During the course of the long and bloody war that follows, intelligence services captured hundreds of tapes shot by Al Qaeda’s own foot soldiers. Using only this material, as well as rare CSI footage shot by police to record the carnage, this startling film tells the story of Al Qaeda’s daring – and ultimately suicidal – mission to topple the House of Saud.

The archive footage lays the terrorists bare and offers unprecedented insight into their minds and methods from an intimate conversation as they drive to their deaths, to bumbling outtakes as they try to remember their lines for their suicide videos; from a torture chamber where their latest American captive is pressed to confess, to a sitting room where a father teaches his infant son how to execute a prisoner.

Path of Blood, based on the book of the same title, is an archive-driven picture told in the present tense without interviews and the most minimal of commentary. Audiences will be disturbed to the core by how easily these young men descend into evil. 

Join us for a screening and Q&A for a film made by a diverse team of journalists, writers and creative minds who brought us films such as The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty and more. Path of Blood is not how films are made. It shouldn’t make any sense. The fact that it was – and does – makes it all the more unique.

Speakers

Thomas Small is co-producer of Path of Blood and co-author, along with director Jonathan Hacker, of the book of the same title. He studied Arabic & Islamic Studies at SOAS after spending several years travelling the Middle East, and during his ten years working for OR Media, he has produced historical and current affairs documentary series in Arabic. In his spare time, he writes book reviews for the Times Literary Supplement.

THE EXILE tells the extraordinary story of the almost ten years that Osama Bin Laden evaded intelligence services and special forces units, drones and hunter killer squads. Through the eyes of those who witnessed it, Scott-Clark and Levy offer an insider’s account from bin Laden’s four wives and children, his deputies and military strategists, his spiritual advisor, the CIA, Pakistan’s ISI, and many others who have never before told their stories.

Having gained unique access to bin Laden’s inner circle, Scott-Clark and Levy, recount the flight of Al Qaeda’s forces and bin Laden’s innocent family members, the gradual formation of ISIS by bin Laden’s lieutenants, and bin Laden’s rising paranoia and eroding control over his organisation. They also reveal that the Bush White House knew the whereabouts of bin Laden’s family and Al Qaeda’s military and religious leaders, but rejected opportunities to capture them, pursuing war in the Persian Gulf instead, and offer insights into how Al Qaeda will attempt to regenerate itself in the coming years.

The sporadic release of documents by the Defence Department in recent years only represented about 1 percent of the million-plus document trove recovered in Abbottabad. “We need more detail and not less. We require more nuance and understanding if we are to ever tamp down a bloody conflict that threatens the globe,” write Scott-Clark and Levy, “And it is from this place— a desire for a contemporary, complex, untidy, knotted, verbal history, where no one is regular or consistent, and where allies are murderously betraying their friends, in which good men make poor choices, and switch sides, and wives become double agents—that this book begins.” While we think we know what happened in Abbottabad on May 2, 2011, we know little about the wilderness years that led to that shocking event.

Chair- Owen-Bennett Jones

Owen Bennett-Jones is a journalist for the BBC and one of the hosts of Newshour on the BBC World Service. He has reported from over 60 countries, including Pakistan. In this time he gained unprecedented access to interview members of Al Qaeda. In 2008 Bennett-Jones won the Sony journalist of the year award and in 2009 the Commonwealth journalist of the year. He is the author of ‘Pakistan: Eye of the Storm’ (2010) and a contributor to the Lonely Planet’s ‘Pakistan and the Karakoram Highway’. Bennett-Jones is a regular contributor to the Financial Times, the Guardian and the London Review of Books.

Speakers

CATHY SCOTT-CLARK

Is an award-winning journalist, author and film-maker, reporting over the past twenty five years for the Sunday Times, Guardian, BBC and Channel 4 from places as varied as Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bosnia, Rwanda, Serbia, Russia,, China, Bangladesh, Burma, Vietnam, Thailand, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Iran.

