THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume X, Issue # 70, March 10, 2008
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
"I CONSIDER ISLAMISM TO BE FASCISM"
Mohamed Sifaoui Interviewed by Sophie Fernandez Debellemanière
THE ISLAMIST THREAT: THE CLOSE SIMILARITIES BETWEEN ISLAMISM & FASCISM -- THE WILL OF THE ISLAMISTS
TO EXTERMINATE THE JEWS -- ISLAMIST DETERMINATION TO CONQUER THE WEST, SUBJUGATE CHRISTIANS, &
EXTINGUISH POLITICAL OPPONENTS -- ISLAMISM VERSUS MODERATE ISLAM -- IRAN, ISRAEL, & THE WEST -- THE NEED TO
FIGHT THE ISLAMISTS POLITICALLY, IDEOLOGICALLY, & MILITARILY
FULL STORY:
Mohamed Sifaoui was born on July 4, 1967, and spent most of his childhood in Algeria. He holds a Master's degree in
Political Science and studied Theology for two years at the University of Algiers and for two additional years at
Zeitouna University's Institute of Theology in Tunis. In 1994, he began work for the Algerian daily Le Soir and
survived a February 11, 1996 bomb attack at Le Soir's headquarters at the Maison de la Presse. In 1999, the
French government granted him political asylum, after he received death threats both from Algerian Islamists and the
Algerian military. In Paris, Sifaoui works at the French weekly Marianne. Between October, 2002, and January,
2003, he infiltrated an Al-Qa'ida cell in France in order to research his book, Mes frères assassins: Comment j'ai
infiltré une cellule d'Al-Qaïda (My Assassin Brothers: How I Infiltrated an Al-Qa'ida Cell). [1]
Sophie Fernandez Debellemanière, a former intern at Le Figaro and The Weekly Standard, interviewed
Sifaoui in Paris on September 12, 2007, after meeting him at a 9-11 ceremony on the Champ de Mars.
IN ISLAMISM'S CROSS HAIRS
Middle East Quarterly: Did you flee Algeria because of the terrorist attack on Le Soir?
Mohamed Sifaoui: No. Throughout the 1990s, I was determined to stay. I only left in 1999, when I was sentenced
to one year in jail for insulting the Head of State. I had criticized President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's reconciliation policy
because I considered it unfair to grant amnesty to a terrorist without even judging him. The Algerian government talked
about peace without ever recognizing there was a war. The terrorists suddenly got themselves released with the same
rights as the victims' families. Bouteflika's behavior towards his people was criminal. They wanted to send me to jail at the
same time they were releasing criminals.
MEQ: You stayed longer than most. Were people right to leave Algeria?
Sifaoui: The intellectuals and journalists who left Algeria when the murders started in 1992 were right to do so
because the risk was real. Survival instinct is natural and legitimate. It would be indecent to judge them because fear is a
legitimate human feeling. In this sense, I was the one being unreasonable by risking my life to stay.
MEQ: Why did you stay in Algeria?
Sifaoui: I didn't want to leave the country under pressure, because of the possibility of another terrorist attack.
Nor do I believe that I was especially brave to stay. It is not a question of being brave or weak. The only thing that
matters is the message and the values that you want to transmit. As a journalist, I felt that I had to stay. We never
obtained press freedom in Algeria, but I wanted to struggle to get a small part of it. We made some progress, but then,
Islamism took us backward. By staying, I wanted to show that I would not accept submission to Islamist censorship and
its diktat.
MEQ: Are you still worried? After all, two bodyguards are supervising this interview.
Sifaoui: No, I am not worried. I have built sort of a shell around me. I keep calm, and I do not panic. Honestly, I
prefer not to think about it; otherwise, I would worry too much.
MEQ: Are you proud today to have risked your life for your ideas?
Sifaoui: Yes, because I am lucky enough to be alive. It is a shame that those who died did not leave for safety. I
stayed because I felt that I was able to accomplish this act of resistance. Each person resists in his or her own way; each
does what he or she feels able to. Among the members of the World War II resistance, some hid other resisters; some hid
Jewish families or helped them escape to Switzerland, and some failed only to denounce them. For me, at this time, my
resistance to fundamentalism is based on a determination not to concede any ground to the Islamists but to keep on
writing and to defy danger everyday.
