TRANSCRIPT: DR. SULAYMAN NYANG
On the Status, Method and Fallout of the
Global Spread of Wahhabism
An interview with Professor Sulayman Nyang
DR. NYANG: The second point that you know which I think is very critical – so these are common grounds whether they are Muslims from India, Africa, Pakistan, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine – it doesn’t matter…
The second point that I think is critical for Muslims in the United States and all over the world is to recognize the fact that in order for them to succeed in doing da`wah, and in promoting the word of Allah (swt) and the example of Prophet Muhammad (s) – they have to like each other, otherwise you cannot be impressive. How you going [to] tell a Christian or a Yahudi (Jew) or non-believer that Islam is very full when he can see that you don’t like your other Muslim brother. It doesn’t
make sense. You cannot be effective. The only way you can be effective is to prove to him or her –that listen – I disagree with my brother – just like in your own family you can disagree with your brother or your sister… So it’s just a difference of opinion. So this way the person looking at you will say ah ha, this person does not only have a message but he also has an example in himself or herself, and these two points are very critical…
Q: How do one implement this here between the various organizations? Because this is the main issue. We don’t disagree with each other on the general level. For example when I sit with Dr. Muzammil Siddiqi or this one or with that one, you see that there is a mutual understanding. When it goes high to the – [person[] sitting on [top of] his organization, then the whole idea changes.
DR. NYANG: You see, this is where the structures work against unity. Because the structures are institutionalization of narrow interests, you see, and then you see this is where the external forces become dangerous and this is what I keep telling the Muslims in America - if the Muslims are genuinely interested in planting the seeds of Islam in America they should not allow themselves to be controlled by the forces outside them. Like what you are saying… people will do things Islamically if it advances their interest. What does Islam do for me instead of what can I do for
Islam? That’s where we started the conversation. The external forces, sometimes governments, sometimes international Muslim organizations abroad – they feel that they can manipulate groups….
Q: They have such bad ideas about Tasawwuf [Sufism]; … they brainwash them … that Tasawwuf is shirk (associating partners with Allah), so anyone that has a Sufi background – they come against him without trying to know why …because they learned that Tasawwuf is not existing in Islam, which is incorrect. So that’s what …many Muslims are facing in the United States. But in our countries if you say that you are of this Tariqa [spiritual path] or that Tariqa, they will be happy!
TRANSCRIPT: DR. SULAYMAN NYANG
PAGE 2 OF 13
On Wahhabization of the Islamic movement
DR. NYANG: Yeah, now you see what is happening– if you look at the intellectual history, the social history of the Muslim organizations in America, you can see the reason why this is the case. And again it’s because many of these people – if you take the MSA, which we started when we just came here. It started in ’64. I came maybe one year later after they started [with] Ahmad Sakr, and all the others.
You have three elements who were instrumental in bringing about the MSA. You have those people from the subcontinent who were followers of Mawlana Maududi. Anis Ahmad and all those people – Iqbal Yunus, and all those people. Then you have people who came from the Arab world who would identify with the Ikwan al-Muslimoon [Muslim Brotherhood]. You know, Abu Gideri, Tijani. We’re neighbors, you can name their names. And then those who came from Iran, who were the followers of Ayatollah Khoei, people like Mosadeq; [or the one] who became foreign minister after the [Iranian Islamic] Revolution - people like Ibrahim Yazdi. Those elements, they were students here. These groups, the followers of Ayatollah Khoei, those from Najaf in Iraq; the followers of Mawlana Maududi; and the followers of Sayyid Qutb, Hassan al- Banna and the Ikhwan [al-Muslimoon] – they were the ones who started the MSA in America.
Many of those people, they have a version of Islam – even though Maududi himself has
some Tasawwuf connections, but they became very rigid in terms of their Islam, and to
some extent many of them had to deal with the Salafi people. So they turned against
Tasawwuf.
…If one is to really write an article about American Muslims’ resistance to Tasawwuf, you have to trace the roots back to this. And then you see what happened is – because of the politics in Arab world, at the time these people were coming in, those people who were followers of Ayatollah Khoei – they were opposed to the Ba`ath Party in Iraq and Syria. So naturally those kids, our generation, they were older, I was the young… Many of those …so the Ba`athists were opposed by these Muslims, because in the 50’s and 60’s most of the Arab kids I went to school with in America
were secular…. They were Muslims, but Islam was not seen as progressive, because they
were all Arab nationalists – [saying,] “Nasser, Nasser, Nasser. “ That was the other thing.
So the Ikhwan people were very marginalized among the Arab intellectual groups. And
those people who were followers of Ayatollah Khoei from Iraq and Iran, they were also
marginalized, because these were young Arab, Iranian, Pakistani, Indian Muslims who were Islamic.
We used to pray – there are a lot of people I know, now many of them are active, but when we were students, many of them from Africa, and many from Pakistan – they didn’t want to pray. Many of them now, they are very active. And…their kids are now going to college. In those days they were just what I called “grasshopper” Muslims.
I want to say why Tasawwuf was rejected: most of those [Muslims] were secular…and…they came back to Islam after the Iranian Revolution. Many of them, they have kids, they’re now professionals in America. They moved from secularism into Islam. And the kind of Islam they know is ISNA. And the other thing – they come back from being grasshoppers to being ‘regular’ Muslims.
Two things have taken place – in the Arab world, in the Muslim world. You have the Iranian Revolution – many of them were now beginning to be attacked by the non-Muslims for being Muslims. So even if you are a secularized Muslim, you are still attacked. And the Iranians learned the hard way. Even if you are a secular Iranian, because you are Iranian you are going to be attacked. So many of them now began to realize their Muslim identity. And this coincided with the oil embargo in the Arab world, and the rise of Saudi Arabia.
So, you see, because Maududi and the Ikhwan al-Muslimoon people were supported by
the Arab Gulf States in Saudi Arabia. That’s why you have many of these people who are leaders now in Southern California here – they were living in the Arab world. They were doctors in the Arab world, they made money in Kuwait and in Saudi Arabia… because they fled from Egypt, from Nasser’s air forces. They went to Saudi Arabia, they helped King Faisal and King Khalid.
Many of them made money, and then they came to America. They became very active in
Islamic work here. Those people now, while they were refugees from Nasser in Saudi
Arabia, in Qatar – they became Wahhabis. So if you’re really trying to understand the root of these anti-Tasawwuf [concepts], you have to [study]… the intellectual history and the social history of the Muslim groups.
So those people who were Maududi supporters, those people who were Ayatollah Khoei
supporters, and those people who were supporters of the Ikhwan al-Muslimoon, who
became refugees in Saudi Arabia, they became influenced by the Wahhabis. And when
they came to America and they started doing da`wah they were getting money from Saudi
Arabia. So those people, they opposed Tasawwuf. That’s the intellectual history of what happened.
On why American Islamist groups reject traditional Islam
Q: …This is what MSA [and] those who put MSA together at the beginning [believe] – but now we are seeing more Muslims coming, immigrants …[who] know their backgrounds.
[Is it not correct] that the majority of them practice Tasawwuf?
DR. NYANG: Yes.
Q: And they practice Islamic beliefs like Mawlid an-Nabi (birthday of Prophet Muhammad), like salaam; like praising [the Prophet (s)]; like na’at and so on [sending salams on the Prophet, praising him, and reciting beautiful poetry and ballads in praise of him]. If the MSA had that idea at the beginning and [among the] new people [who] are coming – is this [rejection of these an] effect of the old leaders of MSA still influencing the new generation?
DR. NYANG: No, no, no. That’s why when you say the silent majority – they come from Muslim countries where you have Tasawwuf already [established]. So there’s a gap between the elites who have been influenced, as I described, and the masses… There’s a gap there.
Most Muslim countries have been exposed to Tasawwuf – that’s a fact in our intellectual history. There is not a single Muslim country where Islam went without the Tasawwuf people.
Q: And that Tasawwuf was a blessing that had helped to spread Islam…?
DR. NYANG: Yes, of course, that’s the way it happened all over the Islamic world. Of course, you know, some of our ulema (religious scholars), some of our people now, especially the Salafi and the Wahhabi intellectuals will say, “Well these were distortions of Islam because the march of Muslim traders and scholars who were going to these countries in Malaysia, in Indonesia, in Africa, in Central Asia – they had to deal with the culture, so they compromised with the culture.” But I think that’s false.
Q: Yeah, because as you see, Ibn Taymiyya has clearly supported Tasawwuf … the correct Tasawwuf.
DR. NYANG: Yes.
Q: Which implements the state of ihsan? [“Ihsan” is a state of closeness to Allah Almighty about which the Prophet (s) said, “It is to worship Allah as if you see Him, and if you do not see Him, He indeed sees you.”]
DR. NYANG: Yes.
Q: And many of the Sufis, like Abu Yazid al-Bistami, like Rabi’a al-Adawiyya, Sulayman ad-Durrani [are mentioned by] Ibn Taymiyya [in] two volumes [about that] in his Fatawa, volumes 10 and 11 on Tasawwuf, and the necessity of Tasawwuf. And [Ibn Taymiyya] was a Qadiri himself?
DR. NYANG: Yes.
Q: So, if we relate to what you said that the traders who conducted business in Central Asia or the Far East or Subcontinents – for their culture to compromise with the culture of the people there… we also find in the Islamic tradition that different scholars, like Ibn Taymiyya, [were] Sufi, who now … are being studied…?
DR. NYANG: Yes, that’s right, that’s right.
Q: Even Imam Nawawi was a Sufi. Even Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani [and] Al-Haythami [were]
Sufi. As-Subki was a Sufi, Adh-Dhahabi, … were Sufi.
DR. NYANG: Yes.
Q: The Four Schools of Islam…
DR. NYANG: The major thinkers, yes. They all have Sufi ancestry.
Q: Dr. Nyang, in your opinion – how we can … bring unity? Because we don’t want clashes between the ummah [Muslims of the world], especially in America…
DR. NYANG: No, no.
On clearing up the false understanding of Tasawwuf
Q: How can we clear up the MSA understanding about Tasawwuf, that it is not something
other than Islam, but it is [part of] Islam?
DR. NYANG: Yes, this is where the dialogue has to be initiated. And I think two processes must take place. One is, there must be dialogue with the elites – not all of them will come. Some of them, they have vested interests. Because, see, if you are a Muslim in America and you are getting money from Saudi Arabia – I don’t expect you to… – you may know the truth but you will not come, because your interest is linked… They’re not going to accept that because they feel that if they do it, they will destroy their sources of funding. So those people, you don’t dismiss them. You still maintain the door open. Keep the door open, because their
circumstances could change, you know what I’m saying. They may fall out with the Saudis or whoever that is, and because you did not snub them or close the door against them, they may turn around and say, “Well you know brother you are right, what you were saying is correct.”
I mean, self interest misguided them. It’s not that they don’t have the intellectual understanding - this is a human being, you know that. I mean if you have a son and he falls in love with a girl, because he sees her and he likes her, and we say, “That’s not good for you,” he’s not going to listen... Because that’s his interest. You see what I’m saying. Now, until he has intellectual conversion that what he wants – if he wants to buy a car, you tell him, “Don’t buy this car, it’s not good for you” – but if he’s emotionally attached to that car, you cannot tell him anything. Now, until he is influenced by an intellectual understanding that
“this is not good for me”, then you see that, “what daddy was saying or my friend was saying was correct”… Your interest blinds you to reality, you cannot see it.
There are people like that, those people who have vested interest in the way the Wahhabi hierarchy in Saudi Arabia doles out money to them. And that’s not only in America – it’s …all over the world. You see Rabita people – they give money to them. Those people are not going to accept. Intellectually they know that what you are saying is correct, but they are not going to accept it. You see this in every area, with politics and everything else… Once you know this, you understand their behavior.
That’s of course, in knowledge, what we call the sociology of knowledge. Because you have higher interests that affects the manner in which human beings respond to knowledge; because of their interests.
The Wahhabi – [and] people who are inspired by the Wahhabi, or influenced by the
Wahhabi – will never accept Tasawwuf, even if they are intellectually convinced about the validity and the strength of Tasawwuf because of their material interest. And this is very clear in the United States. So, that dialogue – you don’t shut the door, don’t close the door to them. You keep the door ajar, and if they want to come and dialogue, fine. If I see you [I say], “salaamu ’alaykum brother, how are you doing?” I will be very nice to you. That’s between you and me as a brother Muslim. Khalas [finished].
On the causes for the rejection of Tasawwuf
Q: Can I ask a question? As you are a professor in these issues, and you have more vision on these subjects, tell us why then this ideology - if they know that it is correct, and Tasawwuf has been correct all the time, and we know that now in Saudi Arabia, or in this country especially… the silent majority is Ahl as-Sunnah wal-Jama’at and few are not from Ahl as-Sunnah wal-Jama’at - why then, since they know this, is there that fear of the word “Tasawwuf”? What is in their heart that they are so irritated when the issue of Tasawwuf comes up?
DR. NYANG: You know, the thing is this: I was a diplomat in Saudi Arabia in the 70’s, twenty-two years ago... What I observed over there in Saudi Arabia, is the fact that the Saudi ruling family itself is not united on this issue of Wahhabism.
Q: Yes, that is correct. They have nothing to do with it, they don’t [even] care for it.
DR. NYANG: Yes, you see what has happened is at one point in time, their father or grandfather, Abdul Aziz, was able to use the Ikhwan, which grew out of the movement created by, you know, like the amir, you know, so-called Saudi Greats, and Muhammad ibn Saud, [and] Abdul Wahhab, Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab. That alliance between the crown and the pen, you know, in Saudi Arabia, has led to the Aali-Shaykh family...You see, and the Al- Saud family. That’s why the Aali-Shaykh, you know that very well, Aali-Shaykh family becomes the Minister of Education since the beginning of the kingdom.
On rejection of Wahhabism in its homeland
DR. NYANG: Now, what has happened really is the royal family may not care about Wahhabism any more. Because this is one of the reasons why – if you go to Riyadh or Jeddah, you take a taxi, they still listen to music. Whereas Wahhabis used to say, “no music.” [You see] cigars... They put it on TV. If they are Wahhabis, they are opposed to that. In the past, no music in Saudi Arabia. You see, you can see that even among the royal family, this old idea of Wahhabism, rigid Wahhabism, is fading away.
OK, the silent majority, the first they are Ahl Jama’at was-Sunnah, that’s what they are in Saudi Arabia, especially in Hijaz. People they do Mawlid an-Nabi in Medina. [They celebrate the Prophet’s birthday, listen to music, smoke cigars, all of which is outlawed by Wahhabis.]
Q: In Medina and Makkah?
DR. NYANG: Yes!
Q: Jeddah, everywhere?
DR. NYANG: They do! So the reality is really that the elites have a vested interest in keeping the facade – it’s all facade – there is no substance to it in Saudi Arabia. It’s facade because, you see, the prestige internationally depends on Wahhabism. The great irony in Saudi Arabia is that Wahhabism is more important as a tool of foreign policy than as an instrument of internal government policy. You see what I am saying! This is what is happening. And if we recognize this reality, we will know how to deal with them. You see where there is a political issue – because, you see they would like to use this political issue for international propaganda.
And you have some groups now from overseas who have a vested interest in clinging on to that. You see, because the groups that are in America, if they get money from the
Wahhabi’s government, they re-enforce the external policy, even though, domestically they didn’t have much substance to it. You see what I’m saying? This is where politics comes in, and it has nothing to do with Islam or anything else. It’s just mere power and how to get power and keep power.
On Wahabi incitement to violence in Africa
Q: And that’s what we see now – I’d like your opinion on another matter, also. Now we see that in many African countries like Kenya, Senegal, Djibouti, Somalia – they begin big fights and clashes between the Muslims. …We are seeing that Muslims are fighting each other there, because the majority there are following Ahl as-Sunnah wal-Jama’at and following Tasawwuf, because this is how they grew up. [Is this indeed correct?]
DR. NYANG: That’s right.
Q: And now with this new ideology that’s coming in from the Wahhabis – you are finding that this is going… clashes are increasing?
DR. NYANG: Yes.
Q: We have some – one of our brothers sent me letters, that …in many masajid (mosques), there have been many killings there for who will be in authority between the Wahhabis or still in the hands of the Ahl as-Sunnah wal-Jama’at.
DR. NYANG: Yes… I can understand this, you see because you have the so called the Islamic Party of Kenya. What’s his name again? You know, Ahmed Bilala. The problem you have, you know, in the Kenyan case, you have in Mombasa, you have many of those people – they call them – Europeans call them Afro-Arabs. These are people from Hadramut, you know, who migrated to Africa two hundred years ago, they settled, they intermarried with local people. People of Nazariya… You know, and others… So you have these people in Pimba, in Malindi, and you know, like and in Mombasa area.
