Meet the Point Man, Wissam Haddad, for Radical Islam
By Paul Maley
February 27, 2015
WISSAM Haddad has long been at the centre of radical Islamic preaching in Sydney.
Until recently, the 34-year-old was the head of the al-Risalah ¬Islamic Centre, a meeting place for Sydney’s small community of ¬Islamic extremists and a platform for radical preaching.
But, until today, his face was largely unknown to the public.
Despite being one of the most prominent Australian supporters of Islamic State, Mr Haddad has never allowed his photo to be taken by media.
Mr Haddad has over the years been relatively accessible to journalists seeking to explain the lure of Islamic State, which so far has attracted about 100 young Australians to travel overseas for its cause.
He would take phone calls, send text messages, do radio interviews, even sit down for the odd coffee, provided there were no tape recorders or cameras.
But for reasons known only to him, Mr Haddad has been reluctant to put his face to his often provocative remarks.
“People like myself are happy to leave this country, leave our passport, leave our citizenship if the government allows us to go,” Mr Haddad told Sydney broadcaster Ray Hadley last year during a particularly fiery interview.
“If the government allows the people that don’t want to be here to sign away, to give up their citizenship, to give up their passports, to go without being incriminated in any sort of way and mind you, this isn’t to go fight or to take up arms. We don’t sound like we’re welcome in Australia.”
It was Mr Haddad’s al-Risalah centre that Sydney terrorists Khaled Sharrouf and his mate Mohamed Elomar would visit ¬before they fled Australia for Syria and the black flag of Islamic State.
Sharrouf would go on to earn global headlines after he posted pictures of his 7-year-old son holding aloft the severed head of a slain Syrian solder.
When The Australian met Mr Haddad last year, he was still in contact with the two men.
Mr Haddad regaled the newspaper with tales of his friends, at one point showing footage he had on his phone of Sharrouf and ¬Elomar participating in the execution of Iraqi prisoners.
“He says he is doing the work of Allah in establishing an Islamic caliphate,’’ Mr Haddad said of Sharrouf. “He is enjoying himself.
“It is something he has always wanted to do. Why wouldn’t he be happy? He is fulfilling his obligations to Islam. He pretty much called us (other Islamic youth in Sydney) cowards for not being there.”
After the killings, when Islamic State broke out of Syria and rampaged through northern Iraq, Sharrouf posted happy snaps of himself, grinning, and kneeling over the bodies of those killed. He made no secret of what he was doing, or why he was doing it.
According to Mr Haddad, Sharrouf had even recorded a video message expounding on himself and his activities in Syria. Once his bosses in Islamic State gave him the nod, it would be ¬released, Mr Haddad told us.
Mr Haddad, on the other hand, has been much more camera-shy. When The Australian arrived at his Leppington home in Sydney’s semi-rural southwest yesterday he ordered us to leave. His lawyers declined to comment on his behalf.
Earlier that day, Mr Haddad had been due in court on a minor weapons charge.
Police allege they found two Tasers and a can of mace after they searched his property. Mr Haddad has yet to enter a plea.
The al-Risalah centre is now shut, reportedly for financial reasons. But before it closed it played host to a wide cast of radical preachers.
Perth-born Junaid Thorne, and Abu Sulayman, now the most senior Australian member of al Qa’ida in Syria, were among those who delivered lectures to the small group of devoted followers who would gather in the centre’s back room. So was Musa Cerantonio, the Melbourne sheik who was deported from The Philippines last July.
“Ninety per cent of people who come here have been visited by ASIO,” Mr Haddad said of al-Risalah’s regulars.
“My family members have been hassled and the family members of people who are regulars have also been hassled.”
Mr Haddad has been ¬described as an Islamic State supporter although he denies ¬inciting hatred or violence.
He was ecstatic when Islamic State fighters stormed northern Iraq, elevating the Syrian civil war to one of the main security crises of the era.
“There’s a feeling of joy,’’ Mr Haddad said in June, when he condemned Australia’s involvement in Iraq. “Anyone getting involved in killing any Muslims anywhere is going to be a potential enemy or is an enemy of Islam itself and every single Muslim,’’ he told the ABC.
Source: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/terror/meet-the-point-man-for-radical-islam/story-fnpdbcmu-1227240723502
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