Sulaiman Abu Ghaith sitting with Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri, from an al Qaeda propaganda tape |
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| Born | 12 (age 47) |
|---|---|
| Arrested | Iran |
| Citizenship | Kuwait |
| Alternate name | Arabic: سليمان بوغيث |
Sulaiman Abu Ghaith (Arabic: سليمان بوغيث) (born December 14, 1965) is a Kuwaiti Islamist regarded as one of Al-Qaida's official spokesmen.[1]
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Abu Ghaith first gained attention during the 1990–1991 Iraqi invasion and occupation of Kuwait. His sermons denouncing the occupation and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein gained him some degree of popularity amongst the Kuwaiti people. Following the defeat of Iraq, he turned his attention towards the Kuwaiti government and royal family, denouncing the 1962 constitution and demanding the institution of Sharia law. The Kuwaiti government subsequently removed him from the mosque and banned him from giving sermons, and he became a high school teacher of religion.
In June 2000 he left Kuwait for Afghanistan, where he met Osama bin Laden and joined his Al-Qaeda organization. His affinity for public speaking and comparative youth put him at the head of Al-Qaeda's attempt to widen its appeal from ultra-conservative and mostly elderly clerics to the general population and especially the youth of majority-Muslim countries; in this capacity, he quickly became the organization's spokesman.
According to documents in the unclassified dossier from Adil Zamil Abdull Mohssin Al Zamil's Combatant Status Review Tribunal Suliman Abu Ghaith was also a founder of Al Wafa al Igatha al Islamia, a charity that the USA asserts provided a plausible front for al Qaeda's fund-raising efforts.[2] One of the allegations against Al Zamil, who was also accused of being a founder of al Wafa, was that he helped Abu Ghaith's family leave Afghanistan around the time of the attacks of 9-11.
He rose to worldwide attention following the September 11, 2001 attacks. On October 10, 2001 he appeared on two widely circulated videos (first broadcast on al Jazeera television) to defend the attacks and threaten reprisals for the subsequent US invasion of Afghanistan, saying, "Americans should know, the storm of the planes will not stop... There are thousands of the Islamic nation's youths who are eager to die just as the Americans are eager to live."[3] These statements caused the Kuwaiti government to strip him of his citizenship.[4]
According to The Long War Journal American officials assert that Sulieman attended al Qaeda's airport training camp with Anas al Kandari and Faiz al Kandari.[1] Anas al Kandari was a young Kuwaiti who fired upon a squad of marines, killing one, in the Faylaka Island attack in 2002. Faiz al Kandari is another Kuwaiti, who was held in extrajudicial detention in Guantanamo from 2002 to 2008. In 2008 charges were prepared against him to be referred to a Guantanamo military commission. According to The Long War Journal in his book The Martyr's Oath, Stewart Bell asserted Sulieman recruited Anas al Kandari and the other shooter to launch the Faylaka Island attacks.
His whereabouts, as he moved around to escape capture by the United States in the following months, are unclear. According to the Long War Journal, by 2002 Suleiman was living in Iran.[1] In July 2003, a Kuwaiti minister announced that the Iranian government was holding Abu Ghaith and that Kuwait had refused an offer from Iran to extradite him to Kuwait.[5] The Long War Journal described his detention as "a loose form of house arrest". On September 28, 2010, it was reported by Kuwait officials that he was freed from Iran, in exchange for the release of Heshmatollah Attarzadeh, an Iranian diplomat kidnapped in November 2008, and returned to Afghanistan.