Those coastal city-states of Muslims have been there for almost about 800 years. Those families of Muslims, many of them historically came from Oman, or Hadramaut, and some other areas in Yemen. Now, some of them were Shi’a, but most of them were Sunni, Ahl as-Sunnah. So they settled in that region.
In recent times what has happened is when the Rabita began to fight on behalf of the
Saudi family with Nasserites, they were looking for allies in the region. And these groups of people became actively involved. So these Wahhabis had their own people. You see, so those people, they get money. If you are an imam in Mombasa, for example, and the Rabita sends you a check - in Africa it’s a lot of money. They send them about $800 a month. It’s a lot of money over there. In America it’s nothing. Over there it’s a lot of money. So, you are on the payroll of Rabita. They send you $800 every month. I mean, it makes you live a middle-class lifestyle in Kenya. So, you are an imam and you know every month you get a check and then you may even be member of the Global Islamic Council of Imams or Mosques.
They have a mosque in Saudi Arabia. Every year you go for this annual meeting of imams from around the world. And you meet there – you meet all the people from Pakistan, from Thailand, from Malaysia. You can then go for `umra [the lesser pilgrimage to Mecca]. It gives you prestige in your community. Because you see, they say the imam is going to see the Imam of Mecca. That’s prestige, you see, it’s prestige. The newspaper will say that Imam Ahmed Abdullah will be going to Mecca to attend the Global Council of Masjids (mosques).
Prestige. If we have money, you do it in America, too… If they get an invitation, they come from Kenya, yea I’m going to America to join the Muslims. You see? Prestige for them. That’s what’s happening! This is what is happening! So those guys, they got caught up in this international network of Wahhabis, so when they come to Kenya, they will fight anybody who talks Tasawwuf…
Even though in Saudi Arabia, the royal family is not united on Wahhabism anymore. These people are more holier than thou. Ha ha ha. This is what is happening! Politicization of Islam. And the creation of the profit motive in sectarianism. See what I’m saying? It becomes commercial.
What you were saying earlier in the conversation. People will say, “What can I get from this Islam?” Islam now is good for them, it’s modernized. You see what I am saying? This is what is happening…?
On how the Ikhwan al-Muslimoon and Wahabi interests became linked
Q: What is your future vision of Islam in the world, Professor Nyang? With the power of money and political influence, will ideology overcome the whole world and become the effecting factor on Islamic belief? And will the belief of Muslims through fourteen hundred years be changed slightly toward the new ideology of Muhammad bin Abdul Wahab?
DR. NYANG: No, I don’t think so. I don’t think so. You see, fortunately for Muslims – fortunately, I say this – the Saudis don’t have the intellectual ability to do that. If they had the intellectual ability, we’d be in serious trouble. You see, they don’t have the same intellectual clout that the Egyptians had under Nasser. You see, when Nasser… you see, if you look at what happened – in fact, I’ve been trying to encourage some of my students to write – one of the Egyptians scholars who retired from my department said he might write a book or, he said, will get me a grant – then I can write a book… I would like to get one of the graduate
students, you know, to really, to investigate this. Because, you see, I have written some articles about it, but I think it should be investigated thoroughly and a book should be written. And that is – because this will deal with the question that you are raising.
The intellectual impact of what the late Malcolm Kerr, who was killed in Lebanon …he was the president of American University of Beirut… Malcolm Kerr wrote a book called The Arab Cold War... The royal families like the Wahhabis and King Faisal, King Hussein and all that… then later between the Hashemites and the Nasserites, and then, of course, later on it took a different character between the Saudis – Riyadh and Cairo. Because, you see, because of the tension that was going on between Nasser and his advocacy of radical Arab republicanism on the one hand and the traditional Arab monarchists – that tension between the two forces led to the migration of many
Muslim intellectuals from the Ihkwan to the Gulf countries.
You know, in my research, which I wrote a long time ago, I wrote this paper many years ago “Saudi Foreign Policy in Africa,” which was published almost 20 years ago now. I mean, the argument I made there – some of the things I’m telling you now, I wrote that long …ago in that article.
What happened really was when King Saud was fighting – at first, Saud was close to
Nasser, but then, because Saud was close to America and Nasser was close to the Soviet Union – the Arabs were split ideologically between the supporters of America and the West and the supporters of Russia. Nasser became the leader of the republican radicals, and then the Saudi family was supported by America. So, many of the Egyptian intellectuals who were with the Ihkwan al-Muslimoon of Hasan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb migrated to Saudi Arabia. And they are the ones – the intellectuals – that’s why I told you that the Saudis don’t have the intellectual ability – they are the ones who helped the Saudi Arabians to establish what? Rabita.
The Rabita was created only to fight the Egyptians Nasserites. Because you have Tawfiq Awwiyla, you know, who was the head of the Majlis, the Supreme Council on Islamic Affairs in Egypt, which was the strongest weapon used by Nasser to penetrate Africa and Asia.
And Nasser gave scholarships to Pakistanis, Malaysians – at that time, Malaysia was not strong as it is today –and they were all going to Egypt, at Al-Azhar University, to study. And then the Saudis, benefiting from the Egyptian intellectuals, people like Mahmoud Tawfiq… [who] all went to Riyadh and they created the Rabita. And the Egyptians, the Lebanese, and the Syrians and Iraqi intellectuals who were Ikhwanis – they fled to Saudi Arabia. And they’re the ones who created the intellectual infrastructure for the royal family in Saudi Arabia.
So, you have the Majlis in Egypt and you have the Rabita. And the Rabita would now
become a very important instrument for the royal family in Saudi Arabia, not only to fight the Nasserites, but to expand Saudi influence in the Muslim world. Then the Saudis’ businessmen, the Alureesha, Alamoodi, al-Wajhi, al-Suleyman, you know, al-Dilal – all those different families that are in Riyadh and in Jeddah – the Hijazis – they put their money together and they established Jami`at Abdul Aziz University, which was a private university, but then, later on, taken over. Because of the rivalry between the Egyptians and the Saudis, that private university became… It’s been widely written about. So when you talk about how Wahabi thought became dominant, this Saudi influence – they didn’t have intellectual know-how.
You see, there are a lot of Saudis now who are educated – many of them are my students. They come to my classes. I have trained many Saudis. They went back now to Saudi Arabia. Some of them are big. But this is the problem. They don’t have the intellectual ability. If they had they had the intellectual ability of the Syrians, or the Egyptians, or the Lebanese, or to a certain extent the Tunisians or Moroccans, maybe they would be able to influence the world. But the Saudis don’t
have that.
On Bilal Philips
Q: Don’t you think through Rabita and through scholarships that they are giving in thousands and thousands and they are teaching the people in Medina and Mecca and Riyadh, and these people return to their countries as Bilal Phillips did, or …?
DR. NYANG: Hah! Bilal Phillips and all those guys!
Q: Because I hear …people in Sri Lanka … have big problems there because Bilal Phillips was there and many others from Saudi Arabia were there, and beginning to make…
DR. NYANG: Attack.
Q: Attack the whole belief [system] of Sri Lankan Muslims, because of their belief in
Tasawwuf?
DR. NYANG: Yes.
Q: And then they are bringing now this new issue about the Muslims and they are supporting the government, so the government gave them the authority to run masajids [mosques]?
DR. NYANG: Ah! Now you’re talking. This is the politicization. This is what’s happening. This is what is happening. You see, now, you see this is the thing. This is why we have to analyze these things and you understand the political forces at work. Then you have a global understanding. See, what has to happen, really, is that the people, you know, who are committed to Tasawwuf have to recognize – they have to do this analysis. What we are doing now, they have to do it systematically, so they have a very solid intellectual understanding of what is on the ground, you see?
Now… Bilal Philips, of course, you know, he left Saudi Arabia. He was there – he was with Dar al-Ifta. You know, Shaykh Bin Baz. He was a protégé of Shaykh Bin Baz. And Shaykh Bin Baz gave him thousands… hundreds of thousands of dollars from them… He’s a very young man, you know, like he went there and you know, ostensibly to study Arabic, and he did study Arabic very well. You have Imam Muhammad ibn Saud University in Riyadh and – so he became a protégé of Shaykh Bin Baz. Bin Baz has a lot of money so he gave him a lot of money, you know.
When they had those problems with so-called “Islamic fundamentalists” in Saudi Arabia –that was when the secular forces – because in Saudi Arabia you have a strong group of people who were – they call them the Southern California Mafia. These are Saudi Arabians who are secular nationalists, and they are still here in America. And they went back home –they’re not interested in Tasawwuf, they’re not interested in Wahhabism – they’re interested in Saudi nationalism. Many of them were Ba`athists or Nasserites, and these guys – they saw people like Bilal Philips as troublemakers, because they are encouraging the radicals. That’s why they kicked him out – so he went to Dubai. That’s why he went to Dubai, and that’s why he ended up in the Philippines – even married to a Filipino girl…
The thing is this, you see, the people who were Ahl at-Tasawwuf… must have an intellectual understanding of what is happening. Like we are doing now – what’s happening globally. And then you develop strategies.
You see, in Sri Lanka, you’re right… with the Saudis. Because those people who are locals – they have their personal interests, what can Islam do for me in Sri Lanka? So those imams, those khatibs, and all those people in the masajids who have vested interests – they know that they may be outnumbered locally by the people who follow Tasawwuf, but they could use their government, where the government in Sri Lanka is now faced with a problem. You know, they have a problem with the… in Jafna and all those places in Sri Lanka. So what they try to do now is that – the Muslims are the middle group. The Sinhalese and the Tamil fight.
The Muslims, they cut both groups. You have some Muslims who are Sinhalese, some who are Tamils. So the Muslims are the brokers between the two groups. So the leadership, who are mainly Sinhalese anyway in Sri Lanka – they would like the Muslims to be on their side. And if that is the case, the Muslims who are now struggling for power among themselves – those who are opposed to the Sufis, they try to get the Saudis to bring money to the Sri Lankans. That’s the game that they’re playing! So you see, if I want to win against the Sufis in Sri Lanka, I’d form
two alliances. I’d form an alliance with the Wahhabis, and I’d form an alliance with the government. And I’d tell my Wahhabi friends, “Send money to these guys, because they are fighting the war against the Tamils.” You see what I’m saying? And this way they benefit. This is what’s happening.
So what has to happen really – they will not succeed. Because you know the Arab intellectual history. In the early part of Islam, when the Mu’tazila became dominant – the Khalifa tried to use state power to repress all the other groups. Is that true? But they did not succeed. They lost out.
You see, they lost out. The disciples of Imam al-Ash`ari eventually won. The same thing is going to happen. Don’t worry about them.
On correcting the Muslims understanding of doctrine
DR. NYANG: The most important thing is to build structures. That’s why America becomes a very important theatre here. What has to happen here is the people who are interested in really promoting Islam and away from these government structures that have narrow blinders, you plant the seeds here among the young people. Get people like Shihab, Muhammad Zain and others. Get the… Pass it around. Give them the information.
Q: How do you give them the information?
DR. NYANG: Well, books like this is one [Encyclopedia of Islamic Doctrine]. And then you organize seminars. And then you begin to create catalysts – you have regional seminars, you have annual seminars, conference – annual conference, regional seminars – East Coast, West Coast, southern part like Florida. And then you also begin to create catalysts for da’wah and reinforcement. Then you have dialogue. Because you see, in order for the Muslim groups that are genuinely interested in promoting Islam – they have to do da’wah and dialogue. But these are two different strategies.
Da’wah is to teach those people who are within the community more about Islam, and to make sure that the division which is incurred is minimized. And at the same time to educate non-Muslims about Islam… Not every Muslim can dialogue with Nassaranis or Yahudis, no. You have to be secure. See, I feel adequate to dialogue with hristians, because if I sit down with Christians, I may know more about Christianity than they do. Because I have read their classical works. I know what their scholars have said. So when I sit down with them, I talk to them, and I tell them what their scholars have said. And I tell them what we Muslims believe in, and what our scholars have said, and then we’ll dialogue. Let’s talk, let’s find common ground. It’s because we live in America here.
You will need to educate them. So they will go and they say, “Wow, now we have” – you know, if you are dialoguing with them, they say, “Yeah, … He’s secure as a Muslim, but he’s willing to dialogue with us.” Those people now you make them your emissaries. Because when they go and they talk with their own people, they will be ambassadors there. Because the ideas you leave with them, they will talk. But if you just put your stuff out like Muslims who are in their cocoon… these are kuffars [unbelievers]. What kind of message is that? If you don’t like kuffar why are you here? Go back to your Muslim world!
People like Saddam Hussein are no good? Ha ha ha. I go every week to Muslims – every week I am speaking to Muslims. Last weekend this time, I was in Dayton, Ohio, and in Youngstown, Ohio.
Q: One question … how far did you, here and there what you have discussed with other groups, but have these subjects about Tasawwuf and so on, have they been discussed or questioned…?
DR. NYANG: The only – in fact that’s why I wrote an article one time – the ISNA people published one, because I write a lot of things and I give them. Omar Abdullah, who is the editor of the Horizon, he lives in Virginia there – when they called me, Khalid Griggs from The Message people in New York – they call me once in a while – when they want articles they call you. I just look up some of the things I have and I send it to them, and then they can publish what they want.
But the question of Tasawwuf has not come up in the way we are discussing. It always
comes in the context of – they don’t deal with genuine Tasawwuf – they deal with what I call “distorted Tasawwuf” - you know, what I call “popcorn Sufis”… I coined this term 15 years ago. Because there’s a white American lady who is the head of a museum in Washington, D.C., and her sister called her one day – that’s how the name ‘popcorn Sufi’ came up. And she had a sister somewhere in the Western part of the United States here, I think in Oregon or Washington state or somewhere else, and she called her sister and said, “Guess what, guess what”. Her sister said, “Guess what, what’s happening?”… [they have a group] holding hands and saying “Allah, Allah, Allah”, and she’s not a Muslim – then she must be a ‘popcorn Sufi’.
So you see, that trivialization of Tasawwuf has become the major instrument they use
against the Muslims, I mean against Muslims who are with Tasawwuf. Because this is the kind of Tasawwuf … they see in the United States. People who are followers of these different groups. And in California, there are many of them. If you go to the library, you look at the Encyclopedia of Religion in the United States and you look under Islam or Sufism, you look at the index – you will see these different groups. You know, they have these different groups. So this is where the problem is – you have these different who don’t really – like the Ibn al-Arabi Society, they may have their own journal…Sufis of the West and all these different groups…
Now what has to happen, and this is where it has to be done, without being divisive – I think what has to be done very clearly, … You have to come out and say very clearly, we believe in Tasawwuf and we maintain our commitment to Tasawwuf in light of our commitment to ‘aqida of the Prophet (s), the Sunnah – we belong to Ahl as-Sunnah – you come out, and in a very conscious way separate yourself from ‘popcorn Sufis’. This way you solve the problem. They have to deal with you now intellectually – they cannot just marginalize you and put you there, because they now know that you are not a ‘popcorn Sufi’…. So intellectually now you force them to be honest.
On Islamic acceptability of Tasawwuf and Mawlid
Q: Professor Sulayman Nyang, do you think that Tasawwuf is correct Islamically?
DR. NYANG: Well, yes – there are various references in the Qur’an which suggest that you have the mystical dimension of Islam. I mean, you know, we can see that very clearly. You know, when the people who are Salafi or Wahhabi reinterpret nafs ul-ammara bi su, nafs ullawwamma, nafs ul-mutma’iyna, they may interpret these concepts in their own relative manner – but they cannot deny the fact that these are stages in the spiritual evolution of insan [humankind]. They cannot deny that.
And of course there are many other verses one can quote from the which suggest that there is that mystical understanding which is critical in the development of spiritual enlightenment and the elevation of the human being. You see that very clearly. In our intellectual tradition – Imam al-Ghazali is a classical example of someone who was well-grounded in terms of the intellectual currents of his time. But he was able to do what I just recommended. He was able to say, “OK listen, I don’t support some of these groups who are going one way.” And these people, you know, their intellectual practices deviate from our ‘aqida and the central beliefs we have. Now these other groups – I do not agree with them… That has to happen. That’s why I’m saying that this book [Encyclopedia of Islamic Doctrine] here will be part of that intellectual debate.
Q: Insha’llah (God Willing). It has many references…
DR. NYANG: Yes. What we have to discourage really is – and this is where as a minority we cannot afford it – we must reduce polemics in our community. You see, I can disagree with my brother, without going [to extremes]… Well, they call me Sufi! So I mean, you know, … these people call me Sufi anyway.
