HELP!

I haven't had a lot of profesional help with this project. The last person to offer me help, who I actually introduced to Abdullah and co never answers emails or phone calls. Last time I heard from him he wanted me to score him some drugs.

I've been approached by two production companies recently, both meetings went the same way. The last one sent a researcher to take me for coffee. They were working on a project for Japan's version of the BBC. He asked me a bit about what I was doing before telling me that they had already interviewed Abu Abdullah but were having trouble getting back in touch with him.

I told them that this was probably because the last TV company to interview him in any depth had made a program for Turkish TV which claimed Abdullah was "Al-Qaida's No1 man in Europe." I knew that when publicity went wrong for the guys they would probably be arguing amongst themselves and battoning down the hatches.

"Have you had any luck contacting the Supporters of Shareeah?" I asked.

"Not really..."

"Thats the Supporters of Shareeah..." I said. "I think you'll have more luck with Bakri's friends. They seem to like publicity which makes Islam look tough. With the Supporters of Shareeah its if in doubt say nothing. They don't even like Islamic media."

The guy told me that they wanted to talk to two young Islamists who were close to the main mosques in Britain's "trouble spots" who "might have been tempted to become terrorists." and asked if I had anyone in mind I might be able to connect them with. I had mentioned that Abu Hamza's son, Mohssain had agreed to talk to me if I could get a proposal accepted. I think he thought Mohssain would be ideal.

I wished him luck contacting the Supporters of Shareeah himself. What do these people think? That I'll just hand over contacts I have struggled to gain over two years to people I don't know?

Did that guy I put you in touch with make a program calling you an intentational terrorist?

Oh sorry!

He seemed like such a nice guy to me!

All this vented I met Loretta today who I met giving a talk at the French Institute last week. She was pre-launching her new book

Made in America: Al Zarqawi & the Future of the Islamic Jihad

To give a quick run down of her talk:

She believed that it WASN'T "All about oil." (uncommon among the anti-globalist types) She believed it was about regime change. "These people think no further than 8 years ahead."

She said that Al-Zarqawi had arrived late in Afghanistan to fight the Russians, and had a tiny group of supporters. He was an uneducated man who had turned down Bin Laden's financial support and didn't accept him as an "Emir" because he didn't accept the "Enemy far away" philosophy. He wanted to defend Islamists where they were dirrectly being threatened. When the US invaded Afghanistan Al-Zarqawi's crew went to Iraq, rightly predicting that it would be America's next target.

Colin Powell announcing Al-Zarqawi as Iraq's local Al-Qaida head honcho meant that everyone travelling that way to "Fight Jihad" wanted to fight for him and all anti-American financiers wanted to finance him. She believed his group was still tiny and the way forward in Iraq was negotiation, although she believed the groups fighting US occupation were totally disunited and anyone with that mission would have a very hard time finding anyone to negotiate with.

Loretta was once consultant for US Homeland Security and was the Chair of the Countering Terrorism Financing Group for the Madrid Conference on Democracy, Terrorism and Security.

She couldn't give me a lot of time as she was being interviewed herself but she realised what I was up to and was "thinking in my direction."

Cheers Loretta.