ADRIAN LEVY

Is an internationally renowned and award-winning investigative journalist who worked as a staff writer and foreign correspondent for the Sunday Times for seven years before joining the Guardian as senior correspondent. He has reported from South Asia for more than a decade, and now lives in London.

On the release of his new book Salafi-Jihadism: The History of an Idea, we will be joined by senior research fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) Dr Shiraz Maher – in conversation with journalist Clarissa Ward – to discuss the origins and development of salafi-jihadism. We will be tracing the evolution of the key ideas behind one of today’s most destructive forces – as well as its transmutation and growing prominence in recent years. We will explore what salafi-jihadism seeks to achieve, and the extent to which its rapid escalation is a product of recent wars.

This event will be moderated by Clarissa Ward, a multi award-winning senior international correspondent based at CNN London.

Dr. Shiraz Maher is a member of the War Studies department at King’s College London and a senior research fellow in its International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR). He currently leads the Centre’s research on the Syrian and Iraqi conflicts and also researches the political philosophy of Salafi-Jihadi movements. He is an adjunct lecturer at Johns Hopkins University, and has given evidence before three parliamentary committees on the Syrian conflict, the flow of foreign fighters into the country, and the rise of Islamic State. He is a contributing writer for the New Statesman, and was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize in Journalism in 2016.

Return to Homs follows two close friends and young revolutionaries as their beloved city is taken over by the army. Basset is a local football star, the goalkeeper for the Syrian national team who also became an iconic singer in the revolution, and Ossama is a media activist and pacifist.

The intimate portrait shows how they transform from peaceful protestors by August 2011 into rebel insurgents in August 2013 as Homs is turned into a bombed-out ghost town. The film directed by Talal Derki was previewed at the Frontline Club on Friday 13 June and a Q&A with producer Orwa Nyrabia via Skype followed.

Nyrabia started by explaining that he wanted to find the right production strategy and position the film in the right way from the start:

“For the way that really fits its nature . . . we [wanted] people to follow our protagonists and not only to watch from a distance, with the alienation of distance as they watch on the news. Syria today, it’s a far away world between al-Qaeda and some lunatic dictator. . . . [We were] trying to get the world to connect to our reality rather than only to the stereotyped media image.”

An audience member asked how the local people had been affected by the conflict in Syria and how it had radicalised them.

“The world media did not manage to accept the boring news of a peaceful revolution and really were calling on all the rebels for sexier news. . . . A lot of the media pressure that was taking place was being initiated towards Syria asking where is al-Qaeda because the news was boring. And in that sense what happened was disastrous because it was all about appropriation to al-Qaeda or whatever is a similar thing and it was all in supporting favour of Assad who claimed it was a sectarian revolt.”

“Syrians were left alone and we reach what happened yesterday and the day before in Iraq. We get the point where nobody wanted to give weapons to the Syrian opposition, the Free Syrian Army and any of its branches because the weapons might fall into the wrong hands. . . . When you stand aside and watch from afar . . . and try to count many Salafists are there and how many non-Salafists are there . . . today the wrong hands went for themselves and got the better weapons and now they will have their following because people need those weapons; . . . they will follow the people who have the weapons and who can arm people to protect themselves or to try to achieve whatever their schemes are or agenda is.”

Nyrabia said that he could understand why Basset was pushed so far away from his peaceful beginnings when pressured for such an extended amount of time:

“Of course after all this time in the siege, as much as any others in the siege he is definitely more radical than before. But who am I to judge someone, a human being . . . after all this pain . . . and really agonising experience. I am being radicalised in my European exile (or residency) so I cannot imagine how bad I would be if I was still in Syria.”

What about the role of Salafists in Syria? Another audience member asked.

“What’s happening now should be a big alarm to the world. This inaction, standing in silence saying lets leave them because we don’t understand al-Qaeda versus Assad. . . . There’s a total of 750 lines of subtitles in the film, something like 10,000 words. . . . Once in the film the word Salafist was mentioned. . . . It’s not a priority in the film, it’s a priority in the stereotype, in the prejudice. We had no Salafists until the end of the shooting of the film. . . . They were no more conservative or more radical but just our own local neighbourhood inhabitants. What’s been happening the past year to 18 months with a lot of anger from my side now is this major international investment in not doing anything and that is the best empowerment to both Assad and al-Qaeda.”