Q: [Can you] say Sulayman Nyang accepts celebration of Milad an-Nabi (s)?
DR. NYANG: Well, I gave lectures to the Agha Khan people, celebrating Milad… So I would not have been there if I didn’t. So I mean the Agha Khan people will invite me to go and speak to them on Milad an-Nabi (S). And you know, interestingly enough, let me make just this point here – when I spoke in Toronto, lot of the Muslims who would not normally go to Agha Khan gatherings – hundreds of them, they came. They came! Many of the Muslims from Pakistan, because they know me, they know what I have written over the years, and they came…..
But at least intellectually, I think they respect my opinion, to the point that many of these Pakistanis and Indian Muslims and Bangladeshis who knew my writings and who knew me personally, because I have spoken in their masajids in Canada before, you know, long before I was invited by the Agha Khan followers, the Isma’ilis in Toronto – so they came. And the Isma’ilis were very happy the other Muslims came to attend the event for the first time. So I mean, you know like, you have thousands – the whole place was packed. Over two thousand people – the whole convention place was packed full. You know, they had all their people, and I came, I spoke to them. Because the point is – my concern is they wanted me to talk on Islamic civilization. And of course the Agha Khan is very interested in architecture, and he has an award now – the “Agha Khan Award for Architecture”. The best building that resembles the
classical Islamic architecture constructed in any country, based on the reports of the judges, will be given an award. And they may get hundreds of thousands of dollars for that. That’s one of his contributions. And notice that King Fahd has also created one like that now…
So I mean, this is the thing. They have done this, I mean the way I see it – the way I see myself intellectually – I want to be in a position to explain to Muslims their intellectual state of affairs. And I want to be a good ambassador of the Muslims to non-Muslims. So that when I meet Hindus, even the worst Hindu that doesn’t like us – when he meets me, he will walk away and say, “You know, I don’t like those Muslims, but I now know where they stand intellectually.”
Ahh, then I have succeeded. I have done da’wah, because I have planted a seed in his mind, and with Allah’s blessing he could change his mind. This is what we have to do. This is the way I see it. Yeah, that’s how I see it.
Q: If we can ask you for some articles…
DR. NYANG: Yeah, of course. I mean I can write whatever I like, you know like, I mean, you know, like in the areas that I am competent I will write articles.
Q: We are launching a new magazine…The Muslim Magazine – Al-Muslimoon. The Board of the Advisory Committee are very well known people from here, overseas…
DR. NYANG: Overseas, that’s good.
Q: From al-Azhar, from Malaysia, Singapore, Pakistan, Turkey, from here – and we are launching the first issue insha-Allah…
Friday, March 28, 2008
Usama bin Laden Network
al-Qa'ida (The Base)
Qa魀dat al-Jihad
Islamic Army for the Liberation of the Holy Places
World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders
Islamic Salvation Foundation
Usama bin Laden Network
Al-Qa'ida is multi-national, with members from numerous countries and with a worldwide presence. Senior leaders in the organization are also senior leaders in other terrorist organizations, including those designated by the Department of State as foreign terrorist organizations, such as the Egyptian al-Gama'at al-Islamiyya and the Egyptian al-Jihad. Al-Qa'ida seeks a global radicalization of existing Islamic groups and the creation of radical Islamic groups where none exist.
Al-Qa'ida supports Muslim fighters in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya, Tajikistan, Somalia, Yemen, and Kosovo. It also trains members of terrorist organizations from such diverse countries as the Philippines, Algeria, and Eritrea.
Al-Qa'ida's goal is to "unite all Muslims and to establish a government which follows the rule of the Caliphs." Bin Laden has stated that the only way to establish the Caliphate is by force. Al-Qa'ida's goal, therefore, is to overthrow nearly all Muslim governments, which are viewed as corrupt, to drive Western influence from those countries, and eventually to abolish state boundaries.
Description
Established by Usama Bin Ladin in the late 1980s to bring together Arabs who fought in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union. Helped finance, recruit, transport, and train Sunni Islamic extremists for the Afghan resistance. Current goal is to establish a pan-Islamic Caliphate throughout the world by working with allied Islamic extremist groups to overthrow regimes it deems 忛on-Islamic?and expelling Westerners and non-Muslims from Muslim countries檏articularly Saudi Arabia. Issued statement under banner of 懀he World Islamic Front for Jihad Against the Jews and Crusaders?in February 1998, saying it was the duty of all Muslims to kill US citizens櫘ivilian or military㻡nd their allies everywhere. Merged with Egyptian Islamic Jihad (Al-Jihad) in June 2001.
Activities
In 2003, carried out the assault and bombing on 12 May of three expatriate housing complexes in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, that killed 20 and injured 139. Assisted in carrying out the bombings on 16 May in Casablanca, Morocco, of a Jewish center, restaurant, nightclub, and hotel that killed 41 and injured 101. Probably supported the bombing of the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia, on 5 August that killed 17 and injured 137. Responsible for the assault and bombing on 9 November of a housing complex in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, that killed 17 and injured 100. Conducted the bombings of two synagogues in Istanbul, Turkey, on 15 November that killed 23 and injured 200 and the bombings in Istanbul of the British Consulate and HSBC Bank on 20 November that resulted in 27 dead and 455 injured. Has been involved in some attacks in Afghanistan and Iraq.
In 2002, carried out bombing on 28 November of hotel in Mombasa, Kenya, killing 15 and injuring 40. Probably supported a nightclub bombing in Bali, Indonesia, on 12 October that killed about 180. Responsible for an attack on US military personnel in Kuwait, on 8 October, that killed one US soldier and injured another. Directed a suicide attack on the MV Limburg off the coast of Yemen, on 6 October that killed one and injured four. Carried out a firebombing of a synagogue in Tunisia on 11 April that killed 19 and injured 22. On 11 September 2001, 19 al-Qaida suicide attackers hijacked and crashed four US commercial jets, two into the World Trade Center in New York City, one into the Pentagon near Washington, DC, and a fourth into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, leaving about 3,000 individuals dead or missing. Directed the 12 October 2000 attack on the USS Cole in the port of Aden, Yemen, killing 17 US Navy members, and injuring another 39. Conducted the bombings in August 1998 of the US Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, that killed at least 301 individuals and injured more than 5,000 others. Claims to have shot down US helicopters and killed US servicemen in Somalia in 1993 and to have conducted three bombings that targeted US troops in Aden, Yemen, in December 1992.
Al-Qaida is linked to the following plans that were disrupted or not carried out: to assassinate Pope John Paul II during his visit to Manila in late 1994, to kill President Clinton during a visit to the Philippines in early 1995, to bomb in midair a dozen US trans-Pacific flights in 1995, and to set off a bomb at Los Angeles International Airport in 1999. Also plotted to carry out terrorist operations against US and Israeli tourists visiting Jordan for millennial celebrations in late 1999. (Jordanian authorities thwarted the planned attacks and put 28 suspects on trial.) In December 2001, suspected al-Qaida associate Richard Colvin Reid attempted to ignite a shoe bomb on a transatlantic flight from Paris to Miami. Attempted to shoot down an Israeli chartered plane with a surface-to-air missile as it departed the Mombasa airport in November 2002.
Strength
Al-Qaida probably has several thousand members and associates. The arrests of senior-level al-Qaida operatives have interrupted some terrorist plots. Also serves as a focal point or umbrella organization for a worldwide network that includes many Sunni Islamic extremist groups, some members of al-Gama al-Islamiyya, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, and the Harakat ul-Mujahidin.
Location/Area of Operation
Al-Qaida has cells worldwide and is reinforced by its ties to Sunni extremist networks. Was based in Afghanistan until Coalition forces removed the Taliban from power in late 2001. Al-Qaida has dispersed in small groups across South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East and probably will attempt to carry out future attacks against US interests.
External Aid
Al-Qaida maintains moneymaking front businesses, solicits donations from likeminded supporters, and illicitly siphons funds from donations to Muslim charitable organizations. US and international efforts to block al-Qaida funding has hampered the group ability to obtain money.
Qa魀dat al-Jihad
Islamic Army for the Liberation of the Holy Places
World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders
Islamic Salvation Foundation
Usama bin Laden Network
Al-Qa'ida is multi-national, with members from numerous countries and with a worldwide presence. Senior leaders in the organization are also senior leaders in other terrorist organizations, including those designated by the Department of State as foreign terrorist organizations, such as the Egyptian al-Gama'at al-Islamiyya and the Egyptian al-Jihad. Al-Qa'ida seeks a global radicalization of existing Islamic groups and the creation of radical Islamic groups where none exist.
Al-Qa'ida supports Muslim fighters in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya, Tajikistan, Somalia, Yemen, and Kosovo. It also trains members of terrorist organizations from such diverse countries as the Philippines, Algeria, and Eritrea.
Al-Qa'ida's goal is to "unite all Muslims and to establish a government which follows the rule of the Caliphs." Bin Laden has stated that the only way to establish the Caliphate is by force. Al-Qa'ida's goal, therefore, is to overthrow nearly all Muslim governments, which are viewed as corrupt, to drive Western influence from those countries, and eventually to abolish state boundaries.
Description
Established by Usama Bin Ladin in the late 1980s to bring together Arabs who fought in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union. Helped finance, recruit, transport, and train Sunni Islamic extremists for the Afghan resistance. Current goal is to establish a pan-Islamic Caliphate throughout the world by working with allied Islamic extremist groups to overthrow regimes it deems 忛on-Islamic?and expelling Westerners and non-Muslims from Muslim countries檏articularly Saudi Arabia. Issued statement under banner of 懀he World Islamic Front for Jihad Against the Jews and Crusaders?in February 1998, saying it was the duty of all Muslims to kill US citizens櫘ivilian or military㻡nd their allies everywhere. Merged with Egyptian Islamic Jihad (Al-Jihad) in June 2001.
Activities
In 2003, carried out the assault and bombing on 12 May of three expatriate housing complexes in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, that killed 20 and injured 139. Assisted in carrying out the bombings on 16 May in Casablanca, Morocco, of a Jewish center, restaurant, nightclub, and hotel that killed 41 and injured 101. Probably supported the bombing of the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia, on 5 August that killed 17 and injured 137. Responsible for the assault and bombing on 9 November of a housing complex in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, that killed 17 and injured 100. Conducted the bombings of two synagogues in Istanbul, Turkey, on 15 November that killed 23 and injured 200 and the bombings in Istanbul of the British Consulate and HSBC Bank on 20 November that resulted in 27 dead and 455 injured. Has been involved in some attacks in Afghanistan and Iraq.
In 2002, carried out bombing on 28 November of hotel in Mombasa, Kenya, killing 15 and injuring 40. Probably supported a nightclub bombing in Bali, Indonesia, on 12 October that killed about 180. Responsible for an attack on US military personnel in Kuwait, on 8 October, that killed one US soldier and injured another. Directed a suicide attack on the MV Limburg off the coast of Yemen, on 6 October that killed one and injured four. Carried out a firebombing of a synagogue in Tunisia on 11 April that killed 19 and injured 22. On 11 September 2001, 19 al-Qaida suicide attackers hijacked and crashed four US commercial jets, two into the World Trade Center in New York City, one into the Pentagon near Washington, DC, and a fourth into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, leaving about 3,000 individuals dead or missing. Directed the 12 October 2000 attack on the USS Cole in the port of Aden, Yemen, killing 17 US Navy members, and injuring another 39. Conducted the bombings in August 1998 of the US Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, that killed at least 301 individuals and injured more than 5,000 others. Claims to have shot down US helicopters and killed US servicemen in Somalia in 1993 and to have conducted three bombings that targeted US troops in Aden, Yemen, in December 1992.
Al-Qaida is linked to the following plans that were disrupted or not carried out: to assassinate Pope John Paul II during his visit to Manila in late 1994, to kill President Clinton during a visit to the Philippines in early 1995, to bomb in midair a dozen US trans-Pacific flights in 1995, and to set off a bomb at Los Angeles International Airport in 1999. Also plotted to carry out terrorist operations against US and Israeli tourists visiting Jordan for millennial celebrations in late 1999. (Jordanian authorities thwarted the planned attacks and put 28 suspects on trial.) In December 2001, suspected al-Qaida associate Richard Colvin Reid attempted to ignite a shoe bomb on a transatlantic flight from Paris to Miami. Attempted to shoot down an Israeli chartered plane with a surface-to-air missile as it departed the Mombasa airport in November 2002.
Strength
Al-Qaida probably has several thousand members and associates. The arrests of senior-level al-Qaida operatives have interrupted some terrorist plots. Also serves as a focal point or umbrella organization for a worldwide network that includes many Sunni Islamic extremist groups, some members of al-Gama al-Islamiyya, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, and the Harakat ul-Mujahidin.
Location/Area of Operation
Al-Qaida has cells worldwide and is reinforced by its ties to Sunni extremist networks. Was based in Afghanistan until Coalition forces removed the Taliban from power in late 2001. Al-Qaida has dispersed in small groups across South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East and probably will attempt to carry out future attacks against US interests.
External Aid
Al-Qaida maintains moneymaking front businesses, solicits donations from likeminded supporters, and illicitly siphons funds from donations to Muslim charitable organizations. US and international efforts to block al-Qaida funding has hampered the group ability to obtain money.
Usama bin Laden:
Usama bin Laden:
A Legend Gone Wrong
Researched and Compiled by Shaykh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani and Mateen Siddiqui
Published In The Muslim Magazine, Vol. 1 No. 4
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By virtue of his unwavering support for the Afghan mujahideen during their protracted, devastating war against the Soviet Union, for more than a decade Usama bin Laden was an ally of the United States. It was during those years his own countrymen, and Arabs in general, thought of bin Laden as a philanthropist and noble hero of the fight against the atheist communists.
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The Making of a Legend
More recently, in the aftermath of two terrorist incidents in Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam, governments across four continents—specifically: the US, England, India, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and several former Soviet republics—have gone public with their concern that bin Laden is the most dangerous person in the world. Some terrorism experts recognize that he has stolen the spotlight from Carlos, the Venezuelan terrorist of global repute who eluded capture for more than 20 years, so cunning in fact that many world-class agencies which tracked him did not know his face. Milton Beardon, an American official who for six years directed support operations for the Afghans from inside in the late 80’s, says of bin Laden: "It all started when Usama bin Laden began to spend more time in Pakistan than in Saudi Arabia, going between the homeless refugees and the fighters. At that time he built refugee camps for the widows and children of the Afghan mujahideen. His Initiation in the Afghan War
In a 1996 interview with Robert Fisk for British tabloid The Independent, bin Laden stated: When the invasion of Afghanistan started, I was enraged and went there immediately—I arrived within days of the outbreak, before the end of 1979. In fact, Laden went quickly from building refugee camps, clinics and schools for the children of the camps, to financing the mujahideen and outfitting them for the fight. He then began to assemble his own fighters, known as the Afghan Arabs, for which he recruited thousands of men—mainly from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf. He even paid for their passage to Afghanistan and set up the main guerrilla camp where they received military training—bin Laden style. Bin Laden often visited Peshawar, a Pushto-speaking city carved roughly into the Himalayan foothills which, for centuries, has been home to Pathans of the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP) of Pakistan, a grassroots, hilly outpost which supports its own culture, tradition and language. Peshawar was a pivotal point for the Afghan freedom fighters through which the majority of money, weapons, and medicines were funneled from the outside world—and from all over the world—from clandestine government concerns as well as private efforts that endeavored to crush the Russian onslaught. From Philanthropy to Active Combat
And so it was that bin Laden became a familiar sight in Peshawar, where he received reports of how his money had been spent, in addition to meeting regularly with his Arab legions. But these meetings inspired in him less desire to merely fund the charitable and military operations and more desire to actually direct the fight. It was then bin Laden began to concentrate everything he had—his resources, his mind, his heart—into the actual combat operations in Afghanistan. It was a decision that reshaped him and which, perhaps, was the greatest passage on his journey into the Usama bin Laden persona we know today. Time magazine's Scott Mcleod, who visited bin Laden in 1996, says of his early days in actual combat, He designed and constructed defensive tunnels and ditches along the Pakistani border, driving a bulldozer and exposing himself to strafing from Soviet helicopter gunships. Before long, he had taken up a Kalashnikov and was going into battle. In 1986 he and a few dozen Arab defenders fought off a Soviet onslaught in a town called Jaji, not far from the Pakistani border?A year later, bin Laden led an offensive against Soviet troops in the battle of Sha`ban. Vicious hand-to-hand fighting claimed heavy mujahideen casualties, but his men succeeded in pushing the Soviets out of the area.
