Rapper joins Islamic State

[DrLeftover]

18 Sept

As war in Syria and Iraq attracts a growing number of Muslim extremists from Europe, intelligence officials in Germany believe a former gangsta rapper has joined the inner circle of Islamists fighting there.

Denis Cuspert was once a modestly successful member of Germany's hip-hop scene going by the stage name Deso Dogg. Now he calls himself Abu Talha the German and is a top propagandist for the so-called Islamic State (IS) caliphate, which is blamed for several wartime atrocities.

His ascent into the upper IS ranks is raising concerns that such "homegrown" Islamists could embolden Muslim extremists in Germany or that they might one day return themselves to target the country for terrorism.

"Cuspert won't come back since there's an arrest warrant waiting for him," Elke Altmüller, a spokeswoman for Germany's Verfassungsschutz domestic intelligence agency, told Yahoo News. "But there's a danger he could incite others."

http://news.yahoo.com/ex-gangsta-rapper-sparks-fear-of--homegrown--islamist-threat-in-germany-212937819.html

 

[Webster]

If this news item from The Christian Post is any indication, then that German rapper's not the first to join ISIS unfortunately...
Excerpt..

Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary, a 23-year-old British rapper who reportedly walked out of his family's £1 million home in Maida Vale, West London, last year to join militants in Syria after telling them he was "leaving everything for the sake of Allah," is being investigated as a key suspect in the beheading of journalist James Foley.

A senior western intelligence official who was not identified told Fox News that Bary is being eyed as Foley's executioner. The report noted that the Sunday Times and Sunday People listed Bary as a member of a group of at least three British-born ISIS fighters that former hostages call "The Beatles."

The Sunday Times said Britain's two major intelligence agencies, MI5 and MI6, had identified the man who beheaded Foley but had not publicly revealed this information.

U.S. intelligence officials did not comment publicly on the reports, but a well-placed source informed Fox News that Bary's father, who was born in Egypt, was extradited from London to the U.S. in 2012 for allegedly being connected to Osama Bin Laden, as well as the U.S. Embassy bombings in Africa in 1998.

A Mail Online report highlighted in March that Bary had grown increasingly radical after connecting with thugs linked to British Muslim, and social and political activist Anjem Choudary. He reportedly posted a series of photographs online featuring himself armed with guns and wearing masks under the heading "soldier of Allah."

On July 1, 2013, he reportedly announced that he was giving up his musical aspirations for Islam. "I have left everything for the sake of Allah" he said, according to Mail Online.