MEQ: What was your reaction to Al-Qa'ida Deputy Leader Ayman al-Zawahiri's appeal on September 20, 2007,
"to wipe sons of France and Spain" out of the Maghreb? [2]
Sifaoui: I've been expressing the same warnings about Islamist terrorism for years. Zawahiri's statement doesn't
surprise me. Since the GSPC [Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat] pledged its allegiance to Al-Qa'ida in September,
2006, Algerian terrorists and Al-Qa'ida leaders expressed their objective very clearly: Intensify terrorist attacks against
the Algerian regime and its institutions, as well as against lay and democratic people, targeting Western and, especially,
French citizens.
MEQ: Do you believe that Zawahiri was referring to the descendants of former colonists in Algeria by using the
expression "sons of?" Or was this the result of too literal a translation of the Arabic?
Sifaoui: No! This has nothing to do with any literal translation! Zawahiri is referring to all French and Spanish
citizens by saying "sons of." Al-Qa'ida's targets are all the French and Spanish citizens in the Maghreb.
MEQ: Less than twenty-four hours after the release of Zawahiri's message, a terrorist attack in Lakhdaria in
northern Algeria, fifty miles southeast of Algiers, wounded two French citizens, one Italian, and six Algerians. [3] Is this
attack a sign that the European presence in the Maghreb is in jeopardy?
Sifaoui: I would not be so pessimistic, but such a quick reaction indicates how organized and coordinated
Al-Qa'ida and the GSPC are. It also shows the Algerian regime's incapacity to deal with terrorism.
AN ISLAMIST & FASCIST NEXUS?
MEQ: Would you use the term Islamo-Fascism to describe this threat?
Sifaoui: I certainly am one of the first Muslims to consider Islamism to be Fascism. This is not a subjective
decision but rather a serious, academic argument. Fascism and Islamism are comparable in many aspects: Fascism, without
evoking all its particularities, bears similarities to trends also present in Islamism. I am, of course, making a reference to
their will to exterminate the Jews. On this point, the Islamists may go even further in their doctrine than the Nazis did,
considering that the end of the world could only occur when there are no Jews left on earth. In the three monotheist
religions, apocalypse, end of the world, and doomsday exist and are liturgical events invested with a high degree of
spirituality. Hence, the Islamists interpret the end of the world in a very special way. Whereas it is written nowhere in the
Qur'an, exegetes describe the end of the world as the day when even the trees and rocks will be able to talk and tell
the Muslims: "Come here, there is a Jew hiding behind me. Come and kill him." And this would go on, until there would
not be any Jew left on earth. This ideology is pure Fascism.
MEQ: Are there other similarities?
Sifaoui: The will to exterminate or do harm to homosexuals is another similarity between Nazism and Islamism. The
Islamists, also, say that they are the best community in the world, a superior race, thanks to their beliefs. They use political
means to arrive at this erroneous exegesis. I do not fear to call it Fascism. And there are many more similarities between
Fascism and Islamism.
ISLAMISM VERSUS MODERATE ISLAM
MEQ: Do you believe it is possible to criticize Islamism without being called a racist?
Sifaoui: Absolutely, I would say that one must criticize Islamism. When I am criticizing Nazism, I am not being
anti-German.
MEQ: When did you feel for the first time that you had to criticize Islamism?
Sifaoui: I have always felt that it was a moral duty.
MEQ: Do you believe that moderate Islam exists?
Sifaoui: Of course, it does. If the majority of Muslims were not moderate, Islamists would have destroyed the
Western world a long time ago. Despite its technological lead, its nuclear power and all its armies, the Western world
would never be able to face an Islamist world entirely convinced by the terrorist cause. One billion people supporting
Al-Qa'ida would reduce the rest of the world to ashes. Islam contains violent texts that need not be applicable today.
Islam is a religion of moderation. I know because I studied theology for four years.
Perhaps 20 percent of Muslims on the planet must be totally reeducated. We have to fight them politically, ideologically,
and also militarily. Western societies do not fight them well; whenever they try to do so, they end up strengthening them.