The report quotes Hamza Mohammed, a Palestinian volunteer fighter, He was a hero to us because he was always on the front line, always moving ahead of everybody else. He continues, He not only gave his money, but he also gave himself. He came down from his palace to live with the Afghan peasants and Arab fighters. He cooked with them, ate with them, dug trenches with them. That was bin Laden's way.
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Battlefield Defeat of a Superpower
Bin Laden became popular after the famous Ali Khal operation, reports Paris-based Al-Watan al-`Arabi. a popular Arabic-language monthly news magazine. Bin Laden and his Afghan Arabs, with only light weapons, no artillery and minimal military training, were far outgunned by a huge Soviet army contingent supported by massive airpower. Bin Laden and his ragtag troops defeated the Soviets and took back the area. About this battle, bin Laden is quoted as saying, [Ali Khal] destroyed the myth that a superpower cannot be defeated. It was after this operation that bin Laden’s fame spread far and wide, through a myriad of channels. Mercennaries and volunteers alike began to flow in from Arab states to join him. He paid them generously, supported their training and supplied them with arms. In a matter of months the ranks of his fighters had swelled to 10,000. His personal experiences on the battlefield were the stuff of legends. When interviewed by British reporter Robert Fisk, bin Laden said, I was never afraid of death. As Muslims, we believe that when we die, we go to heaven. Before a battle, God sends us sakina—tranquillity. Once I was only thirty meters from the Russians and they were trying to capture me. I was under bombardment, but I was so peaceful in my heart that I fell asleep....I saw a 120mm mortar shell land in front of me, but it did not blow up. Four more bombs were dropped from a Russian plane on our headquarters but they did not explode. Armed by the US
The CIA reportedly began to funnel weapons to bin Laden as an ally against the Soviets, reports MSNBC—a report bin Laden strongly denies. Issam Daraz, who interviewed bin Laden in 1989 in the last months of the war, brought back photos and videos of bin Laden and his Afghan Arabs, armed with Stinger missiles supplied by the Reagan Administration. Family Background
Usama bin Laden is one of 57 children of construction magnate Muhammad Awad bin Laden, a Saudi national of Yemeni origin. Reportedly the only child from his father's marriage to a Palestinian woman, one of ten wives, He has no full brothers or sisters, which is rare in the bin Laden clan, a senior US intelligence official said. He was not held in high standing in the family even before the allegations of terrorism arose. Even today the bin Laden family—whose businesses thrive throughout the Muslim world, particularly in Saudi Arabia and throughout the Middle East, Europe and America—has many children studying in the US. Usama labored in his family's construction business until shortly after the January 1979 invasion of Afghanistan by Soviet troops. Of his first trip to Afghanistan as a 20-year-old, bin Laden only knew it was a Muslim country and that ‘it had great horses,’ says Issam Daraz. Flight to Sudan
When the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, bin Laden returned to work in the family’s Jeddah-based construction business, to discovere that he’d become a celebrity. But his star appeal swiftly faded when he began denouncing the Saudi regime. When he continued to affiliate with and support the militant Islamic groups he’d known in Afghanistan, less than five years after his return the Saudi government seized his passport. Bin Laden then fled to Sudan, embraced by Hassan al-Turabi, Sudan’s president. It is alleged that he thereafter financed as many as three terrorist training camps in Sudan over the course of his three-year stay. In his words, he voluntarily left for Pakistan in May 1996, afraid his presence was harming Sudan’s image in international circles. Some sources, however, say bin Laden was expelled.
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Declaration of War on US
Having tasted success in his support of the Afghans against the Soviets, bin Laden turned his military focus towards defeating the last remaining superpower the US. His tactic: kill as many Americans as possible, wherever they are in the world.
"You [Americans] will leave when the youth send you wooden boxes and coffins, and you will carry in them the bodies of American troops and civilians, vowed bin Laden in an exclusive interview with ABC News correspondent John Miller in June of this year. Allah ordered us in this religion to purify Muslim land of all non-believers, and especially the Arabian Peninsula where the Ka’aba is, which he went on to proclaim can only be cleansed through jihad."
[Read link to Usama bin Laden's formal declaration of war]
Proposed Formation of Terrorist Network
Four months ago, bin Laden announced the formation of an umbrella organization to support extremist groups which have sprung up around the world, many of which share a rigid adherence to a literal understanding of Islam—one which rejects mainstream Muslim beliefs and invokes on them judgements of heresy, apostasy and unbelief. All these groups share the teaching that existing moderate Islamic governments are outside Islam and must be toppled by force. In the same ABC News interview, bin Laden eerily addressed his own government. We predict that the Riyadh leader and those with him that stood with the Jews and Christians and forfeited Al-Haramayn—the two holy shrines—to Jews and Christians with American identities or others, will disintegrate. They have left the Muslim nation. We predict [their] destruction and dispersal. These groups concur that America is the Great Satan responsible for the failure of Muslims. They see American hands behind every misfortune that afflicts the Muslim world. In line with this, bin Laden and his troops have their sights squarely set on the US and its global interests. In the same ABC News interview, bin Laden implied that the fight would soon come to American soil. The continuation of the tyranny will bring the fighting to America, like [through] Ramzi Yousef and others. This is my message to the American people. [Ramsi Yousef is the convicted World Trade Center bomber sentenced in absentia and captured last year in Pakistan.]
Several months before the US Embassy blasts last August, Usama bin Laden held a press conference announcing the formation of an umbrella organization, The International Front against Jews and Crusaders. Al-Wasat al-`Arabi reports that at his side was the leader of Egypt’s notorious Jihad Movement, Dr. Ayman Rabi'a al-Zawahari. Al-Wasat reports that bin Laden’s network has in effect aligned an array of rebel groups from different nations who joined the Afghan fighters, including Egyptians (primarily comprised of members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic Group and the Jihad Movement) Saudis, Palestinians, Jordanians, Algerians, Gulf Arabs, Pakistanis, Afghans, Sudanese, Somalians, and a scattering from other nations. Even American-Muslim converts are reported among them. His trained killers work zealously in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, Yemen, Ethiopia, Somalia and in Europe, where their headquarters are located in Holland. While bin Laden did not appear publicly after the American retaliatory attacks on Sudan and Afghanistan, the Jihad Movement's leader, Dr. al-Zawahari, telephoned international media sources from Afghanistan, voicing threats to America and declaring war against its interests, wherever they are. He told journalists, bin Laden is alive and well, sitting right beside me. Anonymous American officials have revealed that al-Zawahiri was with bin Laden when the American attacks took place—miraculously they were both unharmed.
New Friend – New Ideology
According to al-Wasat, the story of the friendship between these two men goes back to their first meeting in the summer of 1989 during one of bin Laden’s visits to Peshawar. Sources say they have never separated since. Of the same generation, bin Laden now 40 years old and al-Zawahiri 47, an al-Wasat source says the pair were satisfied with the role the other played: the affluent Saudi using his millions stashed in the US and Switzerland to support the jihad in Afghanistan; and the Egyptian ideologue, the guiding intellect behind the strategems of war.
Al-Wasat states that al-Zawahiri is the one who indoctrinated Usama bin Laden into following a rigid ideology: applying a restrictive reading of Shari`ah (Islamic Law), condemning mainstream Muslim governments, and implementing jihad against them. Furthermore, he persuaded Usama to move from charitable to militant work.
Usama, who began to spend more and more time with Al-Zawahiri, came to accept his simplistic Egyptian Jihad Model. Originating within the cauldron of Egypt’s many movements, this methodology contends that militant work must precede propagation (da`wah) work. Al-Zawahiri's thinking reflects this. Edicts such as the Islamic Group's The Decisive Word, argue that Muslims must stand and fight existing governments and overthrow them. Through clever twisting of source texts interspersed with snippets from juristic rulings of later scholars, they build an apparently convincing justification for the Islamic nature of their cause. Enthusiastic Arab youth, uneducated and often unemployed, entirely disillusioned with the state of the Muslim community, easily fall for such adrenalin-soaked solutions, perhaps motivated by the sheer militancy of it all. Al-Wasat's sources state that bin Laden drank deeply from the fount of ideology and information provided by al-Zawahiri, absorbing his anti-government, anti-America doctrine. In fact, bin Laden's statement to ABC News echoes his total indoctrination by Al-Zawahiri. We don't differentiate between those dressed in military uniforms and civilians. They are all targets in this fatwa. Despite Islam's clear injunctions against harming civilians in war, particularly women and children, the Jihad Movement explicitly condones the use of terrorism, citing the Shari`ah's allowance for collateral killing of hostages if an attack is directed at a group of combatants. We must use such punishment to keep your evil away from Muslims, Muslim children and women, said bin Laden. To justify such violence in the name of Islam he cites American history. Americans, he retorted, does not distinguish between civilians and military, and not even women and children. They are the ones who used the bombs against Nagasaki.
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Other Influential Associates
Another influence on Usama was Al-Zawahiri's friend Ali Rashidi, a former Egyptian police officer, expelled from the force after being accused of establishing the Jihad Movement to topple the government, reports that facilitated his migration to Afghanistan. While al-Zawahiri swayed bin Laden's mind, Al-Wasat says, al-Rashidi captured his heart; a potent combination that resulted in bin Laden becoming more extreme than the extremists. Other friends from Egypt included Muhammad Shawki al-Islambouli, brother of Anwar Sadat's assassin, and Muhammad Hamza, accused of attempting to assassinate President Hosni Mubarak in Addis Ababa. Both were initial organizers of the Jihad Movement.
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Disarming Contenders for Power
Al-Zawahiri's self-serving political agenda surfaced years before meeting bin Laden, when he issued the infamous Fatwa of Leadership in Egypt. In this edict, he defined those eligible to lead the Islamic revolution and those who are not. Through this fatwa, al-Zawahiri was able to eliminate the chance for Shaykh Umar Abdur Rahman to lead the ultra-radical Jihad Movement, prior to his emigration to the US. In it he stated: There can be no leadership for a blind person. Al-Zawahiri derived this from the medieval scholar al-Mawardi's Conditions of Leading the Muslim Nation, which prescribes sound senses of hearing, sight and speech.
Al-Zawahiri further declared, A prisoner cannot be a leader, thereby ruling out another contender, the Jihad Movement’s founder Aboud az-Zumar, imprisoned for the assassination of Sadat. This edict opened a deep rift between al-Zawhiri and az-Zumar whic split the group in two. By the time the Jihad Movement began sending volunteers to Peshawar, Umar Abdur Rahman had lost the chance to take its lead, and Usama bin Laden's loyalty had already been captured by al-Zawahiri. The Islamic Group was too late to assert its influence on bin Laden's heart and he declined to attach himself to their movement. Despite this, he continued to fund them, and left them to fight on their own, aligning himself with the Jihad Movement, over which al-Zawahiri exacted total command.
Nonetheless, Umar Abdur Rahman is clearly someone whom bin Laden holds in esteem. He told ABC News , We also hold them [America] responsible for its attacks on Islamic symbols [such as] Shaykh Abdur Rahman, who is considered one of the most prominent Islamic scholars whom Allah gave the courage to speak the truth.
However, the Islamic Group continued to regard bin Laden as simply a wealthy Arab sponsor while regarding themselves as the warriors and callers-to-religion, in effect giving him no credit for his own jihad work. In spite of this, an Egyptian source reveals, bin Laden helped the Islamic Group establish their own military base, al-Murabitoun, while he simultaneously established one for the Jihad Movement, named al-Khilafah.
According to a member of the Afghan Arabs, bin Laden tried many times to get the Islamic Group and al-Zawahiri’s Jihad Movement to compromise. Each time the Islamic Group accused him of siding with al-Zawahiri. In fact, he supports them both. As Head of His International Family
Bin Laden often sponsored large groups of mujahideen—their travel, food, financial needs, accommodations and weapons—and he brought them to the frontier between Pakistan and Afghanistan to train. Mr. Isawi Bassiouni Muhammad Tahrouj, one of bin Laden's Afghan Arabs, stated before the Egyptian court in 1992: Bin Laden was responsible for everything. As soon as I arrived at the safehouse in Egypt, a man met me, named Abu Abdullah, who used to work in the safehouse owned by bin Laden. Abu Abdullah got me a visa to Pakistan and reserved a plane ticket. I flew alone. He told me there would be people waiting for me at Islamabad International Airport. In the plane I saw many Egyptians that I had known before, going for the same purpose.
When we arrived in Pakistan we went to bin Laden’s ‘Ansar House’, where I stayed with the rest for two days. I moved to the ‘Martyr's House’, also owned by bin Laden. Finally we went to the Baari military base, commanded by Abu Turkiyya from Libya. I stayed there 50 days, where I was trained in all types of weapons and artillery. Then I was sent to the front to fight in an area called Tarin Mar, about 100 miles from the Pakistani frontier. There I was introduced to the Jihad Movement. They asked me to join them, and I accepted. They gave me the unit name of Abu `Ubaidah al-`Abbasi. Then they transferred me to the military base 'Khilafah,' which is a training base. There I saw many military bases and homes which they said were financed, built and supported by bin Laden, but I never saw bin Laden.
Another Egyptian fighter, Ashraf Ahmed Yusuf al-Badawi, 20 years of age, made the following statement: While bin Laden was sending people to Afghanistan, he was also sending people to Bosnia, with an Egyptian representative named Anwar Sha`ban, who ran the Islamic Center of Rome. He was able to fly many volunteer fighters to Bosnia. When Anwar Sha`ban died in 1994, one of the Gulf fighters became the leader of the Islamic Center. Bin Laden used to sponsor all the mujahideen from their homes to their bases and give each one 1000 Saudi riyals, (about $250) as pocket money.
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Terrorist Training Bases
According to visits by an occasional reporter, the Arab Afghans built their military bases in the steep mountainsides near the Pakistani border. This hilly area is surrounded by forests, and each hillock contains a complete, self-contained military base, developed for the intensive preparation of fighters. A fighter's life consists of constant physical and military training: climbing mountains, passing through barricades and doing clandestine advanced weapons training. Experts believe these bases provide the most arduous military training in the world, the most dangerous of which takes place at a base named ‘Kamikaze’, Japanese for human suicide mission. The Ultimate Training Ground
The story of the ‘Kamikaze’ base is both strange and frightening indeed. Al-Watan reports that more than 5,000 youth ranging in age from 16 to 25 train there at any given time, coming from all parts of the world. The kamikazes, or suicide bombers are proud of their title. Their main objective is to fight on an international scale, wherever they are needed and whenever they are called, even if on a moment’s notice. According to al-Watan, the base is surrounded by signs and fiery slogans such as Jihad - Istishaad - Jannah (Holy War–Martyrdom–Paradise) and Kamikaze Islami (Islamic Suicide Bomber). This is not simple graffitti—surprisingly, one soon finds each sign has been lovingly carved, not only on walls, stones and wooden signs, but in the hearts of these young fighters. The base itself is enormous, containing several hundred divisions, set in an area that is nearly impossible to reach. It is biting cold in winter, scorched by the desert sun in summer—no one stays there but the toughest of men. The intense security which guards all approaches to the camp resembles that of an industrialized nation's intelligence service. The arsenal arrayed here is like a buffet of steel from the depths of hell: from a variety of light, medium and heavy weapons to tanks, howitzers, heavy artillery, anti-aircraft guns, RPG's, Stingers, Dushkas and other types of missiles, and even aircraft. According to al-Watan, what is more frightening even than this warmonger's candystore are its training techniques. Its drill instructors are markedly fierce and harsh. Mostly hired mercenaries with extensive experience in combat, the majority of trainers are from Egypt and are highly respected throughout the camps. The base is composed of multiple levels, each housing its own school. The first level consists of intensive physical training, religious indoctrination seminars and workshops.
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Indoctrination
Each group has a religious teacher responsible for initiating the youth in the highly restrictive doctrine that becomes the fuel for these young militants’ jihad. Using labels like idolatry, unbelief and fiery rhetoric, the teacher is a master of mind-manipulation. Through misapplication of verses of Qur’an and hadith, the teacher mentally brands idealistic and hotblooded youth with his ideology. In this view, everything ideologically different must be violently opposed and destroyed. This teaching is in fact more important than any weapons training they receive. Al-Watan reports, the period of indoctrination begins with initiation. The religious teacher secludes himself with small groups of youth, called `usar, meaning family. His teaching is built on the belief that anything not found in their ideology must be rejected—even if it is derived through established principles of Islamic jurisprudence. Therefore, the one performing any such act is an unbeliever, who must then repent and renew his or her testimony of faith or be killed. The followers of this ideology are trained to condemn and fight the majority of mainstream Muslims who comprise 97% of Islam's followers, and alihgning themselves with the 3% minority who adhere to their beliefs. This minority belief demands that all Muslims adopt their severe ideology—one created by Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab who appeared in the 18th century under the guise of reforming and purifying Islam. Abdul Wahhab was sponsored by the British as a means of dividing the Arabs against the Ottoman caliphate. This ideology was suppressed for several decades, then sprang forth with a vengeance among newly-created Arab nations at the turn of the twentieth century. The religious trainer instills in the youth a most ungodly motto: The goal—martyrdom; the method—killing. They are taught they must cleanse Muslim regimes of infidelity. Ironically, those nations that presently stand condemned by this doctrine are those which launched them not long ago.
