The person on the left and right is Mullah Krekar, former/current leader of Ansar al-Islam. The picture in the middle is from a passport that was found on one of al-Qaeda's computers in Kabul after the fall of the Taliban. It was published in the Atlantic Monthly as that of a "member of an Islamist group operating in Kurdistan" in Alan Cullison's article Inside Al-Qaeda's Hard Drive in September 2004, where it was noticed by Trevor Stanley, who thought it looked rather similar to Mullah Krekar.

I'm not absolutely certain that they're the same, but there's a strong similarity. So I want to know what others think: Could this be Mullah Krekar? And if so, what was his passport doing in Kabul?

The turban is similar to one Krekar has worn on previous occasions. I don't know how significant this is - depends on the distinctiveness and meaning of the pattern.

There's more. According to Trevor Stanley,

the name on the passport, A'asud Muhammad Hasan - matches that of a man who was present when Jund al-Islam was founded with the blessings of Usama bin Laden, according to documents obtained by Al-Sharq al-Awsat.

These documents state:

At 1630 hours, 1 September 2001, the constituent meeting of Jund al-Islam was held in the town of Tawilah following the unification of "Al-Tawhid" [unification] and Quwwat Soran" [soran forces] groups and in the presence of the following Arab Afghans: Abu-Wa'il, Abu-al-Darda, and Abu-Yasir. (All these are aliases and the three of them are specialists in sabotage operations, the use of TNT, and assassinations). Abu-Abdallah al-Shafi'i attended on behalf of Al-Tawhid and Molla Aswa, real name As'ad Muhammad Hasan, on behalf of Quwwat Suran. Hasan was born in 1962 and has a degree in geology. He joined the Islamic Unity Movement that is led by Shaykh Ali Abd-al-Aziz in 1991 and was elected member of its Central Shurah Council at its 7th conference in 1997. But he split from it at the end of the 1990's and founded the "Quwwat Suran".

The Islamic Unity Movement is another name for the Islamic Movement in Kurdistan, which Krekar was a member of. Jund al-Islam was the precursor to Ansar al-Islam.

Is the presence of Krekar at the formation of Jund al-Islam consistent with existing evidence? I'm not certain. According to one version, Ansar al-Islam was formed in December 2001 when an unnamed group lead by Mullah Krekar merged with Jund al-Islam. Another version has it that Jund al-Islam was merely renamed as Ansar al-Islam, with Krekar as its new leader. Yet another claims that Mullah Krekar joined Ansar/Jund "shortly after September 11", but says nothing about his unnamed group. The common thread is that Krekar was not originally a member of Jund al-Islam. That does not exclude him playing a role in its formation, though. He did join the group and became its leader within months of its formation, which indicates a high level of contact and mutual respect.

I'm not qualified to untangle these events, so I'll just note that the similarity of name is an indication, but no proof, that the person on the picture is Mullah Krekar.

What I'm interested in here is the opinion of my readers and other bloggers on these questions:

• Is the person on the passport Mullah Krekar?
• What is the distinctiveness and meaning of the turban?
• Can anyone translate the full text on the passport?
• Would Mullah Krekar be present at the formation of Jund al-Islam? (Related question: Who was the leader of the Soran Forces?)
• How might al-Qaeda have ended up with a picture of Mullah Krekar's passport?

Any facts that could be relevant to this are welcome. I've never bought Krekar's assurances that he had no contact with al-Qaeda, but speculating and guessing is not good enough.

(Update 10/4: A reader had the picture that checked with the Security Department in Sulaimany in Kurdish Iraq. They confirm that it is Krekar. "They have the same picture in their files.")

Same nose, Same creases, same mouth etc. It's him

It could be him, yes, but it is hard to tell for sure from that photo. Do the eyes look a bit different?

It looks like a younger version of him in the center pic, but notice the (lack of) eyebrows over the bridge of the nose as compared with the pics on the left and right. The pics to the left and right show a narrower, higher bridge on the nose. The center pic shows a broader, lower bridge on the nose. Very similar proportions otherwise. A person's nose does tend to "drop" with age, but I'm just not certain if they are one and the same.

his lips, ears, eyebrow shape, (though not his uni-brow), facial hair shape, forhead ridge, (notice the forhead feature- a line marking the low point near the center, and the bulge of the forhead towards the top) and the distinctive lines running from about 3cm to the right of his lips to just above his right nostrel (as well as the less appearant lines running from the left nostrel in the center and right pictures). unfortunately, the center picture is the worst resolution of the trio. despite that, and considering the angle of lighting and viewpoint, i think the man is one and the same.

My first reaction when I saw the picture was "It's Krekar!" - but then I started looking more closely.