One proof that moderate Islam exists is the huge number of sympathy messages that I received from Muslim people when
my investigative story on Al-Qa'ida-Salafist networks, J'ai infiltré une cellule islamiste, was broadcast on French television
M6.
IRAN
MEQ: Given the Islamists' vision of apocalypse, do you believe that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
would fear reprisal, should Iran attack Israel? Should Western analysts rely on Iran's rationality?
Sifaoui: Too many Western analysts look at any adversary through a Western lens. Western analysts believe
that Al-Qa'ida is as rational as the Basque separatist group ETA [Euskadi Ta Askatasuna] or the Irish Republican Army.
My personal history, culture, and investigative journalism work allow me to understand what Westerners cannot see:
Iran will attack Israel as soon as it can.
MEQ: Doesn't Iran take into account the eventuality of its own destruction?
Sifaoui: No, it does not. Martyrdom is exalted in Iran. Iranians view annihilation positively. The Islamists' main
purpose is to create the conditions for the West to believe that chaos is possible. The argument that says that Iran will
not attack Israel because of immediate and massive retaliation from Israel and the United States of America is absolutely
wrong. The Islamists would welcome such retaliation in order to cement coalitions among Muslim peoples and to
encourage riots in the Arab street. U.S. military action, or even its prospect, coincides with Islamists' interests. That is
the reason why I was against the war in Iraq.
MEQ: Can you explain?
Sifaoui: Between October, 2002, and January, 2003, I spent four months infiltrating an Al-Qa'ida terrorist cell in
France. Two months before the launching of the Iraq war, when I was in the midst of the group, one of the Islamists
said, "Now we are going to pray for George Bush to attack Iraq." I was surprised and acted as if I were stupid:
"Really? Why do you want America to kill our brothers?"
The most clever and elevated in Al-Qa'ida's hierarchy, Amara Saïfi [the GSPC's Emir in London] whispered to me:
"All over the world, our brothers are now praying for George
Bush to attack Iraq. War between the Muslim world and the
Western world is bound to happen. Unfortunately, Muslims
are too divided. Far too many of them do not pray regularly
and neglect religion and jihad. In order to unify and mobilize
all these people, we have to continue what we initiated on
9-11. We attacked America to make her retort everywhere in
the Muslim world, in order to create a real war between
Muslims and the West, and especially Israel."
MEQ: That's incredible.
Sifaoui: Another of the group added:
"Once Iraq is at war, many of our brothers will go there to
fight jihad. George Bush will have answered our prayers
by suppressing our enemy Saddam Hussein and unifying
the Muslims in jihad. Then, as Westerners do not know
how to fight attrition wars, we know that they will
inevitably get stuck. We will wait until they leave in order
to establish an Islamist state in Iraq. This war will be a
pretext to launch terrorist attacks in Europe as well."
Unfortunately, you can see their theory is valid. They predicted exactly what is happening.
NOTES:
[1] Paris: Le Cherche-midi Editeur, 2003.
[2] Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Special Dispatch Series, no. 1721, Sept. 21, 2007; "Warden Message," Embassy of the United States of America, Algiers, Algeria, Sept. 24, 2007; Andrew Black, "Recasting Jihad in the Maghreb," Terrorism Monitor, Oct. 25, 2007.
[3] "Warden Message," Sept. 24, 2007.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
North Africa -- The Arab States of Islamic North Africa
The Middle East & the Problem of Iran
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
International Politics & World Disorder:
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
Counterterrorism & U.S. National Security
U.S. National Security Strategy
The foregoing interview was originally published in the Middle East Quarterly and
can be found on the Internet website maintained by the Middle East Forum, a foreign policy think tank which seeks to
define and promote American interests in the Middle East, defining U.S. interests to include fighting radical Islam,
working for Palestinian Arab acceptance of the State of Israel, improving the management of U.S. efforts to promote
constitutional democracy in the Middle East, reducing America's energy dependence on the Middle East, more robustly
asserting U.S. interests vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia, and countering the Iranian threat.
(Article URL: http://www.meforum.org/article/1870)
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
March 10, 2008
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