U.S. and UK Security and Intelligence Services domestic activities against Muslims

The attacks of 9/11 have brought about a new element to global political stability and security, most countries’ foreign policies were redrawn and reviewed in the face of a new global challenge unlike the world has seen before. However in the process while governments were trying to figure out how to deal with this new threat some countries chief amongst them was both the UK and the U.S., have used this new threat as an opportunity to expand their political influence and control in the Middle East and North Africa. The economic and political rise of China on the world stage as a super power and its expansion in the region posed a new economic and political threat to the United States, particularly given China’s warm relationship with Iran. The United States suspects that China is supplying Iran with nuclear technologies and know how through North Korea.

Here is where we can see how the United States and its number one ally the UK implemented a new policy to face this new threat, however we must also see the fear those countries have from the rise of Islamist groups such as ISIS and others who are boldly challenging the United States and the UK and hindering their efforts in the Middle East and Africa. Most political and military analysts would say this new conflict is fought in a very unconventional manor unlike the world has ever seen and new methods have been used but at the same time while the very same countries who are promoting democracy and rule of law are also breaking those very same laws and undermining democracy when it is in conflict with their own interest.  After the September 11, 2001 attacks Islamaphobia became a new modus operndai in Washington and London, this new threat was not only coming from some distant countries where they could fight them on some distant battle field, but it was for the most part a home growing threat and both UK and U.S. prisons had become a breeding ground for those would be Jihadist. After 9/11 the U.S. established Task Force 88; Task Force 88 is an American special operations unit with support from elements from United Kingdom Special Forces. It formed in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, of which little is publicly known. It is described as a "hunter-killer team" with its core made up of Delta Force, 75th Ranger Regiment Rangers, members of the USAF 24th Special Tactics Squadron, Navy DEVGRU operators. The unit was reported to be responsible for both the cross border raid into Syria from Iraq in October 2008 that resulted in eight deaths including Abu Ghadiya and several US operations in the Horn of Africa targeting al Qaeda.

Since the invasion of Iraq, the unit went through a number of changes of designation. Task Force 20 was amalgamated with Task Force 5 (formerly Task Force 11/Task Force Sword) in Afghanistan in July 2003, and became Task Force 21. It was then re-designated Task Force 121, and later as Task
Force 626, Task Force 145, and Task Force 88. Neville notes that he omitted the 'current' (c.2008, time of writing) designation of the unit. However he did say that it was also known obliquely as Other Coalition Forces – Iraq (OCF-I), 'a wry reference to the CIA unit of the moniker OGA.

It was a combined U.S. and British military special forces provisional grouping specifically charged with hunting down high-value al-Qaeda and Iraqi leadership including Osama bin Laden and, prior to his death on 7 June 2006, Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. It is believed that the
Task Force played a role in the medium altitude strike mission that killed al-Zarqawi just outside Baqubah. The Task Force was charged with disrupting al-Qaeda operations in Iraq and, to a lesser extent, Afghanistan.

The action arm of the task force was made up of operators from 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta, United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group ('DEVGRU'), British Special Air Service, British Special Boat Service and soldiers from the 75th Ranger Regiment. Members of the CIA's elite Special Activities Division paramilitary unit were also believed to be an important part of the group. Support elements include the Army's 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Night Stalkers), the Air Force’s 24th Special Tactics Squadron, and British paratroopers
from the Special Forces Support Group.

The unit was operating up until at least January 2007; it is not clear whether it is still operational with the U.S. drawdown from Iraq. In January 2007 Task Force 88 established a subsidiary task force, Task Force 17, in addition to an existing task force, Task Force 16. Task Force 17 was established to 'counter Iranian influence.' Task Force 17 was to be made Initially Operationally Capable as of 'NLT 15 January 2007 and Full Operational Capability (FOC) will be in place NLT 15 February 2007. The task force is known to operate very autonomously. In their only publicly known operation they reportedly conducted several raids without requiring approval from higher authorities.The task force was also responsible for the elimination of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