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Levels of Terrorist Training
The emotionally-charged youth continue initiation with intense physical training such as running, climbing, crawling, scaling walls, jumping through burning tires, carrying weights and hauling equipment. It is non-stop exercise for the youth; with their only rest a brief interval after each of the five prayers, and their sleep late at night.
The second level of training focuses on weapons. The fighters learn to use semi-automatic and automatic weapons, beginning with handguns and rifles, then moving to Klashnikovs. They undergo live-fire exercises and continue with the strenuous physical training.
At the third level the youth learn combat tactics such as house-to-house searches, advanced training in use of all heavy weapons and anti-aircraft weapons, RPGs, and Dushka missiles.
The fourth level trains the fighters in all forms of explosives, traditional and modern, including the use of mines, how to build bombs with timers and remote controls, and how to assemble car bombs.
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The Making of a Killing Machine
Only the most advanced fighters graduate to the fifth level, training in techniques of suicide bombing. In this final stage, hand-selected, readied troops become familiar with methods of self-destruction using bombs strapped to their backs or chests. Instructors in kamikaze training are extremely specialized in this art. Distinguished from other instructors in their day-to-day conduct, in their character and demeanor, they command the highest respect within the camps.
The distinguishable navy-blue uniforms mark kamikaze trainees from the standard white issue of lower-ranking fighters. They speak to no one, return no greetings and behave robot-like, as if existing to achieve one thing: becoming martyrs in the way of God. This level of fighter is trained to be ready at a moment's notice, to go wherever ordered. They have mastered time-tested strategies of evading secret services, immigration, intelligence services and police anywhere in the world and under any circumstance. The graduate suicide-bombers then remain waiting in the mountains for their final orders.
It is reported as high as 9% of the inductees successfully complete this last stage of intensive
physical and psychological training, a statistic which is unverifiable. Kamikazes are sponsored by movements and organizations around the world, each with its unique political agenda and inclination, far removed from mainstream Islamic teachings of moderation, peace and goodwill.
Joining the Network
It is said that bin Laden operates as a venture capitalist for terror: groups apply for support and, if approved, are given a deposit account, and steady long-term financing begins. As these groups take on more radical overtones, reports al-Watan, they issue fatwas endorsing the destruction of Muslim governments and their infrastructure. Ordinary civilians who do not accept this rendition of Islam are deemed deviants, targeted for correction.
The report states these groups have begun to send their indoctrinated and battle-trained youth all around the world, instigating confusion and political instability in nations where the central government is weak. The republics of the former Soviet Union and war-torn nations of the Balkans are currently affected by this devious brand of warfare. Nations already reporting attacks by outside groups include Azerbaijan, Chechnya, Daghestan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhastan, Turkmenistan, Bosnia, Kosova and Albania. In these countries kidnappings, car bombings and assassinations have become commonplace, carried out under the auspices of bin Laden’s web of violence. Interference in Affairs of State
In Chechnya, where Muslim soldiers and civilians valiantly fought massive Russian army divisions for years to honor their Muslim ancestry and proclaim an Islamic republic, imported groups are now trying to overthrow the government established by the Chechen people themselves. After one battle between Chechen national troops and over 1,000 outside mercenaries, President Aslan Maskhadov said, "We are building a Chechen Islamic state, we shall have the Shari`ah courts [but] all Arabs, Tajiks, Pakistanis and others who came to Chechnya—not to establish the law of Allah, but to split Chechen society—will be ousted from the territory of Chechnya. President Maskhadov accused one Arab nation of trying to force its ideology, foreign to true Islam, on the whole Muslim world. These groups especially target Muslims who have good relations or interests in the West. Ironically, one of bin Laden's associates revealed to ABC News that his money is scattered among secret financial and commercial agencies in Europe and the Arab world. The movement, it appears, operates on the Marxist principle that the ends justifies the means.
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America's Greatest Fears
Al-Watan cites evidence gathered by several Arab nations stating that America's greatest fear is not bin Laden's terrorist agenda or his plans to attack American interests, rather it is his political agenda. The information, gathered by various secret services, details plans by groups supported by bun Laden to attack the entire Gulf Area—whose governments and citizens they consider renegades from true Islam. The reports show that plans are to first take over Kuwait and establish a government based on the deviant ideology. Kuwait is targeted because it has many internal problems and because many wealthy Kuwaitis support the notion. The first stage of their mission is to force America to reduce its military presence in Kuwait.
A Western investigator who specializes in the problems of the Gulf explained to al-Watan that information was gathered over a long time by tapping satellite conversations of Kuwaiti extremists. He claims that America’s concern for Kuwait's future intensified after well-known Gulf and Yemeni personalities assisted in the Dar Es-Salaam and Nairobi bombings. Intelligence analysts around the world have studied the political situation in Kuwait extensively. Analyses showed that after its takeover, the extremists would use Kuwait as a base for continued expansion into the remaining Gulf countries.
Al-Watan reports that American intelligence has identified many radical organizations operating in Kuwait as genuine charities. These charities secretly assist the political and military agenda of the extremists, donating millions of dollars to groups that oppose the government and the West. Furthermore, the US has increased its preparedness in the Gulf and enhanced security around civil and military bases. US soldiers have been urged to remain in their barracks and to be heavily armed if they emerge, for fear of kidnapping or assassination.
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The seven principal Kuwaiti charities assisting the spread of extremist movements:
The Organization of Rectification, led by Abdullah al-`Ali al Abdul Wahhab al-mutawwa`
Revivers of Culture, led by Tariq al`Isa
The Safety Charity ;
The Commission of Global Islamic Charity ; both are led by Yusuf al-Hajji
The Association to Assist Your Muslim Brother
The Women's Peaceful Harvest whose ideology is that of the Muslim Brotherhood
The Committee of Helping the Muslims of Asia and Africa , which collects and sends money to Afghanistan, Bosnia, Somalia, Sudan and other areas
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[source: al-Watan]
Funding Sources Worry US Officials
Americans also worry, states al-Watan al-`Arabi, about the financial organizations and institutions under the influence of extremists. One such institution, Kuwaiti Finance House, collects charity and sends it under the name Islamic Partnership Work to groups in many countries. According to one source, a two-year investigation into bank accounts and wire transfers showed these institutions poured huge sums of money into movements involved in terrorist actions all over the world.
According to al-Wasat, bin Laden's support for HAMAS, established many years ago, has been continuous and plentiful. Funds go through the intelligence service of HAMAS, Majd whose office is in the al-Amaraat District of Khartoum. Bin Laden had also woven a relationship between himself, the Lebanese Hizbullah and al-Zawahiri which has proven of benefit to all parties.
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Tracking Down bin Laden
Al-Watan's US sources say that the two attacks by 79 Tomahawk missiles represent the beginning of a new kind of war against terrorist movements, and particularly bin Laden. A US intelligence service revealed that Clinton's apparently quick decision to launch missiles against Afghanistan and Sudan had in fact been decided and prepared long before the embassy bombings. The strategy to fight global terrorism and the steps to implement it had been put in place for some time. US officials revealed that most of intelligence gathered about bin Laden's terrorist network was through clandestine electronic monitoring by US spy satellites and ground facilities, with the assistance of Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence Service.
One intelligence official stated to MSNBC, I was amazed to find how easy it was to make the connection [to the East Africa bombings], noting the trace had been much harder to make after the bombings in Riyadh and Khobar in 1996, also attributed by the US to bin Laden's network. The ease was due to the US's bugging and surveillance of bin Laden’s network over the past few years since the Riyadh bombings which killed US troops. The official revealed that the US looked at it for a long time气nd this time, it was easier to make the connection. The East Africa bombings provided us with the opportunity. Further he said the information was obtained in the first few days after the August 7th explosions. He said the United States has been targeting the terrorist complex with spy satellites for some time and had long since prepared plans for attacking bin Laden, awaiting President Clinton’s order. US Plan to Eliminate bin Laden
Official sources interviewed in Europe and the US told Al-Watan that the two American attacks might bring a halt to the terrorist actions for a time, but it will not be a permanent solution. For that reason, the American military have defined several options for eliminating bin Laden.
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Military action
This could lead to an attack, through bombing or missile attacks on terrorist bases, wherever they are located, in Afghanistan or other places, targeting bin Laden's dwelling. Such action might include commando raids by helicopter. This requires the assistance of a neighboring friendly country, which would have to be Pakistan. This is no longer possible, as most of the people of Pakistan like the Afghans, love bin Laden.
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Striking a Deal With the Taliban
The other option, which Al-Watan’s sources consider more acceptable to the US, is for Taliban and the US to make a deal to eliminate bin Laden. Inside speculation indicates the scheme most favored by US high-level officials would be to negotiate America’s recognition of the Taliban government and end US condemnation of alleged human rights violations as the price to eliminate bin Laden. These sources told Al-Watan that such an agreement has nearly been finalized and the term elimination has been mentioned in the proposed agreement many times. Some of Al-Watan’s sources imply that America does not want to kidnap or extradite bin Laden in order to put him on trial, as the US and other nations know it might uncover new information linking bin Laden with governments friendly to America and possibly with the US itself. This in turn would cause a serious problem at the highest diplomatic levels and would damage America's credibility as a champion of the fight against terrorism. The Pakistan Connection
Al-Watan’s sources say that kidnapping bin Laden would require extensive collaboration with the Pakistanis, whose secret service supports the concept of the US and Taliban striking a deal. Sources in Islamabad told Al-Watan that a series of meetings are taking place between the US and Taliban, after the Taliban's recent victories in the north of Afghanistan gave them control of more than 90% of Afghan territory. A high official at USAID in Islamabad said that even after the two bomb blasts at the American embassies, the secret meetings are going forward in an area near the frontier tightly monitored by Pakistan's Inter-Intelligence Service. In these meetings, according to the same source, the US hopes to designate Taliban to represent American interests in the area, establishing a new government in Afghanistan allied with Washington.
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Inciting the Muslims to Fight Each Other
One aspect of any deal Washington hopes to make with Taliban is that they will stand against Iran in support of the US Another is that Taliban will incite strife within Russia's many interests in the Caspian region. Pakistani sources told Al-Watan that by supporting Taliban, Washington hopes to keep Iran in an incessant state of war, exhausting them in the region. Such bloodshed might last a very long time, as each nation—considered by America as fanatic in their own schools of thought—seeks to defeat the other. The same sources say that Washington predicts that Taliban's demands on the US will be minimal: to grant official recognition to their government and to drop the issues of civil and women's rights.
The main complication in the deal, Al-Watan’s sources claim, is bin Laden himself. They state that Taliban is concerned about their money purportedly managed by bin Laden. Mullah Umar Mohammad, leader of the Taliban, is also alleged to be a close friend of Usama. Furthermore, it is believed Taliban is worried about stirring up an open fight with extremist Arab movements. Al-Watan states that US security experts say the deal with Taliban would specify that they attempt to set up an internal power struggle among bin Laden's own fighters. Alternatively, they would set up a fight between some of Taliban's fighters and the bodyguards of bin Laden—resulting in bin Laden being killed. The US of course hopes all these plans remain secret. Meanwhile, Afghan sources claim the US is encouraging the Afghan opposition commander Ahmed Shah Massoud, currently fighting Taliban outside Kabul, to attempt a covert mission to capture bin Laden. These sources state that much of Massoud’s support comes now from Iran. Iran’s currently improving relationship with America on one hand and the US’s alleged attempts to use Taliban to fight Iran’s interests in the region on the other make Afghans worry that the US may be playing a double game whose only result will be more fighting. Tracing bin Laden's Money
Al-Watan reports another American plan currently under examination is to trace bin Laden logistically. The most complex aspect of this for the US administration is identifying his financial holdings and then paralyzing this huge financial behemoth. His is an extremely sophisticated network, with account holders and money transfers being a closely-guarded secret. These experts say that bin Laden’s financial infrastructure involves many banks and paper companies with no employees. All transactions of these institutions are legal and executed by businessmen who often have a minimal relationship with bin Laden. This makes tracing the flow of money extremely difficult. According to Al-Watan, Michael O'Hanlon, an expert on terrorism at the Brookings Institute in Washington DC, reported, Washington has advanced and perfected its ability to trace this group of people, their information and their money, and it is now able to acquire extremely detailed information in a very short time.
Al-Watan also states US experts have information that a Luxembourg corporation moves bin Laden’s money without his name appearing. All profits of bin Laden's deals and transactions go to a secret account used to finance the Arab Afghans and their allies. Moreover, the American administration possesses information about European accounts (most set up in Amsterdam) under many names and corporate identities from different nations, many of which have nothing to do with Muslims. All the money in these accounts belongs to bin Laden and is used to finance bin Laden's Arab group in Europe. Freezing bin Laden’s Assets These experts say that Washington is ready to confiscate bin Laden's money, alleged to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, believed the source of his great success in having kept thousands of fighters heavily armed and for many governments to have covered his trail. The report from Washington, according to Al-Watan, states that America has begun its operation against bin Laden’s financial machine and has put many of its diplomatic officers and internationally-based resources to work to identify how to achieve this. At the time of this writing, Germany had just arrested Mr. Mamduh Mahmud Salim on charges of handling most of bin Laden’s foreign investments and coordinating the logistics that support his violent campaigns against the US and other perceived enemies of Islam. Sources close to him claim bin Laden owns many factories, plantations and businesses in Sudan—all under others’ names. Salim is also alleged to be tied to the pharmaceutical plant struck by US cruise missiles in Sudan. Salim admits to knowing bin Laden, but denies any involvement in his guerrilla activities. The above-mentioned source says that in tracing back some of this money, it was found that bin Laden has deposited $500 million in his own name in the Central Bank of Khartoum. In addition to his own money, bin Laden manages funds deposited by many charity organizations, especially from the Gulf. The US administration believes that bin Laden also manages vast amounts of money for Taliban, amounting to no less than $8 billion, with derived profits going to the movement, reported in excess of $1 billion.
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Money From Drugs?
Al-Watan quotes American sources alleging that some of the money bin Laden invests comes from the business of selling Afghan-grown narcotics, particularly opium. However, Taliban vehemently denies these allegations and points to its record of destroying opium crops as evidence to the contrary. Recent reports in the New York Times support Taliban’s contention, showing that total tonnage of opium entering Europe has decreased significantly since Taliban took control of Afghanistan. Taliban has in turn requested that the West provide support for farmers, who, in destroying opium crops, often lose their sole source of income. Al-Watan’s sources say the Arab Afghans and other extremist organizations based in Europe are responsible for moving these drugs to the international market. Al-Watan alleges the benefit of selling drugs accrues to these organizations, including many well-known and established Muslim organizations. The money goes into complexed accounts through unlisted bank transfers. Charters of the banks involved prevent anyone tracing either incoming or outgoing masters, making tracking the source of funds extremely difficult for intelligence organizations. The money for these deals finally reaches bin Laden's account. The US is mustering all the resources it can command to stop this flow of money, hoping to paralyze the Arab Afghans in their guerrilla war. The question yet to be answered is: will that stop terrorism?
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Predicting Future Strikes
Sources say American satellite data on bin Laden and movement of his network obtained after the attack on his bases in Afghanistan gives rise to major concerns. What the US fears most are retaliatory operations in unexpected places. Other information indicates that movement among covert extremist groups in Latin America has suddenly increased, and they fear attacks on US interests and personnel in Latin America, where security is lax. The American sources and reports say that the network has spread around the world like a huge octopus. And like an octopus, it is able to take aggressive action with its many tentacles despite attacks against its head.
These sources say the system the Arab Afghans are using is highly specialized and perfected through years of trial-and-error. Similar to grapes on a branch, the movement is organized into small groups or cells spread around the world, and including the US. The grapes or cells which make up this huge cluster are completely independent from one another, none knowing the flavor of the other, but each receiving its nourishment from the same vine.
American analysts, expecting a revenge surprise attack from the Arab Afghans anywhere in the world, sometimes describe the Tomahawk attacks against Sudan and Afghanistan as putting our hand in the wasp's nest, just waiting for the next sting to come. Thus arises a terrifying question before tolerant and peace-loving, moderate, mainstream Muslims and the Western nations: are we facing a third world-war between the military prowess of the West and the terrorists?
