Defence of young Brighton jihadist rubbished by security experts

Amer Deghayes contacted The Argus yesterday after our story on the identification of 28 aspiring terrorists who had planned to fly to the Middle East to join IS and similar groups.

The front page story told how counter terrorist experts had feared a gun or knife attack on members of the public in the streets of Brighton.

The 21-year-old, who grew up in Saltdean, said in his Facebook message to this newspaper that he and his brothers had no links to IS.

He went on to say they would never attack Brighton and that he believed in the "pinnacle of Islam" to "free humans from ignorance and bring justice to mankind".

Amer added he wanted to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad and his aims would be achieved through "wisdom and attacking innocents is free from wisdom".

But experts yesterday told The Argus that the groups Amer associates with, which include the al-Nusrah Front, have the same goals as IS and use the same barbaric methods.

Raffaello Pantucci, director of international security studies at the Royal United Services Institute think-tank, said al-Nusrah and other groups also present a threat to the West.

He said: "Nusrah and the groups he is fighting for do not indulge in the same sorts of public brutality we have seen with IS, though they have done such things behind closed doors.

"But principally they are focused on fighting the Assad regime at the moment rather than the West.

"But will that logic hold for a longer period of time, especially given their close connection with al-Qaeda and their need to keep attention?"

Colonel Richard Kemp, a former British Army commander who has led troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, said he believed al-Nusrah and IS had "exactly the same" fundamental aims.

He said: "There is rivalry between the groups and a lot of it has to do with ego and leadership and tactical aims, but in the wider sense they help each other out.

"Someone who has been a member of al-Nusra has bought into that ideology and it is an ideology of mass murder.

"Part of the ideology is deception. It is quite likely that he has sent the message knowing it is going to be made public but with the approval of the group."

Amer went out to fight with al-Nusrah in 2013 alongside his brothers, Jaffar, 17, and Abdullah, 18.

Both were killed in Syria the following year.

In his email to The Argus, Amer said: "We are with no particular group rather we participate with the most suitable active force against the Assad regime and its allied foreign mercenaries."

Speaking on behalf of himself and his brothers, he said: "We disagree with any attack on the innocent people of Brighton or the UK even. We never planned nor advocated any form of transgression on the people of Brighton nor do we plan to in future."

IT’S TROUBLING PEOPLE SEE THIS GROUP AS LESSER OF TWO EVILS

AMER Deghayes was a teenager when he left his Saltdean home bound for Syria to enrol with a group tied to one of the world’s most powerful terrorist organisations.

The then 19-year-old arrived in the northern part of the country in late 2013 and joined the Al-Nusra Front, also known as Al-Qaeda in Syria.

It was at a time when the country’s civil war was in its relative infancy.

More than two years on, he has outlived two of his brothers and their friend, all from Brighton, who were killed on the battlefield.

And yesterday he reiterated his commitment to the cause.

It is not clear exactly what fighting or otherwise Deghayes has been involved in but Al-Nusra is known to engage in brutal guerilla warfare – including against civilian targets.

The group’s tactics include using car bombs, suicide attacks and raiding checkpoints.

Members have carried out arson attacks on shops selling alcohol and have executed journalists.

Its supporters welcomed last year’s Paris attacks and Al-Nusra even occasionally fights with IS.

Despite Deghayes’ denouncement of attacking “innocents” Al-Nusra has advocated sectarian and ethnic attacks on entire civilian populations of Alawite Muslims.

Not only that, the group has recruited child soldiers and is suspected of working towards creating chemical weapons.

In territories it controls, eyewitnesses have reported the systematic torture and execution of men suspected of being gay.

However, Al-Nusra’s reputation is not as dark as that of IS in Western eyes.

This is largely – experts believe – because the al-Qaeda affiliate group has learned PR lessons from its Iraqi campaign and is seeking to keep local populations on-side.

Research published in early 2013 by international anti-extremism think tank the Quilliam Foundation said: “JN [Jahbat al-Nusra] tread more carefully with aspects of AQI [al-Qaeda in Iraq] strategy which had negative effects on their popularity.

“These small adjustments to neutralise the population include: predominantly military rather than civic targets, downplaying JN’s rhetoric concerning sectarianism, the decision to use a different name to avoid preconceptions associated with Al Qaeda.”

Yet stories which appear to dent that propaganda have emerged from the war zone.

In August last year, a gay refugee named Subhi Nahas described to the United Nations how he watched in fear as Al-Nusra took control of his home town of Idlib.

He said it began the systematic torture and murder of men thought to be gay.

He said: “This was to be my fate, too.

“At the executions, hundreds of townspeople, including children, cheered jubilantly as at a wedding. If a victim did not die after being hurled off a building, the townspeople stoned him to death.”

In October the group’s leader, Abu Mohammed al-Julani, called for indiscriminate attacks on Alawite communities.

He said: “There is no choice but to escalate the battle and to target Alawite towns and villages in Latakia and I call on all factions to daily hit their villages with hundreds of missiles as they do to Sunni cities and villages.”

Turkish newspapers have also reported that Al-Nusra fighters had been detained carrying the ingredients to make sarin gas, a powerful chemical nerve agent banned by international treaties.

And two years ago the watchdog Human Rights Watch reported on former child soldiers who at the age of 14 had been radicalised and armed to fight for the al-Qaeda-inspired militia.

Charlie Winter, a researcher at the Quilliam Foundation think tank, told the BBC in 2014 the group had the same overall aim as IS.

He said: “The fact that it’s focusing on Syria now is tactical because it knows it can get more grass-roots support.

“The ultimate enemy is the US, Israel and the West.

“It’s really troubling that people are beginning to see Jabhat Al-Nusra as the lesser of two evils.

“The fact is that a moderate jihadist is a total non sequitur.”

After both his brothers had died in November 2014, Amer Deghayes said he had no plans to comply with his father’s wishes and come home.

“Nope,” he said. “Jihad nowadays isn’t for tasters, it’s a commitment. Not until all Muslim lands are liberated from infidels ruling and is ruled by Islam then I can think about it.”

If he does return to the UK, he and others who have gone to fight in Syria could potentially be prosecuted under terrorism laws.

A Home Office spokesman said each case would be considered individually and foreign fighters would not necessarily be prosecuted.

‘I DISAGREE WITH ATTACKING INNOCENTS’

YESTERDAY Amer Deghayes contacted The Argus to say he had no links to IS and would never attack Brighton.  He said: “I and my two martyred brothers don’t and never had links to ISIS.

“We are with no particular group, rather we participate with the most suitable active force against the Assad regime and its allied foreign Mercenaries. We disagree with any attack on the inoccent [sic] people of Brighton or the Uk even.  “We never planned nor advocated any form of transgression on the people of Brighton nor do we plan to in future.

“Simply our belief is Islam and the Pincle [sic] of Islam is to free humans from ignorance and bring justice to mankind.  “This is done with wisdom and attacking inoccents [sic] is free from wisdom.”

He did not elaborate but said he would get back to us on several questions, including:

• Why do you not support IS and how do the groups you fight with differ?

• What is your view of some of al-Nusrah and IS’s reported actions such as killing homosexuals? 

• What do you mean by “innocents”? For example, would you consider a British soldier to be ‘innocent’? 

• What do you mean by “bring justice to mankind” – what would justice look like to you?

• What do you want to happen after President Bashar Al-Assad?

• Did you know as many as 28 young people in Brighton planning to go to Syria?