Return to Homs premiered as the opening film of the International Documentary Film Festival of Amsterdam in November 2013; won the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Documentary at Sundance Film Festival 2014 (among others) and will be released by Journeyman Pictures in Picturehouse Cinemas across the UK from Friday 27 June.
 

The Frontline Club’s First Wednesdays kicked off a discussion on the news story that has dominated all others over the past month: Boko Haram and the hunt for Nigeria’s missing schoolgirls. Channel 4 News’ foreign affairs correspondent Jonathan Miller, chairing the evening’s discussion, began by asking who are Boko Haram? What are their ultimate objectives? How have they evolved to take centre stage in the global media spotlight?

L-R Jonathan Miller, Fatima Akilu, Kayode Ogundamisi, Andrew Walker and Bala Liman

Analysing the group’s evolution from a local spiritually led Islamist organisation driven by the charismatic leadership of Mohammed Yusuf in the early 2000s, to the now-militant cult whose brand of ultra-orthodox sharia law and extreme tactics have made them international ‘bogeymen’, Andrew Walker, a writer and journalist working in Nigeria since 2006, charted the groups repositioning contra-government authority to become “more and more anti-state”.

Miller put to Fatima Akilu, director of behavioural analysis in Nigeria’s office of the National Security Adviser, that this repositioning was initially utilised by state authorities, “that there are political connections with Boko Haram, and at some point the group became a very useful militia which was used to political ends by politicians”.

Effectively representing the government, Akilu confirmed that “the group did work with state governors at the time and helped them to mobilise the youth who were used for election purposes”.

Kayode Ogundamisi, writer and commentator on Nigeria affairs, claimed Boko Harem’s shift towards militancy was a result of the “extra-judicial execution of its spiritual leader Mohammed Yusuf”, leading to the radicalisation of the more extreme elements within the group. Ogundamisi criticised the police for their treatment of Yusuf and several other leaders, claiming that it is they (and, by extension, the state) who are ultimately responsible for the change in tactics that Boko Harem have since adopted.

“This led to what we have today. You cannot accept any state who fights terror with a method of terrorism. The way the government treated Yusuf provided a tool for the terrorist to recruit more sympathisers.”

Bala Liman, doctoral candidate at SOAS examining the nexus between conflict and identity in Nigeria, developed this point further.

“Half of the problem, and why Boko Haram is still existing, is because the military is carrying on these extra-judicial killings, people are getting arrested randomly . . . and, most importantly, the government are capturing [Boko Haram’s] women.”

Liman continued on the subject of the missing schoolgirls, stating that the abduction tactics employed by Boko Haram are as much a personal response to the actions of the government as a terror strategy.

Boko Haram seen as a "northern problem" – this has undermined a united Nigerian response @frontlineclub

— Sandrine Tiller (@sandrinetiller) June 4, 2014

Akilu sought to differentiate the actions of Boko Haram by contextualising the most recent incident, and why it achieved such international attention.

“What was different about these girls [compared to the brutal massacring of girl in the past] was that they took them alive.”

Discussing the potential solutions to the current situation, Walker was quick to point out the difficulties in attempting negotiations between Boko Haram and the government due to the complex internal structure of the group.

“It’s never really sure who you are talking to – whether that’s the full totality of the group. Because of the way it’s arranged, split into factions, means it’s very difficult to organise how to get to these people. I think one of the biggest problems of this whole group is that they are a kind of unknowable empty space in this remote place and all of these fault lines flow through this empty space. We don’t know how Boko Haram organise themselves, we don’t know how they tell themselves whether they are spiritual or not and it’s difficult for people who are outside, be it the presidency or here looking in, to understand what is going on and how to get in there and do anything.”

