The BBC’s interview with Rabiah Hutchinson, the ex-wife of top al Qaeda operative Mustafa Hamid (aka Abu Walid al Misri), provides a fascinating look into the mind of a western woman who became a jihadist ideologue. Rabiah Hutchinson used to be known as Robyn Hutchinson until she was swayed by radical Islam. But she can’t understand why Australian authorities won’t let her travel around the globe or why she remains under surveillance. According to the BBC, Hutchinson says that “she’s been labeled as an al Qaeda operative because the authorities want someone to blame.”
Right. If you believe that, then I have a bridge or two I’d like to sell you.
Perhaps the real reasons for Australia’s suspicions are: Hutchinson studied under Abu Bakar Ba’asyir, the spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiah, an al Qaeda affiliate in southeast Asia that is responsible for a series of devastating attacks; she refuses to denounce Osama bin Laden, even while being interviewed by the BBC; she was married to a top al Qaeda operative, who sits on al Qaeda’s elite Shura council; she laments the fall of the Taliban, which she thought could be a “true Islamic state” because she could travel around Afghanistan in peace when Mullah Omar’s thugs were in charge; and she justifies the September 11 attacks using the same talking points as Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda – that is, the attacks were justified because of what was happening to Muslims in Palestine and Iraq. All that and, according to the BBC, Hutchinson reportedly wrote to Osama bin Laden offering “her help” and “asking how she could assist.” (She denied this last allegation.)
The audio of the interview is enough to raise suspicions.
The BBC interviewer asked, “How do you view Osama bin Laden now?” Hutchinson responded that she would not answer according to “what you perceive bin Laden to be” (i.e. a terrorist). Instead, she portrayed bin Laden as a noble gentleman, who bought her family an air conditioner, paid for food for destitute Afghans, and built a road from Kabul to Kandahar that allowed her family to travel with ease.
But her idyllic life was ruined, Hutchinson says, by the American invasion of Afghanistan. She was asked if America had a right to retaliate. No, she replied. Although the September 11 attacks saddened her, they were justified because of what was happening to Muslims elsewhere. However, she was not saddened by the deaths of her fallen comrades in Afghanistan after September 11 because “a Muslim can’t lose” as long as he or she is fighting for Allah. Because of Allah’s rewards in the afterlife, “death, in and of itself, is not distressing.”
So, what we have here is a woman who doesn’t fear death and has embraced al Qaeda’s martyrdom cult while holding deeply anti-American and anti-Western views.
It’s a good thing the Aussies are not going to let her go on a jihadist walkabout.
As for Hutchinson’s ex-husband, Mustafa Hamid…well, he is in Iran. Hamid, Hutchinson and other al Qaeda families fled to the mullahs’ soil in late 2001. According to the U.S. Treasury Department, Hamid had been working with the Iranians on behalf of al Qaeda for years, and had even negotiated a “secret relationship” between bin Laden and Iran during the 1990s.
It would have been interesting had the Beeb asked Hutchinson about the mullahs’ hospitality, no?