Al-Wasat reports many Arab organizations have established their bases in the West, some of which have political leanings and some of which have extremist inclinations, believing in militant action as the only means of government reform. Other movements reject militant action, instead calling for a peaceful approach to change. Such Islamic movements represent the moderate viewpoint of the vast majority of Muslims. The minority who see militancy as the means for change, consist of less than 3% of all Muslims. Mainstream Muslims in the West often accuse these minority elements of giving an ugly image to Islam.
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Al-Wasat says that according to one source, the following extremist organizations and movements have offices in England:
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The Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan al-muslimoon) represented by Mr. Kamal al-Halbawi. This movement, though no longer as militant as it once was, has spun-off many groups, many of which tend to be highly extreme.
The Jihad Movement, active under the other name International Committee for defending Egyptian Citizens lead by Mr. Adel Abdul-Majeed Abdul-Bari who had been sentenced to death in Egypt for his role in a machine-gun attack in the Khan al-Khalili District. The Egyptian government accused him of being a member of The Jihad Movement, under the leadership of al-Zawahiri. Another activist from The Jihad Movement, is Mr. Yasser al-Sirri, sentenced to death in 1994 for trying to assassinate former Egyptian Prime Minister, Dr. Atef Sudqi. He also runs an office under the name Islamic Media which Egypt considers a front for the Islamic Conquest, a division of the Jihad Movement.
The Islamic Group is one of the largest militant movements in Egypt opposing the government. It is not known if they have representatives in London or the US. What is known is that they have connection to a movement that has many branches in the West: the Islamic League for Adherence to the Quran and Sunna led by Mr. Mustafa bin Mukhtar al-Muqri`.
Armed Islamic Group (GIA) and Algerian activist movement, This group allegedly consider the majority of citizens of Algeria to be unbelievers. It is led by Mr. Mustafa Kamil Abu Hamza.
The Islamic Front for Salvation another Algerian activist group, led by Ja`afar al-Hawari. This group has split into many subgroups. Al-Hawari has been criticized by his own organization because he seeks a peaceful settlement with the Algerian government. His biggest opponent is Abdullah al-Mashi, who prefers militancy to peaceful methods.
The National Front to Save Libya, which has a presence in London. The Middle East Movement. One of its main officers is Mr. Omar Bakri Muhammad, a Syrian citizen once active in the Hizb al-Tahrir movement.
Hizb al-Tahrir —a rival to Ikhwan, this movement considers anyone other than themselves unbelivers to be fought. It was established in the 50's by the Palestinian Shaykh Taqi al-Din an-Nabahani.
The Emigrants (al-Muhajiroun) —Omar Bakri, mentioned above was criticized by Hizb al-Tahrir from within, and therefore established this new movement during the 90's.
HAMAS, which publishes a magazine called Palestine the Bequeathed.
Committee for Defense of Legitimate Rights led by Dr. Muhammad al-Mass`ari.
Committee for Advice and Reform, led by Sa`ad Al-Faqih of Saudi Arabia, recently named a Saudi, Mr. Khaled Abdul-Rahman Hamad al-Fawaz, a relative of bin Laden, as his spokesmen in the West.
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Al-Watan reports that the story behind the divisions in Ikhwan al-Muslimoon is not something new. Ali Ashmawy, one of the leaders of Ikhwan said in his biography, The Muslim Brotherhood made a big mistake: they regard whoever doesn’t accept their ideology as either allied to a foreign government, allied to the local government, secular or communist. They harm him without thinking. They took this stand against some of the most respected former members of Ikhwan. They classified them in the same league as someone addicted to alcohol (i.e. fasiq). I say without fear, and without being considered by them a traitor, that they took this decision and they denounced first-rate shaykhs of Islam who work for the [Egyptian] government - a government considered infidel in their eyes. They include Dr. Mohammed al-Ghazali, Sayyid Sabiq, Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Shaykh Mutawalli Sha'rawi, Dr. Kamal Abu Majd, Ahmad Faraj, some of whom were expelled and some of whom resigned. In this way many of the Muslim Brotherhood leaders have been expelled from the movement. Shaykh Ahmad Hassan al-Bakouri was also expelled from the movement when he accepted to become Minister of Islamic Affairs.
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[Note: The Muslim Magazine intends to report in full on the Ikhwan al-Muslimoon in a future issue].
Activities of Omar Bakri's al-Muhajiroun focus primarily on the Pakistani Muslim community. His positions are so radical, that even other extremists say Bakri's ultra-tough approach gives Islam and Muslims a very bad image in the West. A recent al-Muhajiroun statement regarding the bombings in Nairobi and Dar Es-Salaam, is typical:
Al-Muhajiroun views this incident as an expression of outrage against the dictatorial regimes in the Muslim world and the US, UK, France, Russia, etc. that support these tyrannical and oppressive governments.
The Muslim Ummah is in a constant state of defensive Jihad. We view such incidents as the beginning of much more bloodshed and deaths, should the US continue to occupy Muslim land and to oppress Muslims in the Gulf and elsewhere. Al-Muhajiroun appeals to the Muslims all over the world to join us in an intellectual/ideological/political/ struggle.
By denouncing those who gave him a free podium from which to speak many Muslims consider Bakri to be abusing the English government's hospitality. The British administration is now considering exiling him after his ostentatious efforts to collect money to support Usama bin Laden.
Nations’ Attempts to Counteract Terrorism
As England has sought to limit terrorist activities, it has focused on such groups and their individual members, particularly after the embassy bombings. Recently Scotland Yard made a number of arrests under the new Prevention of Terrorism Act, implicating a number of extremist group leaders as collaborating with terrorists. Among those arrested are: Mr. Adel Abdul-Majeed Abdul-Bari, an Egyptian who is head of the Committee for Defending Egyptian Citizens; Mr. Khaled Abdul-Rahman Hamad Al-Fawaz, the Saudi head of the Committee for Advice and Reform, who represents bin Laden in the West and who closed his London offices one day prior to his arrest following the rejection of his application for asylum; and Mr. Abdul-Majeed Fahmi, Egyptian head of the Islamic Information Centre.
The US has enacted a similar Terrorist Prevention Act and, using similar extensive powers, has arrested and impounded bank accounts and assets of persons accused of involvement in the financing terrorist networks abroad through innocuous-seeming Islamic organizations. Among those so far affected are Salah Mohammad, a Bridgeview, Illinois resident. Accused of channeling funds from the Quranic Literacy Institute (QLI) to the terrorist arm of HAMAS, all of QLI's assets and accounts have been frozen by US authorities and are presently being subjected to intense scrutiny.
A Legend Gone Wrong
Researched and Compiled by Shaykh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani and Mateen Siddiqui
Published In The Muslim Magazine, Vol. 1 No. 4
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By virtue of his unwavering support for the Afghan mujahideen during their protracted, devastating war against the Soviet Union, for more than a decade Usama bin Laden was an ally of the United States. It was during those years his own countrymen, and Arabs in general, thought of bin Laden as a philanthropist and noble hero of the fight against the atheist communists.
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The Making of a Legend
More recently, in the aftermath of two terrorist incidents in Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam, governments across four continents—specifically: the US, England, India, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and several former Soviet republics—have gone public with their concern that bin Laden is the most dangerous person in the world. Some terrorism experts recognize that he has stolen the spotlight from Carlos, the Venezuelan terrorist of global repute who eluded capture for more than 20 years, so cunning in fact that many world-class agencies which tracked him did not know his face. Milton Beardon, an American official who for six years directed support operations for the Afghans from inside in the late 80’s, says of bin Laden: "It all started when Usama bin Laden began to spend more time in Pakistan than in Saudi Arabia, going between the homeless refugees and the fighters. At that time he built refugee camps for the widows and children of the Afghan mujahideen. His Initiation in the Afghan War
In a 1996 interview with Robert Fisk for British tabloid The Independent, bin Laden stated: When the invasion of Afghanistan started, I was enraged and went there immediately—I arrived within days of the outbreak, before the end of 1979. In fact, Laden went quickly from building refugee camps, clinics and schools for the children of the camps, to financing the mujahideen and outfitting them for the fight. He then began to assemble his own fighters, known as the Afghan Arabs, for which he recruited thousands of men—mainly from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf. He even paid for their passage to Afghanistan and set up the main guerrilla camp where they received military training—bin Laden style. Bin Laden often visited Peshawar, a Pushto-speaking city carved roughly into the Himalayan foothills which, for centuries, has been home to Pathans of the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP) of Pakistan, a grassroots, hilly outpost which supports its own culture, tradition and language. Peshawar was a pivotal point for the Afghan freedom fighters through which the majority of money, weapons, and medicines were funneled from the outside world—and from all over the world—from clandestine government concerns as well as private efforts that endeavored to crush the Russian onslaught. From Philanthropy to Active Combat
And so it was that bin Laden became a familiar sight in Peshawar, where he received reports of how his money had been spent, in addition to meeting regularly with his Arab legions. But these meetings inspired in him less desire to merely fund the charitable and military operations and more desire to actually direct the fight. It was then bin Laden began to concentrate everything he had—his resources, his mind, his heart—into the actual combat operations in Afghanistan. It was a decision that reshaped him and which, perhaps, was the greatest passage on his journey into the Usama bin Laden persona we know today. Time magazine's Scott Mcleod, who visited bin Laden in 1996, says of his early days in actual combat, He designed and constructed defensive tunnels and ditches along the Pakistani border, driving a bulldozer and exposing himself to strafing from Soviet helicopter gunships. Before long, he had taken up a Kalashnikov and was going into battle. In 1986 he and a few dozen Arab defenders fought off a Soviet onslaught in a town called Jaji, not far from the Pakistani border?A year later, bin Laden led an offensive against Soviet troops in the battle of Sha`ban. Vicious hand-to-hand fighting claimed heavy mujahideen casualties, but his men succeeded in pushing the Soviets out of the area.
The report quotes Hamza Mohammed, a Palestinian volunteer fighter, He was a hero to us because he was always on the front line, always moving ahead of everybody else. He continues, He not only gave his money, but he also gave himself. He came down from his palace to live with the Afghan peasants and Arab fighters. He cooked with them, ate with them, dug trenches with them. That was bin Laden's way.
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Battlefield Defeat of a Superpower
Bin Laden became popular after the famous Ali Khal operation, reports Paris-based Al-Watan al-`Arabi. a popular Arabic-language monthly news magazine. Bin Laden and his Afghan Arabs, with only light weapons, no artillery and minimal military training, were far outgunned by a huge Soviet army contingent supported by massive airpower. Bin Laden and his ragtag troops defeated the Soviets and took back the area. About this battle, bin Laden is quoted as saying, [Ali Khal] destroyed the myth that a superpower cannot be defeated. It was after this operation that bin Laden’s fame spread far and wide, through a myriad of channels. Mercennaries and volunteers alike began to flow in from Arab states to join him. He paid them generously, supported their training and supplied them with arms. In a matter of months the ranks of his fighters had swelled to 10,000. His personal experiences on the battlefield were the stuff of legends. When interviewed by British reporter Robert Fisk, bin Laden said, I was never afraid of death. As Muslims, we believe that when we die, we go to heaven. Before a battle, God sends us sakina—tranquillity. Once I was only thirty meters from the Russians and they were trying to capture me. I was under bombardment, but I was so peaceful in my heart that I fell asleep....I saw a 120mm mortar shell land in front of me, but it did not blow up. Four more bombs were dropped from a Russian plane on our headquarters but they did not explode. Armed by the US
The CIA reportedly began to funnel weapons to bin Laden as an ally against the Soviets, reports MSNBC—a report bin Laden strongly denies. Issam Daraz, who interviewed bin Laden in 1989 in the last months of the war, brought back photos and videos of bin Laden and his Afghan Arabs, armed with Stinger missiles supplied by the Reagan Administration. Family Background
Usama bin Laden is one of 57 children of construction magnate Muhammad Awad bin Laden, a Saudi national of Yemeni origin. Reportedly the only child from his father's marriage to a Palestinian woman, one of ten wives, He has no full brothers or sisters, which is rare in the bin Laden clan, a senior US intelligence official said. He was not held in high standing in the family even before the allegations of terrorism arose. Even today the bin Laden family—whose businesses thrive throughout the Muslim world, particularly in Saudi Arabia and throughout the Middle East, Europe and America—has many children studying in the US. Usama labored in his family's construction business until shortly after the January 1979 invasion of Afghanistan by Soviet troops. Of his first trip to Afghanistan as a 20-year-old, bin Laden only knew it was a Muslim country and that ‘it had great horses,’ says Issam Daraz. Flight to Sudan
When the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, bin Laden returned to work in the family’s Jeddah-based construction business, to discovere that he’d become a celebrity. But his star appeal swiftly faded when he began denouncing the Saudi regime. When he continued to affiliate with and support the militant Islamic groups he’d known in Afghanistan, less than five years after his return the Saudi government seized his passport. Bin Laden then fled to Sudan, embraced by Hassan al-Turabi, Sudan’s president. It is alleged that he thereafter financed as many as three terrorist training camps in Sudan over the course of his three-year stay. In his words, he voluntarily left for Pakistan in May 1996, afraid his presence was harming Sudan’s image in international circles. Some sources, however, say bin Laden was expelled.
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Declaration of War on US
Having tasted success in his support of the Afghans against the Soviets, bin Laden turned his military focus towards defeating the last remaining superpower the US. His tactic: kill as many Americans as possible, wherever they are in the world.
"You [Americans] will leave when the youth send you wooden boxes and coffins, and you will carry in them the bodies of American troops and civilians, vowed bin Laden in an exclusive interview with ABC News correspondent John Miller in June of this year. Allah ordered us in this religion to purify Muslim land of all non-believers, and especially the Arabian Peninsula where the Ka’aba is, which he went on to proclaim can only be cleansed through jihad."
[Read link to Usama bin Laden's formal declaration of war]
Proposed Formation of Terrorist Network
Four months ago, bin Laden announced the formation of an umbrella organization to support extremist groups which have sprung up around the world, many of which share a rigid adherence to a literal understanding of Islam—one which rejects mainstream Muslim beliefs and invokes on them judgements of heresy, apostasy and unbelief. All these groups share the teaching that existing moderate Islamic governments are outside Islam and must be toppled by force. In the same ABC News interview, bin Laden eerily addressed his own government. We predict that the Riyadh leader and those with him that stood with the Jews and Christians and forfeited Al-Haramayn—the two holy shrines—to Jews and Christians with American identities or others, will disintegrate. They have left the Muslim nation. We predict [their] destruction and dispersal. These groups concur that America is the Great Satan responsible for the failure of Muslims. They see American hands behind every misfortune that afflicts the Muslim world. In line with this, bin Laden and his troops have their sights squarely set on the US and its global interests. In the same ABC News interview, bin Laden implied that the fight would soon come to American soil. The continuation of the tyranny will bring the fighting to America, like [through] Ramzi Yousef and others. This is my message to the American people. [Ramsi Yousef is the convicted World Trade Center bomber sentenced in absentia and captured last year in Pakistan.]
Several months before the US Embassy blasts last August, Usama bin Laden held a press conference announcing the formation of an umbrella organization, The International Front against Jews and Crusaders. Al-Wasat al-`Arabi reports that at his side was the leader of Egypt’s notorious Jihad Movement, Dr. Ayman Rabi'a al-Zawahari. Al-Wasat reports that bin Laden’s network has in effect aligned an array of rebel groups from different nations who joined the Afghan fighters, including Egyptians (primarily comprised of members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic Group and the Jihad Movement) Saudis, Palestinians, Jordanians, Algerians, Gulf Arabs, Pakistanis, Afghans, Sudanese, Somalians, and a scattering from other nations. Even American-Muslim converts are reported among them. His trained killers work zealously in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, Yemen, Ethiopia, Somalia and in Europe, where their headquarters are located in Holland. While bin Laden did not appear publicly after the American retaliatory attacks on Sudan and Afghanistan, the Jihad Movement's leader, Dr. al-Zawahari, telephoned international media sources from Afghanistan, voicing threats to America and declaring war against its interests, wherever they are. He told journalists, bin Laden is alive and well, sitting right beside me. Anonymous American officials have revealed that al-Zawahiri was with bin Laden when the American attacks took place—miraculously they were both unharmed.