Likening Boko Haram to a franchise, Ogundamisi responded that while it is irresponsible and dangerous to negotiate with a group whose goal is to Islamise Nigeria, “the first priority is for the state to enforce itself as a state”.

All the panel agreed that what lay at the heart of the issue was the corruption within Nigeria and the inherent mistrust that ordinary Nigerians have for state institutions – from education to the army.

While the panel also recognised a need to prevent the “next generation” of young people becoming radicalised, there was disagreement as to the solutions effected on the ground, be they long term or in dealing specifically with the present abduction crisis.

Quoting Yasser Arafat that “the person you negotiate with is your enemy”, Ogundamisi cited the influence of the hardline core group within Boko Haram, combined with a federal system where power is so centralised in one man, which makes any negotiation virtually impossible and ultimately undesirable.

Watch and listen here:

https://soundcloud.com/frontlineclub/isis-and-the-battle-for-syria

The uprising in Syria began as a battle between Syrians and the regime of Bashar al-Assad, but the situation in the country now is much more complicated. With foreign fighters streaming in to join al-Qaeda-affiliated groups, such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), the conflict has entered a new phase.

As fighting between the Syrian opposition and al-Qaeda-affiliated groups intensifies, we will be bringing together a panel to offer a picture of what is happening on the ground in Syria. We will be looking at the groups involved, how they have developed, and their power and influence in the country and further afield.

With the conflict spilling into Iraq, we will be asking what the international community should be doing to prevent further expansion of groups such as ISIS in the region.

Chaired by Lindsey Hilsum, international editor at Channel 4 News and author of Sandstorm; Libya in the Time of Revolution.

The panel:

Raffaello Pantucci is a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI).

Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi is a student at Brasenose College, Oxford University, and a Shillman-Ginsburg at the Middle East Forum. He focuses on developments in Syria and Iraq, particularly jihadist militant groups.

Kim Sengupta is the defence and diplomatic correspondent at The Independent.

Malik Al-Abdeh is a British-Syrian freelance journalist based between London and Antakya. He previously worked for the BBC and Reuters and was co-founder of Barada TV. He now reports from inside Syria and serves as a consultant on Syrian affairs for NGOs and media organisations.

Photography: Ayman Oghanna

ALEPPO, August 3rd 2012. In areas liberated by the Free Syrian Army, protestors took to Aleppo’s streets to demonstrate against the Assad regime, following Friday prayers.

Kalashnikovs, dilapidated cities and drone destruction gripped the audience at an overflowing screening of In the Hands of Al Qaeda on Monday 4 February at the Frontline Club. Award-winning journalist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad and producer Jamie Doran were on hand after the screening to answer questions on Yemen, al Qaeda and the making of their latest film.

The Yemeni Ambassador to the UK was also at the Club so questions on government policy,and even visa requests, were often redirected to him.

Abdul-Ahad explained how factionalised domestic politics in Yemen enabled al Qaeda’s existence within these divisions, thriving on the distrust and mutual hatred of the north and south. He said:

“The tribesmen – the separatists – they’re armed and had the capability to kick al Qaeda from the region but they have an apathy towards the state. ‘Why do we do the job of the government, we hate them, we don’t like them, they stole our land.’ This is what they say.”

He added that to persuade reticent southerners, al Qaeda would say:

“‘Look at the government, they brought the Americans, look what they’ve done [with drone strikes].’ . . . It’s this triangle of a love-hate thing – everyone is hating everyone.”

Al Qaeda’s exploitation of the north-south political divide goes even further. They even began an unusually pragmatic campaign to win popular support. Abdul-Ahad said:

“They brought an engineer and he connected a small village to the main grid that was going to Ja’ar, because for a long time they had to pay a bribe to get connected. They allowed UNICEF to go into the schools. . . . They were working on this hearts and minds kind of programme with the people.”

Al Qaeda filled the void left by the state drawing support from the southern population. Doran explained the importance of the southern political situation and how they tried to incorporate this extra dimension into the international version of the film.

