The CIA and The Militant Who Eluded It in Norway

U.S. officials have made no secret of their desire to see Krekar booted from his Scandinavian haven. As secretary of state, Colin L. Powell repeatedly urged his Norwegian counterparts to expel Krekar, singling out Ansar al-Islam as proof of a connection between the Iraqi government and al-Qaeda in a February 2003 speech to the United Nations.

In August 2003, a few weeks after the CIA operatives left Oslo, Attorney General John Ashcroft made his own trip to this nation of 4.6 million people to ratchet up the pressure. He called Ansar "a very dangerous group," whose leaders "merit the very close attention of those who are fighting terrorism."

Made 'Bigger Than He Is'

Krekar, whose real name is Najumuddin Faraj Ahmad, is 50 years old. Fluent in four languages and sporting a bushy black beard, he has become a celebrity in Norway. He has published an autobiography -- "My Own Words" -- and aggressively defended his reputation, saying he quit as Ansar's leader in 2002.

Even as he denies involvement in terrorism, he has praised those who practice it. In an interview with a Kurdish newspaper in June 2006, he called al-Qaeda's founder, Osama bin Laden, "a good Muslim" and wished him a long life. He also lamented the "bad news" about the recent death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, chief of al-Qaeda forces in Iraq. "But I am not sad, because he went to paradise," Krekar added.

Krekar has also been questioned by European counterterrorism investigators about his alleged ties to radicals in Germany, Sweden, Italy and Spain, though none of those countries has filed charges against him.

"Everyone -- the Americans, the Islamists, the Norwegian government -- has built up Mullah Krekar into someone bigger than he is, into a symbol," said Brynjar Meling, one of his Norwegian attorneys. "And he has let them do this."

Krekar hasn't always been an enemy of the United States. He fled northern Iraq in 1990 and received asylum in Norway after claiming he had been persecuted by Saddam Hussein's security services.

After the Persian Gulf War of 1991, he returned for long visits to his Kurdish homeland, which was under the protection of U.S. warplanes maintaining a "no-fly" zone. In early 2001, he said, he and other Kurdish leaders met with three CIA officers to discuss how to overthrow Hussein.

Later that year, Krekar founded Ansar al-Islam, or Followers of Islam. The network carved out a small territory near the Iranian border and engaged in skirmishes with other Kurdish factions. U.S. counterterrorism officials suspected that Ansar sheltered al-Qaeda fugitives who had fled Afghanistan after the U.S. invasion there in 2001.

In September 2002, after crossing the mountainous border with Iran, Krekar was detained by Iranian authorities and put on a flight to Amsterdam. Upon landing, he was arrested again, this time by Dutch authorities, who said he was wanted for extradition to Jordan on drug charges.

Krekar said that the allegations were trumped up and that he had never been to Jordan. His attorneys said U.S. officials had orchestrated the detention.

Dutch officials confirmed U.S. involvement in the case but didn't elaborate. "You can assume the Americans have an interest," Dutch Justice Ministry spokesman Martin Bruinsma told reporters.