Born: 7 July 1956; alt. 17 June 1963;

Place of Birth: Olaqloo Sharbajer Village, Al-Sulaymaniyah Governorate, Iraq;

Citizenship: Iraq;

Address: Heimdalsgate 36-V, 0578 Oslo, Norway;

Known also as: Faraj Ahmad Najmuddin; Fateh Najm Eddine Farraj; Mullah Krekar.

Activities:

In December 2001, Krekar founded the Kurdish terrorist group Ansar al-Islam (AI), now known as Ansar al-Sunnah (AS), and served as AI’s first leader.

He has provided support for Ansar al-Islam’s operations in Iraq and is believed to have arranged funding through associates in Bulgaria and Iraq.

As of spring 2005, a non-governmental organization founded by Krekar, sent money to terrorist organizations and actively recruited European citizens into terrorist organizations.

Branches of the NGO were, as of spring 2005, overtly and covertly gathering money and recruiting personnel for AS. Krekar visited Germany several times to raise funds for Ansar al-Islam and provide other logistical support.

Krekar also encouraged Ansar al-Islam members to carry out and support terrorist activities in Iraq. As of fall 2005, the group established at least two sniper teams in Iraq through an operative who claimed to be Krekar’s representative in Iraq.

Krekar also traveled regularly from Norway to northern Iraq. During one of his longer stays in northern Iraq, he recruited and trained combatants.

Krekar’s own statements associate him with Al-Qaida leader Usama bin Laden. His autobiography, “Med egne ord” (“In my own words”), provides an account of a 1990 meeting with Bin Laden at which he solicited money on behalf of his extremist movement in northern Iraq.

Though Bin Laden refused the request, Krekar solicited funds from Bin Laden via emissaries on at least two further occasions.

Krekar has been a proponent of suicide bombings, and has expressed his willingness to become a suicide bomber himself, suggesting that the United States Embassy in Oslo, Norway, would be a good target for such an act.

He has also been active in exhorting others to violence, including through various interviews.