New Friend – New Ideology
According to al-Wasat, the story of the friendship between these two men goes back to their first meeting in the summer of 1989 during one of bin Laden’s visits to Peshawar. Sources say they have never separated since. Of the same generation, bin Laden now 40 years old and al-Zawahiri 47, an al-Wasat source says the pair were satisfied with the role the other played: the affluent Saudi using his millions stashed in the US and Switzerland to support the jihad in Afghanistan; and the Egyptian ideologue, the guiding intellect behind the strategems of war.
Al-Wasat states that al-Zawahiri is the one who indoctrinated Usama bin Laden into following a rigid ideology: applying a restrictive reading of Shari`ah (Islamic Law), condemning mainstream Muslim governments, and implementing jihad against them. Furthermore, he persuaded Usama to move from charitable to militant work.
Usama, who began to spend more and more time with Al-Zawahiri, came to accept his simplistic Egyptian Jihad Model. Originating within the cauldron of Egypt’s many movements, this methodology contends that militant work must precede propagation (da`wah) work. Al-Zawahiri's thinking reflects this. Edicts such as the Islamic Group's The Decisive Word, argue that Muslims must stand and fight existing governments and overthrow them. Through clever twisting of source texts interspersed with snippets from juristic rulings of later scholars, they build an apparently convincing justification for the Islamic nature of their cause. Enthusiastic Arab youth, uneducated and often unemployed, entirely disillusioned with the state of the Muslim community, easily fall for such adrenalin-soaked solutions, perhaps motivated by the sheer militancy of it all. Al-Wasat's sources state that bin Laden drank deeply from the fount of ideology and information provided by al-Zawahiri, absorbing his anti-government, anti-America doctrine. In fact, bin Laden's statement to ABC News echoes his total indoctrination by Al-Zawahiri. We don't differentiate between those dressed in military uniforms and civilians. They are all targets in this fatwa. Despite Islam's clear injunctions against harming civilians in war, particularly women and children, the Jihad Movement explicitly condones the use of terrorism, citing the Shari`ah's allowance for collateral killing of hostages if an attack is directed at a group of combatants. We must use such punishment to keep your evil away from Muslims, Muslim children and women, said bin Laden. To justify such violence in the name of Islam he cites American history. Americans, he retorted, does not distinguish between civilians and military, and not even women and children. They are the ones who used the bombs against Nagasaki.
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Other Influential Associates
Another influence on Usama was Al-Zawahiri's friend Ali Rashidi, a former Egyptian police officer, expelled from the force after being accused of establishing the Jihad Movement to topple the government, reports that facilitated his migration to Afghanistan. While al-Zawahiri swayed bin Laden's mind, Al-Wasat says, al-Rashidi captured his heart; a potent combination that resulted in bin Laden becoming more extreme than the extremists. Other friends from Egypt included Muhammad Shawki al-Islambouli, brother of Anwar Sadat's assassin, and Muhammad Hamza, accused of attempting to assassinate President Hosni Mubarak in Addis Ababa. Both were initial organizers of the Jihad Movement.
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Disarming Contenders for Power
Al-Zawahiri's self-serving political agenda surfaced years before meeting bin Laden, when he issued the infamous Fatwa of Leadership in Egypt. In this edict, he defined those eligible to lead the Islamic revolution and those who are not. Through this fatwa, al-Zawahiri was able to eliminate the chance for Shaykh Umar Abdur Rahman to lead the ultra-radical Jihad Movement, prior to his emigration to the US. In it he stated: There can be no leadership for a blind person. Al-Zawahiri derived this from the medieval scholar al-Mawardi's Conditions of Leading the Muslim Nation, which prescribes sound senses of hearing, sight and speech.
Al-Zawahiri further declared, A prisoner cannot be a leader, thereby ruling out another contender, the Jihad Movement’s founder Aboud az-Zumar, imprisoned for the assassination of Sadat. This edict opened a deep rift between al-Zawhiri and az-Zumar whic split the group in two. By the time the Jihad Movement began sending volunteers to Peshawar, Umar Abdur Rahman had lost the chance to take its lead, and Usama bin Laden's loyalty had already been captured by al-Zawahiri. The Islamic Group was too late to assert its influence on bin Laden's heart and he declined to attach himself to their movement. Despite this, he continued to fund them, and left them to fight on their own, aligning himself with the Jihad Movement, over which al-Zawahiri exacted total command.
Nonetheless, Umar Abdur Rahman is clearly someone whom bin Laden holds in esteem. He told ABC News , We also hold them [America] responsible for its attacks on Islamic symbols [such as] Shaykh Abdur Rahman, who is considered one of the most prominent Islamic scholars whom Allah gave the courage to speak the truth.
However, the Islamic Group continued to regard bin Laden as simply a wealthy Arab sponsor while regarding themselves as the warriors and callers-to-religion, in effect giving him no credit for his own jihad work. In spite of this, an Egyptian source reveals, bin Laden helped the Islamic Group establish their own military base, al-Murabitoun, while he simultaneously established one for the Jihad Movement, named al-Khilafah.
According to a member of the Afghan Arabs, bin Laden tried many times to get the Islamic Group and al-Zawahiri’s Jihad Movement to compromise. Each time the Islamic Group accused him of siding with al-Zawahiri. In fact, he supports them both. As Head of His International Family
Bin Laden often sponsored large groups of mujahideen—their travel, food, financial needs, accommodations and weapons—and he brought them to the frontier between Pakistan and Afghanistan to train. Mr. Isawi Bassiouni Muhammad Tahrouj, one of bin Laden's Afghan Arabs, stated before the Egyptian court in 1992: Bin Laden was responsible for everything. As soon as I arrived at the safehouse in Egypt, a man met me, named Abu Abdullah, who used to work in the safehouse owned by bin Laden. Abu Abdullah got me a visa to Pakistan and reserved a plane ticket. I flew alone. He told me there would be people waiting for me at Islamabad International Airport. In the plane I saw many Egyptians that I had known before, going for the same purpose.
When we arrived in Pakistan we went to bin Laden’s ‘Ansar House’, where I stayed with the rest for two days. I moved to the ‘Martyr's House’, also owned by bin Laden. Finally we went to the Baari military base, commanded by Abu Turkiyya from Libya. I stayed there 50 days, where I was trained in all types of weapons and artillery. Then I was sent to the front to fight in an area called Tarin Mar, about 100 miles from the Pakistani frontier. There I was introduced to the Jihad Movement. They asked me to join them, and I accepted. They gave me the unit name of Abu `Ubaidah al-`Abbasi. Then they transferred me to the military base 'Khilafah,' which is a training base. There I saw many military bases and homes which they said were financed, built and supported by bin Laden, but I never saw bin Laden.
Another Egyptian fighter, Ashraf Ahmed Yusuf al-Badawi, 20 years of age, made the following statement: While bin Laden was sending people to Afghanistan, he was also sending people to Bosnia, with an Egyptian representative named Anwar Sha`ban, who ran the Islamic Center of Rome. He was able to fly many volunteer fighters to Bosnia. When Anwar Sha`ban died in 1994, one of the Gulf fighters became the leader of the Islamic Center. Bin Laden used to sponsor all the mujahideen from their homes to their bases and give each one 1000 Saudi riyals, (about $250) as pocket money.
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Terrorist Training Bases
According to visits by an occasional reporter, the Arab Afghans built their military bases in the steep mountainsides near the Pakistani border. This hilly area is surrounded by forests, and each hillock contains a complete, self-contained military base, developed for the intensive preparation of fighters. A fighter's life consists of constant physical and military training: climbing mountains, passing through barricades and doing clandestine advanced weapons training. Experts believe these bases provide the most arduous military training in the world, the most dangerous of which takes place at a base named ‘Kamikaze’, Japanese for human suicide mission. The Ultimate Training Ground
The story of the ‘Kamikaze’ base is both strange and frightening indeed. Al-Watan reports that more than 5,000 youth ranging in age from 16 to 25 train there at any given time, coming from all parts of the world. The kamikazes, or suicide bombers are proud of their title. Their main objective is to fight on an international scale, wherever they are needed and whenever they are called, even if on a moment’s notice. According to al-Watan, the base is surrounded by signs and fiery slogans such as Jihad - Istishaad - Jannah (Holy War–Martyrdom–Paradise) and Kamikaze Islami (Islamic Suicide Bomber). This is not simple graffitti—surprisingly, one soon finds each sign has been lovingly carved, not only on walls, stones and wooden signs, but in the hearts of these young fighters. The base itself is enormous, containing several hundred divisions, set in an area that is nearly impossible to reach. It is biting cold in winter, scorched by the desert sun in summer—no one stays there but the toughest of men. The intense security which guards all approaches to the camp resembles that of an industrialized nation's intelligence service. The arsenal arrayed here is like a buffet of steel from the depths of hell: from a variety of light, medium and heavy weapons to tanks, howitzers, heavy artillery, anti-aircraft guns, RPG's, Stingers, Dushkas and other types of missiles, and even aircraft. According to al-Watan, what is more frightening even than this warmonger's candystore are its training techniques. Its drill instructors are markedly fierce and harsh. Mostly hired mercenaries with extensive experience in combat, the majority of trainers are from Egypt and are highly respected throughout the camps. The base is composed of multiple levels, each housing its own school. The first level consists of intensive physical training, religious indoctrination seminars and workshops.
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Indoctrination
Each group has a religious teacher responsible for initiating the youth in the highly restrictive doctrine that becomes the fuel for these young militants’ jihad. Using labels like idolatry, unbelief and fiery rhetoric, the teacher is a master of mind-manipulation. Through misapplication of verses of Qur’an and hadith, the teacher mentally brands idealistic and hotblooded youth with his ideology. In this view, everything ideologically different must be violently opposed and destroyed. This teaching is in fact more important than any weapons training they receive. Al-Watan reports, the period of indoctrination begins with initiation. The religious teacher secludes himself with small groups of youth, called `usar, meaning family. His teaching is built on the belief that anything not found in their ideology must be rejected—even if it is derived through established principles of Islamic jurisprudence. Therefore, the one performing any such act is an unbeliever, who must then repent and renew his or her testimony of faith or be killed. The followers of this ideology are trained to condemn and fight the majority of mainstream Muslims who comprise 97% of Islam's followers, and alihgning themselves with the 3% minority who adhere to their beliefs. This minority belief demands that all Muslims adopt their severe ideology—one created by Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab who appeared in the 18th century under the guise of reforming and purifying Islam. Abdul Wahhab was sponsored by the British as a means of dividing the Arabs against the Ottoman caliphate. This ideology was suppressed for several decades, then sprang forth with a vengeance among newly-created Arab nations at the turn of the twentieth century. The religious trainer instills in the youth a most ungodly motto: The goal—martyrdom; the method—killing. They are taught they must cleanse Muslim regimes of infidelity. Ironically, those nations that presently stand condemned by this doctrine are those which launched them not long ago.
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Levels of Terrorist Training
The emotionally-charged youth continue initiation with intense physical training such as running, climbing, crawling, scaling walls, jumping through burning tires, carrying weights and hauling equipment. It is non-stop exercise for the youth; with their only rest a brief interval after each of the five prayers, and their sleep late at night.
The second level of training focuses on weapons. The fighters learn to use semi-automatic and automatic weapons, beginning with handguns and rifles, then moving to Klashnikovs. They undergo live-fire exercises and continue with the strenuous physical training.
At the third level the youth learn combat tactics such as house-to-house searches, advanced training in use of all heavy weapons and anti-aircraft weapons, RPGs, and Dushka missiles.
The fourth level trains the fighters in all forms of explosives, traditional and modern, including the use of mines, how to build bombs with timers and remote controls, and how to assemble car bombs.
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The Making of a Killing Machine
Only the most advanced fighters graduate to the fifth level, training in techniques of suicide bombing. In this final stage, hand-selected, readied troops become familiar with methods of self-destruction using bombs strapped to their backs or chests. Instructors in kamikaze training are extremely specialized in this art. Distinguished from other instructors in their day-to-day conduct, in their character and demeanor, they command the highest respect within the camps.
The distinguishable navy-blue uniforms mark kamikaze trainees from the standard white issue of lower-ranking fighters. They speak to no one, return no greetings and behave robot-like, as if existing to achieve one thing: becoming martyrs in the way of God. This level of fighter is trained to be ready at a moment's notice, to go wherever ordered. They have mastered time-tested strategies of evading secret services, immigration, intelligence services and police anywhere in the world and under any circumstance. The graduate suicide-bombers then remain waiting in the mountains for their final orders.
It is reported as high as 9% of the inductees successfully complete this last stage of intensive
physical and psychological training, a statistic which is unverifiable. Kamikazes are sponsored by movements and organizations around the world, each with its unique political agenda and inclination, far removed from mainstream Islamic teachings of moderation, peace and goodwill.
Joining the Network
It is said that bin Laden operates as a venture capitalist for terror: groups apply for support and, if approved, are given a deposit account, and steady long-term financing begins. As these groups take on more radical overtones, reports al-Watan, they issue fatwas endorsing the destruction of Muslim governments and their infrastructure. Ordinary civilians who do not accept this rendition of Islam are deemed deviants, targeted for correction.
The report states these groups have begun to send their indoctrinated and battle-trained youth all around the world, instigating confusion and political instability in nations where the central government is weak. The republics of the former Soviet Union and war-torn nations of the Balkans are currently affected by this devious brand of warfare. Nations already reporting attacks by outside groups include Azerbaijan, Chechnya, Daghestan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhastan, Turkmenistan, Bosnia, Kosova and Albania. In these countries kidnappings, car bombings and assassinations have become commonplace, carried out under the auspices of bin Laden’s web of violence. Interference in Affairs of State
In Chechnya, where Muslim soldiers and civilians valiantly fought massive Russian army divisions for years to honor their Muslim ancestry and proclaim an Islamic republic, imported groups are now trying to overthrow the government established by the Chechen people themselves. After one battle between Chechen national troops and over 1,000 outside mercenaries, President Aslan Maskhadov said, "We are building a Chechen Islamic state, we shall have the Shari`ah courts [but] all Arabs, Tajiks, Pakistanis and others who came to Chechnya—not to establish the law of Allah, but to split Chechen society—will be ousted from the territory of Chechnya. President Maskhadov accused one Arab nation of trying to force its ideology, foreign to true Islam, on the whole Muslim world. These groups especially target Muslims who have good relations or interests in the West. Ironically, one of bin Laden's associates revealed to ABC News that his money is scattered among secret financial and commercial agencies in Europe and the Arab world. The movement, it appears, operates on the Marxist principle that the ends justifies the means.
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America's Greatest Fears
Al-Watan cites evidence gathered by several Arab nations stating that America's greatest fear is not bin Laden's terrorist agenda or his plans to attack American interests, rather it is his political agenda. The information, gathered by various secret services, details plans by groups supported by bun Laden to attack the entire Gulf Area—whose governments and citizens they consider renegades from true Islam. The reports show that plans are to first take over Kuwait and establish a government based on the deviant ideology. Kuwait is targeted because it has many internal problems and because many wealthy Kuwaitis support the notion. The first stage of their mission is to force America to reduce its military presence in Kuwait.
A Western investigator who specializes in the problems of the Gulf explained to al-Watan that information was gathered over a long time by tapping satellite conversations of Kuwaiti extremists. He claims that America’s concern for Kuwait's future intensified after well-known Gulf and Yemeni personalities assisted in the Dar Es-Salaam and Nairobi bombings. Intelligence analysts around the world have studied the political situation in Kuwait extensively. Analyses showed that after its takeover, the extremists would use Kuwait as a base for continued expansion into the remaining Gulf countries.
Al-Watan reports that American intelligence has identified many radical organizations operating in Kuwait as genuine charities. These charities secretly assist the political and military agenda of the extremists, donating millions of dollars to groups that oppose the government and the West. Furthermore, the US has increased its preparedness in the Gulf and enhanced security around civil and military bases. US soldiers have been urged to remain in their barracks and to be heavily armed if they emerge, for fear of kidnapping or assassination.
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The seven principal Kuwaiti charities assisting the spread of extremist movements:
The Organization of Rectification, led by Abdullah al-`Ali al Abdul Wahhab al-mutawwa`
Revivers of Culture, led by Tariq al`Isa
The Safety Charity ;
The Commission of Global Islamic Charity ; both are led by Yusuf al-Hajji
The Association to Assist Your Muslim Brother
The Women's Peaceful Harvest whose ideology is that of the Muslim Brotherhood
The Committee of Helping the Muslims of Asia and Africa , which collects and sends money to Afghanistan, Bosnia, Somalia, Sudan and other areas
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[source: al-Watan]
Funding Sources Worry US Officials
Americans also worry, states al-Watan al-`Arabi, about the financial organizations and institutions under the influence of extremists. One such institution, Kuwaiti Finance House, collects charity and sends it under the name Islamic Partnership Work to groups in many countries. According to one source, a two-year investigation into bank accounts and wire transfers showed these institutions poured huge sums of money into movements involved in terrorist actions all over the world.
