Terror In A Burqa

One of those arrested in the Belgian security sweep yesterday that I blogged about, is an al Qaeda operative whose husband is infamous as one of the assassins of the famed leader of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance in Afghanistan shortly before the 9/11 attacks on America. Belgian authorities arrested Malika el Aroud as the suspected organizer of the Belgian cell. Malika el Aroud represents terror in a burqa and is the epitome of devotion to one Osama bin Laden. In 2006, Paul Cruickshank interviewed this evil woman in Switzerland and it is chilling - bone chilling. I've excerpted much of the article here but I encourage you to read the entire piece here at CNN. Remember, this is a 2006 interview but you can see from that just how this woman came to evolve into a leader who now is behind bars in Belgium:

Suicide bomber's widow soldiers on

(CNN) -- Malika el Aroud still loves Osama bin Laden. And she loves him even though he sent her husband, Abdessater Dahmane, to die.
On September 9, 2001, Dahmane and another man assassinated Ahmed Shah Massoud, the legendary leader of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance in Afghanistan.
It was a vital mission: Taliban support needed to be shored up in anticipation of al Qaeda's attack on America. Dahmane, a Tunisian al Qaeda recruit was, like his wife, devoted to bin Laden.
"It's easy for me to describe the love my husband felt because I felt it myself," she said. "Most Muslims love Osama. It was he who helped the oppressed. It was he who stood up against the biggest enemy in the world, the United States. We love him for that."
Our CNN crew was quite taken aback at these words. Before the interview she had kindly fussed over us with an amazing array of cakes and Moroccan tea. But now she was professing devotion to bin Laden and his cause.
We met el Aroud on a cold February day in Guin, a small town in Switzerland north of Fribourg. She lives there with her new husband, a Tunisian named Moez Garsalloui, whom she gently bosses around. She is a woman who says what she thinks.
El Aroud is a passionate believer in bin Laden's jihad and, together with her new husband, devotes her time to running a Web site promoting it. Because of the Web site, Swiss authorities detained the couple for several days last year for inciting terrorism. An investigation is ongoing.
El Aroud is in her 40s now. She is covered in black robes from head to toe with just a small slit for her large, expressive brown eyes, dramatically illuminated by our TV lights in her first television interview.
Gazing into CNN's cameras she told us, "It's the pinnacle in Islam to be the widow of a martyr. For a woman it's extraordinary."

Dahmane never told his wife that he was going to be a suicide bomber, el Aroud said. She said that before he left on his trip he told her he would be back "in a fortnight."
Instead, he and a fellow Tunisian, Bouraoui el Ouaer, posing as television journalists arranged an interview with Massoud. A bomb that had been hidden in the camera exploded.
El Aroud said she learned of her husband's death on September 12, 2001. As she described how the families around her came to congratulate her for her husband's actions there was noticeable tension in her voice. It was a huge shock to her, and for weeks after she was numb with grief, she said.
An al Qaeda courier dropped off a letter from bin Laden that included $500. She said bin Laden had wanted to settle a debt. With the letter came a tape, chillingly from her dead husband in which he told her he loved her but that he was "already on the other side."
Her mourning was interrupted by the beginning of the U.S. bombing campaign on Afghanistan. She escaped to Pakistan where, exhausted, she walked into the Belgian Embassy and asked to go home.
But in Belgium, Malika was put on trial for complicity in the murder of Massoud. The case was dismissed in 2003 for lack of evidence.
She is undaunted by the investigation into her Web site and she ushered us into her bedroom to show us how she runs the forum. As the crew recorded from behind her, a large image popped on her computer monitor -- Osama bin Laden.