The U.S. also had another weapon in its arsenal that was tasked with counter terrorism operations;
FAST; The Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team (FAST) is capable of rapidly deploying to immediately improve security at United States Government installations worldwide. Established in 1987, FAST companies provide a limited-duration, expeditionary security force to protect vital naval and national assets. FAST maintains forward-deployed platoons at various naval commands around the globe, and possesses U.S.-based alert forces capable of rapidly responding to unforeseen contingencies worldwide. Each FAST company is equipped and trains with some of the most state-of-the-art weaponry and currently consists of around 500 Marines. FAST maintains a high degree of
readiness in order to conduct these short-notice, limited-duration contingency operations, as seen in the port security mission following the attacks on the USS Cole (DDG-67) in October 2000 and the American Embassy reinforcements in Liberia and Haiti. FAST participated in several embassy reinforcements during the Arab Spring, from Cairo, Egypt to Sana'a, Yemen. FAST Marines provided additional security to allow the embassies to continue normal operation. On 12 September 2012 a FAST team was sent to Libya in response to the 2012 U.S. Consulate attack in
Benghazi. The FAST Marines were from Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team Company Europe from Rota, Spain.

In 2004 the CIA and the FBI decided in respond to the obvious home growing terror network in
the United States particularly in U.S. prisons to initiate a highly classified operation where the CIA under a special executive order would infiltrate the home growing terror recruiting networks in U.S. prisons and while pass on the information to the FBI for prosecution the CIA would follow the networks
overseas to identify their financial backers and dismantle them and or capture but in most cases neutralize their members. However in order to carry out a successful operation the FBI did not have any agent who could successfully infiltrate these groups successfully without risking being exposed particularly in a prison environment. According to FBI Director Robert Mueller the government needed someone who would be able to pass as a Muslim and preferably as an Arab but can also earn the trust of these groups and pass any checks they may put him through. In other words it had to be an operative who can answer simple questions about the religion or the country which he would claim he was from that an outsider may not know but someone who was born and raised in the culture or faith would know.

In 2005 the CIA provided such operative, Khalid Elsheriff (that was not his real name, his identity is still calcified by the government), an American born former U.S. Marine who was an operative for the CIA’s highly secretive unit the Special Activities Division. Elsheriff who was fluent in seven languages and had served with FAST as a Marine Staff Sergeant in Operation Iraqi Freedom, Afghanistan and Bahrain was also a highly educated operative with degree in economics and graduate degrees in Islamic law. In order to provide him with an ironclad cover Elsheriff was permitted by executive order to break the law and undergo the same process that any convicted felon would go through upon arrest and conviction. Starting with the court proceedings even the presiding judge and the U.S. Attorney’s office were not informed of his identity. Elsheriff whose father was a physician and mother an archaeologist spent time in the Middle East, his mother was of Egyptian ancestry and his father was of Greek and Egyptian background, both were Jewish. In 2006 he arrived in FCI Taft and later was sent to USP Lompoc both in California, upon his release in 2007 he returned in 2009 for one year at USP Lompoc under the cover story that he had violated his federal probation and in 2011 he went to a private prison facility in New Mexico and later was transferred to FCI Fort Dix where he befriended an American born Muslim jihadist Abdullah Muslim who was in prison on weapons charges and the FBI was continuing to monitor him suspecting him of having affiliation with networks in Pakistan and Egypt. Muslim had visited both countries and had collected an arsenal of weapons in his home in Ohio before he was arrested by the FBI and received a ten year sentence on weapons charges.

Several attempts for interviews were made to the CIA and the FBI to comment on this story or to shed light on the extend of the U.S. security and intelligence services domestic operations and Elsheriff were unanswered. Sources however say that it is believed that Elsheriff is currently living somewhere outside of the United States under his real name but is considered the longest undercover CIA operative in the global war on terror and having been the longest undercover operative by the CIA to serve 8 years undercover infiltrating a terror network. While we may look at this operation from the point of view of combating terrorism many young Muslims and Arab American men were branded as jihadist and terrorists by the FBI and the CIA in their efforts to combat this home growing threat that some were even charged with crimes and in some cases found themselves in places like Guantanamo Bay, Cuba when in fact they had done nothing wrong and were falsely branded by such operations all under the name of Homeland Security. Islam and Muslims have come under constant attack by the UK and the U.S. governments’ security and intelligence services out of ignorance and fear which had alienated those Muslims from the very society they should be embraced by and accepted and the one who claims to promote freedom and democracy, so here is a question does freedom of religion really exist in the U.S., and the UK?