“There is a tremendous frustration in the south that their cause is not aired publicly. You rarely hear, unfortunately, about Yemen at all in the news. Normally it’s a US drone strike.”

Abdul-Ahad said the strikes themselves become a huge part of the problem:

“The drones will kill al Qaeda people who will probably have a direct impact on the security of the United States, but for every guy, every [innocent] man killed in south Yemen, you will have 10 people joining al Qaeda. . . . It’s absurd, these whole 10 years we are still recycling these post-9/11 scenarios.”

Asked about the situation for women in al Qaeda-held territory, especially as the film’s camera operator was female, Abdul-Ahad’s reply highlighted the need to use development to tackle security issues.

“You free – you fix – the society yourself, you spread education, you work on girl’s schools. Yes, al Qaeda comes with their own ideology, but there are problems that exist in our society that have to be dealt with by a non-security, non-military solution.”

The Yemeni Ambassador in the audience fully agreed:

“There is another means to fight al Qaeda, not only in Yemen, in the whole war: poverty, taking care of the youth, education, education, education. This is very important.”

In the hands of Al Qaeda premières on Thursday 7 February, on PBS America (Sky channel 166, Virgin Media channel 243).

Featuring interviews with the main protagonists from all sides, award-winning journalist Ghaith Abdul Ahad travels into the heart of Yemen’s radical heartland. He provides a first-hand report of how members of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) have taken advantage of turmoil in the country, imposing their rule on areas of south Yemen in a first ever attempt to establish its own state.

In Ja’ar, a town with a population of over 100,000, the Al Qaeda administration has abolished taxes, provided free water and electricity and installed sewage pipes. Their trucks distribute water to villages and Bedouin settlements. People living in the desert on the outskirts of town have said the jihad had connected their village to the electricity grid for the first time in their lives.

Reporter Ghaith Abdul-Ahad
Directed by Safa Al Ahmad
Duration: 52′
Year: 2012

This screening is in partnership with PBS America available on Sky channel 166 and Virgin Media 243

A lot has changed in the years since 9/11. The date itself has become emblematic of a change in attitudes towards Islam, perhaps most notably in the country which bore witness to the infamous attacks that day. Popular opinion has shifted, and the land of the free has become an increasingly hostile environment for Muslims. American Muslim: Freedom, Faith and Fear examines what it means to be a Muslim in America today and the consequences of the fact that, for many, the words Islam and terrorism are now permanently intertwined. 

The documentary, featuring Karen Zarindast from BBC Persian and Samir Farah from BBC Arabic TV, was screened at the Frontline Club. The team travelled across the length and breadth of the United States in order to examine the lives and experiences of a vast range of American Muslims. They discovered a country in which fear and confusion surrounds Islam, and where politicians and the media often foment unrest in order to further their own objectives. What was once a thriving cultural melting pot where Muslims were welcomed has now developed into a nation over which a sinister and pervasive Islamaphobia has taken hold in the last decade.

A question and answer session followed, during which Darius Bazargan, the film’s producer, Azadeh Moaveni, the author of Lipstick Jihad, and Zarindast discussed the film and some of the key themes that emerged. One of the most important issues was the impact of American foreign policy, as Bazargan suggested in response to the question of whether or not American Muslims will ever be able to escape the dogma associated with 9/11:

“I don’t think there’s any chance of going back to the quiet life, especially because of the impact of American foreign policy in Islamic countries; either through the involvement with Israel or elsewhere. It will be less resonant if there are fewer coffins coming home, and there will be fewer coffins coming home if American foreign policy changes.”

The panel also talked about some of the difficulties faced when filming, including budgetary and time constraints, as Bazargan made clear:

“We had editorial difficulties, you’re a slave to the road in these kinds of documentaries. There were lots of interesting people we had to drop from the final cut simply because they popped up at the wrong point in our journey and didn’t fit the arc of discovery."

