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Alan Johnston and Hamas

A major defeat in the war to defend the free world

4 August 2007

Shortly after the release of Alan Johnston from Gaza the website of Conflicts Forum, a group advocating engagement with Islamists and which is run by the former MI6 officer Alastair Crooke, posted a fascinating transcript.

Shortly after the release of Alan Johnston from Gaza the website of Conflicts Forum, a group advocating engagement with Islamists and which is run by the former MI6 officer Alastair Crooke, posted a fascinating transcript. Under the title ‘Hamas briefing’, it was a conversation between Michael Ancram, the former Tory Northern Ireland minister, and Osama Hamdan, a senior representative of Hamas, which took place secretly in Beirut in June while Johnston was still in captivity.

Hamdan suggested Fatah was behind the kidnap — in particular, Fatah’s security minister Mohammed Dahlan — and said it had three times thwarted Hamas attempts to rescue Johnston. ‘The most important thing,’ he said, ‘is that our people know him [Johnston] well, they know him well. I’ve talked yesterday to our [person there in Gaza], he saw him dozens of times, not in public, he visited him in his office ...they respect him.’

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