The main difference I can see is the 'top of the nose'. The man in the middle picture seems to have a pretty 'large'-span "top-of-the-nose" (say, 2-3cm), while Krekar seems to have about a "top-of-the-nose" of about 1cm.

(with "top-of-the-nose" I mean the area right between the eyes).

I'm not an expert when it comes to this though .. but it's a data-point.

The centre picture have the same "it wasnt me, im innocent" look.
I think he would easily go through a passport control with center photo in passport

I don't think it's him. I'm a little surprised somebody could think so judging from those photos.

At first I thought it was Krekar, but it appears the eyes are further apart on the guy in the middle.

...on second thought, maybe that is an illusion of the angle of the middle picture. His eyebrows are certainly further apart, but not the eyes. Eyebrows, of course, change.

These days, passport photos are supposed to be from the direct front. Then we'd see it better.

I think it looks like krekar, but the picture is not very good...

The question should not be what a possible picture of mr. Krekar is doing in Kabul. The real question should be what mr. Krekar, real version, is doing in the streets of Oslo.

I would like to follow this thread more closely but I'm in the US for a couple of weeks and only have sporadic Internet access.

1) The turban. The type of head covering worn by a Muslim man depends largely on the region from which he hails. For example, in Afghanistan a Tajik can be distinguished by his flat pakol. Therefore, the similarity of the turbans simply confirms the uncontroversial fact that Asad Muhammad Hasan, like Krekar, is a Kurd.

2) Eyebrows - they grow bushier with age; just look at my uncle. The considerable time that has passed between the taking of these photos must be taken into account - in the passport photo we see a bright eyed lad, whereas today's Krekar has been through years of political and legal wrangling, extensive travel and (depending on whose story you believe) either the harrowing life of a refugee or the equally harrowing life of a jihadi commander. We should expect to see drooping eyes and greying beard and hair.

3) Bridge of the nose. The picture I posted is not very good quality, because I did not have access to the original digital version (I photographed it from the magazine). I am in the process of obtaining the original electronic file. I hope the bridge of the nose will be more visible in the original, which will make it easier to assess the distance between the eyes.

4) Forehead ridge. This is almost certainly a prayer callus, common in Muslims who pray five times a day for decades.

Trevor Stanley: The picture I posted is not very good quality, because I did not have access to the original digital version (I photographed it from the magazine)

Actually the picture above was scanned directly from the magazine, so it's a little better quality than yours, but still not so good.

Eyebrows grow bushier by age, might be the case but do they start to grow where they did not grow before as well ?
It appears to me that there is less beard under the lower lip on the pictures of Mullar Krekar, the beard free area goes down deeper on Krekar.

So I don´t think it is him, Would be unlikely to me that hair would increase between the eyes and lessen under the lower lip.

However he could shave it like that, that would be complicated I can imagine though.

We should ask thomas alsgård. If there is anybody in the world that knows about eyebrow hairgrowth, its him. Also it can be debated if there is 3 different pictures that bjørn has posted for us. The picture on the right is a classical t.alsgård look where you hardly see the eyes , but on the right...

Not sure if this means much, but I googled around a bit.

'A'asud Muhammad Hasan', or 'Assad Muhammad Hasan' is also known as 'Aso Hawleri'.
http://www.jamestown.org/publications_details.php?volume_id=400&issue_id=2975&article_id=2368051

They are not the same person:
http://www.dagbladet.no/nyheter/2004/01/12/388191.html

'Aso Hawleri' was captured a while back:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3192352.stm

You can find lots of more info by googling on the different names above. But it seems it's two different persons, even if the images are pretty much alike.

Of course it is Mullah Krekar.
Not very special news or something.

http://www.pwhce.org/krekar.html

I left the picture with somebody to check it with different contacts in Sulaimany, Iraq. These contacts checked among other places with Security department in Sulaimany. In the Security Department persons confirm that this picture is Krekar. They have the same picture in their files.

I should have looked more closely into this before posting on it - I should have searched Google more thoroughly and also tried to translate more of the 'passport'. Now that I'm back from the US and have my affairs somewhat in order, I've done some more research, and modified my Mullah Krekar biography to take into account Erik's information.

The result of my latest attempt to extract some meaning from the ID card is that I don't think it's a passport after all.

I have not been studying Arabic for long. Arabic script can be difficult for the beginner - handwriting differs from person to person, short vowels are not written down and in some cases letters are stacked on top of one another (as in this case). On this card however, the writing on the right also contains non-standard characters, and is therefore definitely not standard Arabic. (In much the same way, an Arab learning English could work out that the name Bjørn Stærk contains non-standard characters and is not English).

