Converts to Islam playing role in attacks

BERLIN - Religious converts are playing an increasingly influential role in Islamic militant networks, having transformed themselves in recent years from curiosities to key players in terrorist cells in Europe, according to counterterrorism officials and analysts.

The recent arrests of two German converts to Islam - Fritz Gelowicz and Daniel Schneider - on suspicions that they were plotting to bomb American targets are just one example of terrorism cases in Europe in which converts to Islam have figured prominently.

In Copenhagen, a convert is among four defendants who are on trial for plotting to blow up political targets. In Sweden, a Web master who changed his name from Ralf Wadman to Abu Usama el-Swede was arrested last year on suspicion of recruiting fighters on the Internet. In Britain, three converts - including the son of a British politician - are awaiting trial on charges of participating in last year's trans-Atlantic airline plot.

"The number of converts, it seems, is definitely on the rise," said Michael Taarnby, a terrorism researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies. "We've reached a point where I think al-Qaeda and other groups recognize the value of converts, not just from an operational viewpoint but from a cultural one as well."

Religious converts are sometimes more prone to radicalization because of their zeal to prove their newfound faith, analysts said. They are also less likely to attract police scrutiny in Europe, where investigators often rely on outdated demographic profiles in terrorism cases.

Converts are a tiny subset of the Muslim population in Europe, but their numbers are growing in some countries. In Germany, government officials estimate that 4,000 people converted to Islam last year, compared with an annual average of 300 in the late 1990s. Less than 1 percent of Germany's 3.3 million Muslims are converts.

While religious leaders emphasize that most converts are law-abiding citizens who often promote interfaith understanding, the recent arrests in Germany prompted some lawmakers to suggest that police should keep converts under surveillance.

"Of course not all converts are problematic, but some are particularly dangerous because they want to demonstrate through extreme fanaticism that they are particularly good Muslims," Guenther Beckstein, interior minister for the state of Bavaria, said.

The trend is not limited to Europe. In Florida, U.S. citizen and convert Jose Padilla was convicted on conspiracy charges for participating in an al-Qaeda support cell. In March, David M. Hicks, an Australian convert, became the first prisoner at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to be convicted on terrorism charges.

Converts have joined militant groups, including al-Qaeda, for years. Wadih el-Hage, a Lebanese Christian who converted to Islam and became a U.S. citizen, served as an aide to Osama bin Laden in the 1990s and was convicted for his role in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa.

But counterterrorist analysts and officials say they have become much more common and are now playing leadership roles. They say there also is evidence that militant groups, which used to eye converts suspiciously as potential infiltrators, are now encouraging them to join.

In May, al-Qaeda deputy chief Ayman al-Zawahiri could be seen in a videotape in which he repeatedly praised Muslim leader Malcolm X and urged African American soldiers to stop fighting in Iraq and embrace Islam.

"I am hurt when I find a black American fighting the Muslims under the American flag," Zawahiri said, according to a translation of the speech by the SITE Institute, a terrorism-research group. "Why is he fighting us when the racist crusader regime in America is persecuting him like it persecutes us?"

Bin Laden was seen in a videotape calling upon all Americans to convert to Islam.

Analysts said bin Laden's remarks, though theological in nature, were probably not intended as a direct recruiting pitch for al-Qaeda.

But they said his speech likely was influenced by Adam Gadahn, a U.S. citizen from California who converted to Islam as a teenager and is a media adviser for al-Qaeda.

He was indicted in the United States on treason charges last year.