According to al-Wasat, bin Laden's support for HAMAS, established many years ago, has been continuous and plentiful. Funds go through the intelligence service of HAMAS, Majd whose office is in the al-Amaraat District of Khartoum. Bin Laden had also woven a relationship between himself, the Lebanese Hizbullah and al-Zawahiri which has proven of benefit to all parties.
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Tracking Down bin Laden
Al-Watan's US sources say that the two attacks by 79 Tomahawk missiles represent the beginning of a new kind of war against terrorist movements, and particularly bin Laden. A US intelligence service revealed that Clinton's apparently quick decision to launch missiles against Afghanistan and Sudan had in fact been decided and prepared long before the embassy bombings. The strategy to fight global terrorism and the steps to implement it had been put in place for some time. US officials revealed that most of intelligence gathered about bin Laden's terrorist network was through clandestine electronic monitoring by US spy satellites and ground facilities, with the assistance of Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence Service.
One intelligence official stated to MSNBC, I was amazed to find how easy it was to make the connection [to the East Africa bombings], noting the trace had been much harder to make after the bombings in Riyadh and Khobar in 1996, also attributed by the US to bin Laden's network. The ease was due to the US's bugging and surveillance of bin Laden’s network over the past few years since the Riyadh bombings which killed US troops. The official revealed that the US looked at it for a long time气nd this time, it was easier to make the connection. The East Africa bombings provided us with the opportunity. Further he said the information was obtained in the first few days after the August 7th explosions. He said the United States has been targeting the terrorist complex with spy satellites for some time and had long since prepared plans for attacking bin Laden, awaiting President Clinton’s order. US Plan to Eliminate bin Laden
Official sources interviewed in Europe and the US told Al-Watan that the two American attacks might bring a halt to the terrorist actions for a time, but it will not be a permanent solution. For that reason, the American military have defined several options for eliminating bin Laden.
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Military action
This could lead to an attack, through bombing or missile attacks on terrorist bases, wherever they are located, in Afghanistan or other places, targeting bin Laden's dwelling. Such action might include commando raids by helicopter. This requires the assistance of a neighboring friendly country, which would have to be Pakistan. This is no longer possible, as most of the people of Pakistan like the Afghans, love bin Laden.
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Striking a Deal With the Taliban
The other option, which Al-Watan’s sources consider more acceptable to the US, is for Taliban and the US to make a deal to eliminate bin Laden. Inside speculation indicates the scheme most favored by US high-level officials would be to negotiate America’s recognition of the Taliban government and end US condemnation of alleged human rights violations as the price to eliminate bin Laden. These sources told Al-Watan that such an agreement has nearly been finalized and the term elimination has been mentioned in the proposed agreement many times. Some of Al-Watan’s sources imply that America does not want to kidnap or extradite bin Laden in order to put him on trial, as the US and other nations know it might uncover new information linking bin Laden with governments friendly to America and possibly with the US itself. This in turn would cause a serious problem at the highest diplomatic levels and would damage America's credibility as a champion of the fight against terrorism. The Pakistan Connection
Al-Watan’s sources say that kidnapping bin Laden would require extensive collaboration with the Pakistanis, whose secret service supports the concept of the US and Taliban striking a deal. Sources in Islamabad told Al-Watan that a series of meetings are taking place between the US and Taliban, after the Taliban's recent victories in the north of Afghanistan gave them control of more than 90% of Afghan territory. A high official at USAID in Islamabad said that even after the two bomb blasts at the American embassies, the secret meetings are going forward in an area near the frontier tightly monitored by Pakistan's Inter-Intelligence Service. In these meetings, according to the same source, the US hopes to designate Taliban to represent American interests in the area, establishing a new government in Afghanistan allied with Washington.
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Inciting the Muslims to Fight Each Other
One aspect of any deal Washington hopes to make with Taliban is that they will stand against Iran in support of the US Another is that Taliban will incite strife within Russia's many interests in the Caspian region. Pakistani sources told Al-Watan that by supporting Taliban, Washington hopes to keep Iran in an incessant state of war, exhausting them in the region. Such bloodshed might last a very long time, as each nation—considered by America as fanatic in their own schools of thought—seeks to defeat the other. The same sources say that Washington predicts that Taliban's demands on the US will be minimal: to grant official recognition to their government and to drop the issues of civil and women's rights.
The main complication in the deal, Al-Watan’s sources claim, is bin Laden himself. They state that Taliban is concerned about their money purportedly managed by bin Laden. Mullah Umar Mohammad, leader of the Taliban, is also alleged to be a close friend of Usama. Furthermore, it is believed Taliban is worried about stirring up an open fight with extremist Arab movements. Al-Watan states that US security experts say the deal with Taliban would specify that they attempt to set up an internal power struggle among bin Laden's own fighters. Alternatively, they would set up a fight between some of Taliban's fighters and the bodyguards of bin Laden—resulting in bin Laden being killed. The US of course hopes all these plans remain secret. Meanwhile, Afghan sources claim the US is encouraging the Afghan opposition commander Ahmed Shah Massoud, currently fighting Taliban outside Kabul, to attempt a covert mission to capture bin Laden. These sources state that much of Massoud’s support comes now from Iran. Iran’s currently improving relationship with America on one hand and the US’s alleged attempts to use Taliban to fight Iran’s interests in the region on the other make Afghans worry that the US may be playing a double game whose only result will be more fighting. Tracing bin Laden's Money
Al-Watan reports another American plan currently under examination is to trace bin Laden logistically. The most complex aspect of this for the US administration is identifying his financial holdings and then paralyzing this huge financial behemoth. His is an extremely sophisticated network, with account holders and money transfers being a closely-guarded secret. These experts say that bin Laden’s financial infrastructure involves many banks and paper companies with no employees. All transactions of these institutions are legal and executed by businessmen who often have a minimal relationship with bin Laden. This makes tracing the flow of money extremely difficult. According to Al-Watan, Michael O'Hanlon, an expert on terrorism at the Brookings Institute in Washington DC, reported, Washington has advanced and perfected its ability to trace this group of people, their information and their money, and it is now able to acquire extremely detailed information in a very short time.
Al-Watan also states US experts have information that a Luxembourg corporation moves bin Laden’s money without his name appearing. All profits of bin Laden's deals and transactions go to a secret account used to finance the Arab Afghans and their allies. Moreover, the American administration possesses information about European accounts (most set up in Amsterdam) under many names and corporate identities from different nations, many of which have nothing to do with Muslims. All the money in these accounts belongs to bin Laden and is used to finance bin Laden's Arab group in Europe. Freezing bin Laden’s Assets These experts say that Washington is ready to confiscate bin Laden's money, alleged to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, believed the source of his great success in having kept thousands of fighters heavily armed and for many governments to have covered his trail. The report from Washington, according to Al-Watan, states that America has begun its operation against bin Laden’s financial machine and has put many of its diplomatic officers and internationally-based resources to work to identify how to achieve this. At the time of this writing, Germany had just arrested Mr. Mamduh Mahmud Salim on charges of handling most of bin Laden’s foreign investments and coordinating the logistics that support his violent campaigns against the US and other perceived enemies of Islam. Sources close to him claim bin Laden owns many factories, plantations and businesses in Sudan—all under others’ names. Salim is also alleged to be tied to the pharmaceutical plant struck by US cruise missiles in Sudan. Salim admits to knowing bin Laden, but denies any involvement in his guerrilla activities. The above-mentioned source says that in tracing back some of this money, it was found that bin Laden has deposited $500 million in his own name in the Central Bank of Khartoum. In addition to his own money, bin Laden manages funds deposited by many charity organizations, especially from the Gulf. The US administration believes that bin Laden also manages vast amounts of money for Taliban, amounting to no less than $8 billion, with derived profits going to the movement, reported in excess of $1 billion.
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Money From Drugs?
Al-Watan quotes American sources alleging that some of the money bin Laden invests comes from the business of selling Afghan-grown narcotics, particularly opium. However, Taliban vehemently denies these allegations and points to its record of destroying opium crops as evidence to the contrary. Recent reports in the New York Times support Taliban’s contention, showing that total tonnage of opium entering Europe has decreased significantly since Taliban took control of Afghanistan. Taliban has in turn requested that the West provide support for farmers, who, in destroying opium crops, often lose their sole source of income. Al-Watan’s sources say the Arab Afghans and other extremist organizations based in Europe are responsible for moving these drugs to the international market. Al-Watan alleges the benefit of selling drugs accrues to these organizations, including many well-known and established Muslim organizations. The money goes into complexed accounts through unlisted bank transfers. Charters of the banks involved prevent anyone tracing either incoming or outgoing masters, making tracking the source of funds extremely difficult for intelligence organizations. The money for these deals finally reaches bin Laden's account. The US is mustering all the resources it can command to stop this flow of money, hoping to paralyze the Arab Afghans in their guerrilla war. The question yet to be answered is: will that stop terrorism?
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Predicting Future Strikes
Sources say American satellite data on bin Laden and movement of his network obtained after the attack on his bases in Afghanistan gives rise to major concerns. What the US fears most are retaliatory operations in unexpected places. Other information indicates that movement among covert extremist groups in Latin America has suddenly increased, and they fear attacks on US interests and personnel in Latin America, where security is lax. The American sources and reports say that the network has spread around the world like a huge octopus. And like an octopus, it is able to take aggressive action with its many tentacles despite attacks against its head.
These sources say the system the Arab Afghans are using is highly specialized and perfected through years of trial-and-error. Similar to grapes on a branch, the movement is organized into small groups or cells spread around the world, and including the US. The grapes or cells which make up this huge cluster are completely independent from one another, none knowing the flavor of the other, but each receiving its nourishment from the same vine.
American analysts, expecting a revenge surprise attack from the Arab Afghans anywhere in the world, sometimes describe the Tomahawk attacks against Sudan and Afghanistan as putting our hand in the wasp's nest, just waiting for the next sting to come. Thus arises a terrifying question before tolerant and peace-loving, moderate, mainstream Muslims and the Western nations: are we facing a third world-war between the military prowess of the West and the terrorists?
Al-Wasat reports many Arab organizations have established their bases in the West, some of which have political leanings and some of which have extremist inclinations, believing in militant action as the only means of government reform. Other movements reject militant action, instead calling for a peaceful approach to change. Such Islamic movements represent the moderate viewpoint of the vast majority of Muslims. The minority who see militancy as the means for change, consist of less than 3% of all Muslims. Mainstream Muslims in the West often accuse these minority elements of giving an ugly image to Islam.
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Al-Wasat says that according to one source, the following extremist organizations and movements have offices in England:
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The Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan al-muslimoon) represented by Mr. Kamal al-Halbawi. This movement, though no longer as militant as it once was, has spun-off many groups, many of which tend to be highly extreme.
The Jihad Movement, active under the other name International Committee for defending Egyptian Citizens lead by Mr. Adel Abdul-Majeed Abdul-Bari who had been sentenced to death in Egypt for his role in a machine-gun attack in the Khan al-Khalili District. The Egyptian government accused him of being a member of The Jihad Movement, under the leadership of al-Zawahiri. Another activist from The Jihad Movement, is Mr. Yasser al-Sirri, sentenced to death in 1994 for trying to assassinate former Egyptian Prime Minister, Dr. Atef Sudqi. He also runs an office under the name Islamic Media which Egypt considers a front for the Islamic Conquest, a division of the Jihad Movement.
The Islamic Group is one of the largest militant movements in Egypt opposing the government. It is not known if they have representatives in London or the US. What is known is that they have connection to a movement that has many branches in the West: the Islamic League for Adherence to the Quran and Sunna led by Mr. Mustafa bin Mukhtar al-Muqri`.
Armed Islamic Group (GIA) and Algerian activist movement, This group allegedly consider the majority of citizens of Algeria to be unbelievers. It is led by Mr. Mustafa Kamil Abu Hamza.
The Islamic Front for Salvation another Algerian activist group, led by Ja`afar al-Hawari. This group has split into many subgroups. Al-Hawari has been criticized by his own organization because he seeks a peaceful settlement with the Algerian government. His biggest opponent is Abdullah al-Mashi, who prefers militancy to peaceful methods.
The National Front to Save Libya, which has a presence in London. The Middle East Movement. One of its main officers is Mr. Omar Bakri Muhammad, a Syrian citizen once active in the Hizb al-Tahrir movement.
Hizb al-Tahrir —a rival to Ikhwan, this movement considers anyone other than themselves unbelivers to be fought. It was established in the 50's by the Palestinian Shaykh Taqi al-Din an-Nabahani.
The Emigrants (al-Muhajiroun) —Omar Bakri, mentioned above was criticized by Hizb al-Tahrir from within, and therefore established this new movement during the 90's.
HAMAS, which publishes a magazine called Palestine the Bequeathed.
Committee for Defense of Legitimate Rights led by Dr. Muhammad al-Mass`ari.
Committee for Advice and Reform, led by Sa`ad Al-Faqih of Saudi Arabia, recently named a Saudi, Mr. Khaled Abdul-Rahman Hamad al-Fawaz, a relative of bin Laden, as his spokesmen in the West.
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Al-Watan reports that the story behind the divisions in Ikhwan al-Muslimoon is not something new. Ali Ashmawy, one of the leaders of Ikhwan said in his biography, The Muslim Brotherhood made a big mistake: they regard whoever doesn’t accept their ideology as either allied to a foreign government, allied to the local government, secular or communist. They harm him without thinking. They took this stand against some of the most respected former members of Ikhwan. They classified them in the same league as someone addicted to alcohol (i.e. fasiq). I say without fear, and without being considered by them a traitor, that they took this decision and they denounced first-rate shaykhs of Islam who work for the [Egyptian] government - a government considered infidel in their eyes. They include Dr. Mohammed al-Ghazali, Sayyid Sabiq, Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Shaykh Mutawalli Sha'rawi, Dr. Kamal Abu Majd, Ahmad Faraj, some of whom were expelled and some of whom resigned. In this way many of the Muslim Brotherhood leaders have been expelled from the movement. Shaykh Ahmad Hassan al-Bakouri was also expelled from the movement when he accepted to become Minister of Islamic Affairs.
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[Note: The Muslim Magazine intends to report in full on the Ikhwan al-Muslimoon in a future issue].
Activities of Omar Bakri's al-Muhajiroun focus primarily on the Pakistani Muslim community. His positions are so radical, that even other extremists say Bakri's ultra-tough approach gives Islam and Muslims a very bad image in the West. A recent al-Muhajiroun statement regarding the bombings in Nairobi and Dar Es-Salaam, is typical:
Al-Muhajiroun views this incident as an expression of outrage against the dictatorial regimes in the Muslim world and the US, UK, France, Russia, etc. that support these tyrannical and oppressive governments.
The Muslim Ummah is in a constant state of defensive Jihad. We view such incidents as the beginning of much more bloodshed and deaths, should the US continue to occupy Muslim land and to oppress Muslims in the Gulf and elsewhere. Al-Muhajiroun appeals to the Muslims all over the world to join us in an intellectual/ideological/political/ struggle.
By denouncing those who gave him a free podium from which to speak many Muslims consider Bakri to be abusing the English government's hospitality. The British administration is now considering exiling him after his ostentatious efforts to collect money to support Usama bin Laden.
Nations’ Attempts to Counteract Terrorism
As England has sought to limit terrorist activities, it has focused on such groups and their individual members, particularly after the embassy bombings. Recently Scotland Yard made a number of arrests under the new Prevention of Terrorism Act, implicating a number of extremist group leaders as collaborating with terrorists. Among those arrested are: Mr. Adel Abdul-Majeed Abdul-Bari, an Egyptian who is head of the Committee for Defending Egyptian Citizens; Mr. Khaled Abdul-Rahman Hamad Al-Fawaz, the Saudi head of the Committee for Advice and Reform, who represents bin Laden in the West and who closed his London offices one day prior to his arrest following the rejection of his application for asylum; and Mr. Abdul-Majeed Fahmi, Egyptian head of the Islamic Information Centre.
The US has enacted a similar Terrorist Prevention Act and, using similar extensive powers, has arrested and impounded bank accounts and assets of persons accused of involvement in the financing terrorist networks abroad through innocuous-seeming Islamic organizations. Among those so far affected are Salah Mohammad, a Bridgeview, Illinois resident. Accused of channeling funds from the Quranic Literacy Institute (QLI) to the terrorist arm of HAMAS, all of QLI's assets and accounts have been frozen by US authorities and are presently being subjected to intense scrutiny.
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