A number of the young men discussed possible targets and settled on the best location to attack: Aker Brygge, a high-end residential and retail area on the waterfront in Oslo. In the evenings, there would be no children or strict Muslims around, only financial employees in its restaurants and bars, along with bumpkins on a visit to the city.
They also agreed that Parliament was not such a bad target either.
However, after lengthy discussions, the shura decided that Norwegian civilians could not be targeted, even in a country where the population was responsible for its own leaders. After all, some of the victims of the terror attack might not have voted for the warmongers. It would be better to attack an army barracks.
Perhaps they had too much to lose. Perhaps the little country they lived in was not bad enough. In any case, the most militant among them found a new arena to fight in, one with far more appeal than an attack on a domestic military base.
“To offer prayer—as opposed to waging jihad on the battlefield—is like the trifling of children,” Abdullah Azzam had written. The mujahideen were to offer their blood when Muslim lands were attacked. In Syria they could fight for an Islamic state alongside real brothers, and then Islam could spread northward from there.
Some were attracted by the adventure. Some by the camaraderie. Others by the promise of getting their sins washed away. One thing was certain—Syria gave them a direction in life, a feeling of doing the right thing. And if you were killed, you were guaranteed a place right beneath God’s throne.
The methods used to stir people into action were familiar terrorist recruitment. Gruesome images of dead and wounded children in Afghanistan and Syria were contrasted directly with the Norwegian military effort. Selective quotations from the Koran, reinforcing the message that the West was at war with Islam, offered further backing. The myth that Europe wanted to wipe out Islam also proved effective propaganda. That Norwegians did not like Muslims was an established fact. Muslims were repressed and discriminated against. Supporting jihad was an act of self-defense.
The milieu had a love-hate relationship with the media. They both sought publicity and shied away from the public eye, but were adept at getting their points of view across. At the same time as some journalists were being threatened—shots were even fired through the windows of one’s home—the suspect, the infamous Arfan Bhatti, was conducting a secret romance with a blond and blue-eyed TV reporter.
* * *
Aisha announced she wanted to get married.
“To an emir,” she told Dilal.
“Who?” Dilal asked in surprise.
“His name is Ubaydullah Hussain.” Aisha showed her a picture of him online. He was smiling into the camera, looked cute with curly hair and a roundish face.
Isn’t that the same guy Emira had a secret relationship with? Dilal wondered.
That’s over, Aisha was quick to counter, and went on to tell her she had asked a go-between to propose for her.
Dilal was astonished. “You proposed?”
Aisha nodded. She had never spoken to the object of her affections but had seen him with a microphone in his hand while dressed like the Prophet and liked what she saw. The baby-faced Islamist was a good public speaker. Besides, he was hafiz, someone who knew the Koran by heart.
The matchmaker, a Norwegian Iraqi from Larvik, was one of the foremost figures among the new wave of Islamists. Mohyeldeen Mohammad entered the public eye when he held a rally in Oslo against the Muhammad caricatures: “When will the Norwegian authorities and their media understand how serious this is?” he said. “Maybe not before it’s too late. Maybe not before there is a September 11th on Norwegian soil. This is not a threat but a warning.”
The demonstration had led to Mohyeldeen’s expulsion from the Islamic University in Medina. The institution decided he was an agitator. He was placed under arrest by the Saudi Arabian security police upon his return to the country and deported back to Norway.
The answer Aisha was waiting for was slow in coming. Every time she inquired, Mohyeldeen told her he had yet to hear anything.
Dilal followed from the sidelines. To think that Aisha had proposed herself! Taking what had always been the man’s privilege as her own—it could be viewed as a feminist act. Breaking with convention in a radical way. Aisha was unconventional in a sense, seemingly unconcerned about what people said. When she wanted something, she went at it like a freight train. Now she wanted the spokesman for extremism in Norway, the man PST would in time suspect of being the central figure in the radicalization and recruitment of Norwegian Muslims to go fight in Syria.
Dilal was aware of the lack of a father and a safe base in Aisha’s life, and it seemed to her that what her friend now sought was status and respect rather than love. She wanted to be the wife of one of the leaders in the Islamist milieu, which had become her new home. Here she found a sense of belonging, support, and sentiments she identified with: We are different, they are oppressing us, we must retaliate.
The proposal eventually reached the ears of the recipient. Ubaydullah asked around to find out more about the young woman behind the straightforward offer. What he heard led him to reject it. She wasn’t very pretty, he was told. A bit chubby, someone whispered in his ear. In short, no deal.
Rejection proved no hindrance to Aisha; she merely set her sights higher, on an even more prominent figure. She could not use Mohyeldeen again, though, and taking matters into her own hands, she set up an e-mail account under an alias and made contact with the new target—a man fifteen years her senior, who had spent more of his adult years inside a prison than outside, and who, among other charges, was convicted of shooting at the synagogue in Oslo, but acquitted on terrorism charges—Arfan Bhatti himself.
He was already married,
