{"id":3578,"date":"2014-04-17T04:50:16","date_gmt":"2014-04-17T04:50:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/?p=3578"},"modified":"2014-04-17T05:42:16","modified_gmt":"2014-04-17T05:42:16","slug":"mystery-al-qaeda-terrorist-identifies-as-portuguese-man-in-east-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/football\/mystery-al-qaeda-terrorist-identifies-as-portuguese-man-in-east-london\/","title":{"rendered":"Mystery al-Qaeda Terrorist Identifies As Portuguese Man In East London"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A mystery al-Qaeda terrorist described as an ex-Arsenal footballer\u00a0has been identified as a Portuguese man who lived in east London.<\/p>\n

The masked man appeared in an online video two weeks ago brandishing an AK47 urging others to join the jihad – or Holy War – in Syria.\u00a0
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He was named in the video as Abu Isa Andaluzi and a caption said: \u201cAn ex-football player (Arsenal of London), who left everything for jihad.\u201d<\/p>\n

But security services believe the man is Celso Rodrigues Da Costa, who had been living in Leyton, east London with his two brothers.<\/p>\n

Arsenal sources say they do not believe Da Costa was a full-time player but said he may have attended talent-spotting coaching sessions.<\/p>\n

The video, which urged Muslims in Ukraine or Crimea to join ruthless fighters in Syria, was shown to Arsenal academy coaches.<\/p>\n

However, they did not recognise the man\u2019s voice, with one source saying: \u201cAll we have to go on is a muffled accent and a set of eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n

A club spokesman said: \u201cWe do not recognise the individual from the published clips and we don\u2019t have any record of a Mr Celso Rodrigues Da Costa representing the club at any level.\u201d<\/p>\n

Suspicion had previously landed on midfielder Lassana Diarra, 29, who played for France and clubs including Arsenal,\u00a0<\/a>Chelsea, Real Madrid and Portsmouth.<\/p>\n

Diarra had to deny ever going to Syria after rumours swept the internet that he was the man behind the mask.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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A mystery al-Qaeda terrorist described as an ex-Arsenal footballer\u00a0has been identified as a Portuguese man who lived in east London. The masked man appeared in an online video two weeks ago brandishing an AK47 urging others to join the jihad – or Holy War – in Syria.\u00a0 He was named in the video as Abu […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3582,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60,80],"tags":[37],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3578"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3578"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3583,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3578\/revisions\/3583"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}