Agent Storm: My Life Inside al-Qaeda by Morten Storm, Paul Cruickshank, Tim Lister

salubrious social housing in the suburb of Vollsmose, and as in London there was a drumbeat of jihadism.
    After I was released from prison I learned that Sheikh Muqbil, my mentor at Dammaj, had issued a fatwa calling for Holy War against Christians and Jews in the Moluccan Islands of Indonesia, where sectarian fighting was raging. He urged non-Indonesian Muslims to help establish Islamic law there.
    The leader of Laskar Jihad, the al-Qaeda-affiliated group at the centre of the fighting, was Ja’far Umar Thalib. He had been a fellow student at Dammaj. And some of my friends there – including the former American soldier Rashid Barbi – had gone to Indonesia to join the battle. 1
    I made a trip over to England with a Pakistani friend, Shiraz Tariq 2 – to raise money in mosques for the mujahideen in the Moluccas. Once again I was angered by the feeble response of many Salafist imams to this gross assault on our faith.
    To me, jihad was still a defensive duty rather than a right to wage offensive warfare against disbelievers. I took the words of the Koran as my guide: ‘ Fight in the cause of Allah those who fight you, but do not transgress, for Allah loves not the transgressor. Fight in the way of Allah against those who fight against you, but begin not hostilities. Lo! Allah loves not aggressors. ’
    These words brought an obligation to fight or support the fight – whether in the Balkans, Chechnya or the Moluccan Islands of Indonesia. But jihad without such a foundation was illegitimate.
    The boundaries between defensive and offensive jihad were notalways clear and would blur further as al-Qaeda began its campaign of global jihad. They were at the heart of animated debates I had with friends in Odense such as Mohammad Zaher, a Syrian-Palestinian immigrant who had a strong Middle Eastern nose, a close-cropped beard and deep-set, solemn eyes.
    Zaher like me was unemployed and with time on our hands we often went fishing together. He would bombard me with questions about Dammaj and Sheikh Muqbil. I explained the fatwas he and other imams had issued making jihad lawful in Indonesia, but also stressed that random acts to ‘terrorize the disbelievers’ were not allowed. In evidence I summoned the words of an eminent Saudi cleric who had said that the obligation of jihad ‘ must be fulfilled by Muslims at different levels in accordance with their different abilities. Some must help with their bodies, others with their property and others with their minds. ’
    Zaher seemed ordinary, sympathetic to the idea of jihad but not as extreme as some I knew. Yet again I would be dumbfounded when the ordinary did the extraordinary. In September 2006 he would be arrested for what Danish authorities at the time called the ‘most serious’ plot ever discovered in the country .
    I had not forsaken my goal of returning to the Muslim world but as usual was short of cash, trying to complete my studies on a modest stipend. My talents as an enforcer would once more come to the rescue.
    Odense had a substantial and volatile Somali community. One afternoon I received a call from a Somali friend asking me to intervene at a local wedding where a row had broken out.
    When I reached the venue, I saw what was becoming an all too familiar dispute playing out. Against the wishes of the presiding imam, the sexes were mixing and music was blaring from speakers. Such Western practices were anathema to Salafis.
    The argument escalated as I intervened and a wedding guest lunged at the imam with a knife. Thankfully, reflexes honed in the clubs of Korsør did not desert me and I knocked the knife out of his hand. What I did not see was his accomplice, who struck me on the back ofthe head with a bottle. As blood streamed down my neck, the man was dragged away.
    Anxious that the disturbance not be reported to the police, community leaders assured me that they would apply Sharia law to my assailant. I was given the options of breaking a bottle over his head,