Fighter Details How al Qaeda’s Nusra Betrayed Him In Syria – Selected Wisdom – video included – 2/12/2014.

What’s going on as regards betrayal of foreign fighters in the field?

I’d gamble on corrupting power of money plus the canny manipulation of this latest update on “cannon fodder”.

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