Jihad in Germany: Two Muslims convicted of misunderstanding Islam, recruiting and fundraising for al-Qaeda in Europe

We just saw Westerners among those who carried out the jihad massacres at the Algerian gas plant. So apparently recruitment efforts like those of these men sometimes pay off. We have seen again and again in accounts of jihad recruitment that recruiters like Ocak and Lodin appeal to their targets on Islamic grounds, quoting the Qur'an, invoking Muhammad's example, and trying to awaken in them a sense of Islamic duty. Yet this is the one element of the appeal that non-Muslim counterterror analysts are forbidden to examine.
"2 convicted of al-Qaida membership in Germany," from the Associated Press, January 25 (thanks to Lookmann):

BERLIN (AP) — A German and an Austrian have been convicted of membership in al-Qaida and sentenced to several years in prison.

Yusuf Ocak, 27, from Luebeck, Germany, was also convicted of being a founding member of the German Taliban Mujahideen and was sentenced to 9 years in prison. Maqsood Lodin, 23, an Austrian of Afghan background, was sentenced to 6 years 9 months.
Both can appeal.

The pair met in July 2010 in Pakistan's Waziristan region and were assigned by al-Qaida to collect money and recruit members for the terrorist group in Europe upon returning there in the spring of 2011. Ocak also posted a threat video on the internet in 2009....

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/01/myjihad-in-germany-two-muslims-convicted-of-misunderstanding-islam-recruiting-and-fundraising-for-al.html