As the evening ended somewhat acrimoniously, with conflicting views being raised from the floor over what is clearly an emotive issue to many, Zarindast did offer a consolatory take on her experience:

“I asked people if they would leave the country. They said no. I think it was fascinating, because I spoke to people in Birmingham after some of the recent trouble and they had never been to Pakistan or Bangladesh but they said that they would leave England in an instant. Nearly everybody I spoke to in America said no… this is their country.”

By Nicole Hunt

Monday looks to be the biggest day of what should be an interesting week internationally. Kicking off with the ongoing EU debt crisis, German Chancellor Angela Merkel hosts French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Berlin to iron out amendments to the new EU fiscal stability treaty that was agreed last month.

Italian bank Unicredit opens its €7.5bn rights issue, having discounted shares by about 43 per cent in a bid to raise funds. Investors will be watching the sale closely to gauge market support for European banks.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak begins a three-day visit to China at the invitation of President Hu Jintao. Discussions are expected to focus heavily on regional security in the wake of the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.

Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim’s sodomy trial, which has dragged on for nearly two years, finally comes to an end as the jury is scheduled to deliver its verdict in Kuala Lumpur. In addition to Ibrahim’s freedom – he faces up to 20 years in prison if found guilty – the verdict will also determine who will run against Prime Minister Najib Razak in the country’s next elections, which are not due until June 2013 but look increasingly likely to be called this year.

Attentions turn Stateside on Tuesday as New Hampshire Republicans cast their ballots in the presidential primary. Following the 3 January Iowa Caucus, in which Mitt Romney beat Rick Santorum by just eight votes, Michelle Bachman announced that she was dropping out of the race.

In Washington, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists announces whether to move the minute hand on the Doomsday Clock, which represents how close humanity is to ‘catastrophic destruction’. The last time the clock was moved, in January 2010, the BAS’ outlook was somewhat positive, moving the minute hand back one minute from five to six minutes before midnight.

Tuesday also marks the 10th anniversary of the arrival of the first detainees at the Guantánamo Bay detention centre.

The High Court in London is expected to rule on Wednesday whether the Occupy London protesters can remain in their camp outside of St Paul’s Cathedral. Despite legal action from the City of London Corporation, the camp has been in place since 15 October.

The World Economic Forum releases its annual Global Risk Report ahead of the Davos Forum, which opens on 25 January. Last year’s report found that the financial crisis had ‘drained’ the world’s ability to deal with shocks.

The European Central Bank’s Governing Council meets in Frankfurt on Thursday to decide whether to raise, lower, or maintain the euro area’s interest rate. After last month’s meeting, during which the interest rate was decreased to 1 per cent, ECB President Mario Draghi announced major refinancing operations to support bank lending and market activity.

Alleged al Qaeda member Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who pled guilty in October to attempting to set off an explosive device in his underwear on a Detroit flight on Christmas Day in 2009, is sentenced in Detroit.

India is hoping to celebrate a milestone anniversary on Friday. If no new cases of polio are reported between now and then, the country will mark its first-ever year without any new cases. The World Health Organisation considers a disease to be eradicated when no new cases are reported for three consecutive years. Apple is set for a massive sales boost as the iPhone 4S goes on sale in China and 21 other countries in South America, the Caribbean and Africa.

Apple is set for a massive sales boost as the iPhone 4S goes on sale in China and 21 other countries in South America, the Caribbean and Africa.

Saturday marks the one year anniversary of the resignation of Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, whose 23-year rule was ended after nearly a month of protests dubbed the Jasmine Revolution. The success of protests in Tunisia spurred similar movements across the region, with widely varying results in Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, Algeria, Morocco and Syria.

In Taiwan, voters go to the polls to elect a new President for a four year term. Incumbent Ma Ying-jeou faces challenges from China-sceptic Tsai Ing-wen and pro-Beijing James Soong.

Elections also take place in Kazakhstan on Sunday, following President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s snap decision to dissolve Parliament on 16 November. The vote is expected to see at least one opposition party enter Parliament, usually dominated by Nazarvbaeyev’s Nur Otan party, though that party is likely to be close ally Ak Zholl.