Krekar was the original leader of the Islamist armed group Ansar al-Islam, which was set up and commenced operations in Northern Iraq while he had refugee status in Norway.

[7] On March 26, 2012, he was sentenced to 5 years in prison for making repeated death threats against Norwegian politicians and the Kurds if they pursued certain civil actions against him.

This occurred after certain additional statements of a threatening nature were linked to him, suggesting that others might take retaliatory actions against Norwegians if his civil prison sentence were implemented.

He claimed that the Kurdish resistance movement in Iraq collapsed due to the "American conspiracy" that forced Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to close Iranian borders to the Iraqi Kurds in 1975 and sign an agreement with Saddam Hussein in Algeria.

While in Iran, Mullah Krekar worked with a number of Kurds in Tehran to establish a jihadist organization against the regime of Saddam Hussein.

In August 2002, while Krekar was in Iraq, the Norwegian government revoked his refugee status on the grounds that he had traveled back to his homeland and spent long periods there.

[18] On March 21, 2003 his arrest was ordered by Økokrim, the Norwegian law enforcement agency for financial crime, to ensure he did not leave the country while accusations that he had financed terrorist attacks using Norway as a base were investigated.

The United States government has declared Ansar al-Islam a terrorist group, but Krekar denies that it was during the time he headed it, and says he no longer does.

While Krekar has not been found guilty of anything, a number of his opinions have met little sympathy; he was once recorded claiming that Osama bin Laden is the "jewel in the crown of Islam".

[23] The Norwegian minister of labour and migration, Bjarne Håkon Hanssen, responded that Krekar could leave at any time and that he would be given "travel documents within the day.

"[24] On December 7, 2006, the United States Department of the Treasury designated mullah Krekar as one of five individuals providing financial support to terrorist organizations.

[25] Mullah Krekar was later that day added to the United Nations Security Council list of individuals belonging to or associated with the Al-Qaeda organization.

[26] All member states of the United Nations are obliged to freeze assets and prevent entry or transit through their territories with regard to the individuals included on the list.

Anders Romarheim, a researcher at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies, believes that the placement of mullah Krekar on this list is a United States strategy to put pressure on Norway.

[31] On July 12, 2011, terrorism charges were filed against Krekar for a death threat he uttered against ex-minister Erna Solberg during a news conference in June 2010.

The Norwegian Intelligence Service admits it had knowledge of the agents' visit to Norway, and Meling confirms he had heard rumours that Krekar was to be kidnapped and transferred to Guantanamo Bay.

[36] However, a week later the Los Angeles Times quoted a high ranking intelligence official who claimed that U.S. special forces were in fact inserted in a European country allied with the United States through NATO, in order to carry out a snatch operation under strikingly similar circumstances to the Krekar case.

According to the Norwegian newspaper Stavanger Aftenblad, which was the original source of the CIA agents' mission in Oslo, the U.S. special forces, most likely Navy SEALs, had been monitoring a "militant leader" over a period of time, and were in place ready to carry out the snatch.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the Pentagon kept the allied country's government in the dark about the mission, which apparently failed or was aborted.

[37] In November 2007, Norwegian newspapers published the story that a Facebook group had been set up, dedicated to collecting money which would eventually go to an assassin, should one be located.

The group had approximately 400 members when Krekar's lawyer deemed the threat "serious" and said he "hoped the police would investigate the people involved".

[45] The Court of Appeal ordered that Krekar pay 130,000 kroner in damages compensation to each of the three Kurds he threatened, and to serve two years and ten months in prison, less the 255 days he was in custody.

The aforementioned article also reports that, "Krekar, who was only freed from prison late last month, was arrested Thursday night on accusations of inciting crime, police said."

He and 14 other Iraqi Kurds and one Kosovar Albanian, were "arrested in countries across Europe in collaboration with police from Italy, the UK, Norway, Finland, Germany and Switzerland.

"[51] The BBC reported that the raids targeted Rawti Shax, an Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant-linked jihadist network suspected to be led by Krekar.

[59] On 26 March 2020, it was announced that Mullah Krekar had been extradited from Norway to Italy, where he will be sentenced to jail for leading a jihadist network.

[60] His lawyer Brynjar Meling was deeply upset about this turn of events, citing his client's poor health (which include both diabetes and high blood pressure), the coronavirus pandemic in Italy and the subpar condition of the Rebibbia prison, which had recently seen both a mutiny and several deaths owing to the COVID-19 virus.

Mullah Krekar also claimed that if the Islamic Emirate of Kurdistan lived longer, an Ansar al-Islam operation against Turkey would have been inevitable.

[70] In November 2007, Mullah Krekar was the subject of a half-hour investigative report by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's (ABC-TV) international affairs program Foreign Correspondent.

[71] In July 2009, Mullah Krekar was one of the subjects of the NBC's pilot episode of the show The Wanted,[72] describing him as "responsible for killing hundreds of westerners".