The language on the card could be a regional dialect of Arabic or a completely different language such as Kurdish, Farsi or Pashto.

However, the writing at the top is fairly easy:
Bismallah al-rahman al-raheem (This is a standard supplication: the blessings of Allah upon you etc)
Red writing (without short vowels): wjahd wa fi allah hq jhad
Which I think is something like: (something) and in allah correct jihad

It certainly doesn't say "Republic of Iraq".

The stamp bears the (Latin script) letters IMK, which could be the abbreviation of Islamic Movement of Kurdistan, the group Krekar was part of before Ansar al-Islam existed (see his 1997 interview with Nida'ul Islam).

This leaves us with more questions than answers. Is this an ID card for membership of IMK? A safe passage paper? A Taliban-issued passport? A wanted poster? A library card? All I can say is that it's not a passport issued by a secular Arab country such as Iraq.

While the ID card contains the name 'Asad Muhamad Hassan' next to the words "nawa syana", I don't actually know what that means. Maybe it reads "Commanding officer", indicating that Krekar was under the command of 'Asad Muhamad Hassan. At least this would help square Erik's information with Trude's information.

What I think is needed to resolve this issue is:
(a) a full translation of the document and/or
(b) a photo of Aso Hawleri or access to a person who knows what he looks like.

If this is not a photograph of Krekar, but of Aso Hawleri, the point still stands that Krekar is closely associated with Ansar al-Islam, and Aso Hawleri is one of Ansar al-Islam's founders. How did al-Qaeda have access to a document bearing the photo of one of the co-leaders of Ansar al-Islam?

For those who are still interested, I got a full translation of the ID card along with a lot of other useful information from Kurdo (of Kurdo's blog)

According to Kurdo:

"this image that you sent me is an ID issued by the Islamic Movement in Kurdistan. This Movement was controling Halabja and the border villages between near Iran (east to Suleimani). That guy in the photo (to me) is Mullah Krekar, the terrorist head of Ansar Al Islam who now lives in Norway."

[Translation follows]
First line: In the name of God the merciful (Arabic)
Second line: Carry out Jihad for Allah (Arabic, Quranic verse)

(Kurdish section)
Triple Names : Aso Muhammad Hassan (in Kurdistan triple names are used instead of first name and surname).
Membership level: Member of Military Office
(This is a high ranking member because you won't easily be a member of their military office.)
Date of Birth : 1962
Number of ID: 4600
Date of ID can be used : 30/6/1999
Blood Group : (there is no blood group shown )

This is not a passport but an ID for the Islamic Movement. That guy is looks like Mullah Krekar. On the stamp it says where it was issued but the part the says the city can not b read because it is on the photo. It does say (Office of .....) but the city is not appearing.
The stamp on there is for the Islamic Movement in Kurdistan.
==============================

However, Kurdo did say it would be an unusual co-incidence for Aso Muhammad Hasan and Asad Muhammad Hasan to be two different people with similar names. Additionally, the date of birth (1962) is that of Asad Muhammad Hasan/Aso Hawleri, not Krekar (1956).

Finally, Hawler is the Kurdish name for Erbil, so Aso Hawleri simply means "Aso of Erbil".

Final word:
Kurdo (from Kurdo's Blog) sent me a picture of Aso Hawleri from a Kurdish newspaper. He does look like the picture on the ID card.

This means that although Krekar's ID Card was not on al-Qaeda's hard drive, his colleague's picture was. Krekar assumed the leadership of Jund/Ansar al-Islam when Aso Hawleri was already one of its leaders, so he has effectively opted into an al-Qaeda-linked group right from day one. He continued to work closely with the man for many years.

I now have biographies of both of them on the web:
http://www.pwhce.org/krekar.html
http://www.pwhce.org/asohawleri.html

I apologise for the error, and thank Bjorn and those who commented for their input, which helped to get to the bottom of it.

A friend of mine was telling me about this Mullah Krekar today, which is why I started googling. He was saying this guy is such a skilled orator that its hard not to be mesmerized by him. More interestingly he swore to me that privately he was telling his followers that its their durty to kill a Christian. Why has Norway allowed such a person to enter???

I think they should chuck this muslim skumbag out of Norway and feed him to the animals (hungry) at Bagdad zoo..He is a shitbag bastard.

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Secular Blasphemy: Mullah Krekar picture on al-Qaeda computer?, March 20, 2005 11:19 PM

Has a picture of Mullah Krekar, the Ansar al-Islam leader enjoying life in Norway, been found on a computer file on an al-Qaeda computer in Kabul? Look at the pictures, and decide for yourself.