"Osama bin Laden is a good man. I wish him a long life. He is a good Muslim and he is against the Bush administration," Krekar, known for his controversial statements, told AFP in Oslo.

Krekar, whose real name is Fateh Najmeddin Faraj and who has lived in Norway since 1991, is considered a national security risk in the Scandinavian country and is to be expelled, though his deportation has been suspended until the security situation in Iraq improves.

"Abu Musab al-Zarqawi became a martyr. His death is bad news but I am not sad because he went to paradise," Krekar said.

Zarqawi was killed on June 7 in a US air strike on his hideout in farmland north of Baghdad.

"Of course everything he's done was not good. When he was fighting against the American troops in Iraq, it was good but when he carried out crimes against civilians, Shiite Muslims and some Sunni Muslims, it was not good," he said.

Krekar denied however reports that he had claimed to be "ready to sacrifice himself" for Osama bin Laden. The reports were carried Thursday by the Norwegian media, citing Kurdish weekly Awene.

"The translation of my words is perhaps not exactly right," he said, refusing to comment further on his remarks.

After several failed appeals against the Norwegian government's expulsion order, Krekar now says he wants to return to Iraq, but "as a free man" to fight against the US-led coalition.

"I hope to return to Iraq to fight the American troops. They try to destroy my country, its civilization, its culture, its language, its economy, everything, just like the Nazis did in Europe until 1945 and like the Russians did in Afghanistan," he said.

"But I want to do that as a free man, not because Norway obliges me to," he added.

Krekar insists that he is no longer the head of Ansar al-Islam. The group is based in Iraqi Kurdistan near the border with Iran and is on the US list of terrorist organisations, though it has been severely weakened by intense US bombings.