By Abdel Bari Atwan
12 May 2011
We are still waiting for the details of the assassination of Shaykh Osama Bin Laden in early May by a US commando unit that stormed the house where he had been residing with some of his wives and children in Abbottabad near the Pakistani capital Islamabad. Up to this moment, the US authorities have not released the photo they said they had taken of Shaykh Bin Laden, after opening fire at him, on the pretext that it so graphic that it might arouse the fury of his organization's loyalists who are scattered around the world.
The latest proposal circulating in the United States is that Shaykh Bin Laden's photo might be shown to a selected group of the US congressional Security Committee and Intelligence committee at the CIA headquarters to prove that he was killed. If this proposal is actually implemented, it will not change our conviction and the conviction of millions like us in many parts of the Islamic world.
The US Administrations, which have lectured us for decades about the need for us - we the sons of the Third World - to adhere to transparency and freedom of information, is telling the ugliest type of lies and is imposing a blackout regarding the assassination of an unarmed man who was caught off guard in his bedroom and in front of his wife and children.
There must be a "serious secret" that the US Administration does not want us to know, and is trying all it can to divert attention from it, counting on the assumption that people will forget. This is evident from the release of poor videotapes that included clips lacking any news value or information, such as the one that showed him as elderly man with graying beard watching one of his videotapes aired by the Al-Jazeera satellite channel on a very old television set, which one would only find in trash dumps.
According to his loyalists, Shaykh Bin Laden is being exposed to character assassination even after his martyrdom. At first the Americans said that he was residing in a plush palace only to discover that it was an extremely modest home, not worth more than $150,000. They then said that he was narcissist who enjoyed watching himself and videotapes on television. Who of us or of them, particularly politicians and media men, would not watch videotapes of his interviews again to learn when he was right and when he was wrong, and when he did well and when he did not?
The vilest type of character assassination of a dead man is perhaps the revelation that "herbal Viagra" was placed among his medicines, as though this were a great discovery that would make the world safer and more stable. This demonstrates utterly sheer lack of ethics of a state that claims to be the leader of the Free World and of the world's cultural and democratic values.
The series of lies is continuing and the latest lie is the retraction on the story of the martyrdom of Shaykh Bin Laden's son, Hamzah, with him, saying that the one who was killed was his other youngest son, Khalid. (Osama Bin Laden had 25 sons and daughters from five wives). Hamzah, who had been residing in the compound just before or during the assault on the compound, has disappeared.
I have met with Shaykh Osama Bin Laden, but I did not find him a narcissist or vain, but extremely humble and shy. He imposed austere lifestyle on all members of his family, and even refused to have air conditions at his house in Khartoum, while living there before moving to Afghanistan, where the temperature rises to above 55 centigrade, in order not to distinguish himself from the majority of the poor in Sudan. His son, Umar, who could not tolerate that austere living condition and returned to Saudi Arabia, stressed that his father denied his children toys, soft drinks, sweets, and chocolates.
Shaykh Osama Bin Laden has passed away. Yet what we differ over, or what we want to know now are the details. Why was he not buried like all human beings regardless of their faith, creed, or nationality? The Americans and the Britons did not bury Nazi members who caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands, and perhaps millions of people, at sea after bringing them to fair trials. Is it fear that hundreds of thousands, and perhaps millions of people, might have taken part in his funeral if he were to be buried in Pakistan or in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, his birthplace?
The Pakistani authorities, which connived with the Americans in the assassination of Shaykh Bin Laden, although they claimed they did not, did not defend the sanctity and sovereignty of their territories, since they failed to confront the four US helicopters that carried out the operation. These authorities have detained the wives and children of Shaykh Bin Laden on the pretext that they wanted to interrogate them, and it is reported that the Pakistani government may hand them over to the US Administration. Shaykh Bin Laden's wives and children are our kinsfolk and honour. They did not commit any sin or make any mistake. Every Muslim is duty bound to defend their honour. We must not forget his youngest wife, Amal al-Sadah, that virtuous Yemeni national who bravely defended her husband and exposed her life to death, and was severely wounded. That heroic woman, who brings to mind the venerable female companions of Prophet Muhammad, deserves that we stand by her and safeguard her dignity and honour, along with Shaykh Bin Laden's other wives.
More pressure must be put on the Pakistani government to immediately release those women and refuse to hand them over to the United States under any circumstances. The continued detention of those wives is a big crime because they are innocent and guiltless just for being wives of a man who humbled [dawwakha] history's greatest superpower. He dragged that superpower to two great wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, causing it to lose trillions of dollars in material losses, and more than 5,000 soldiers dead, and tens of thousands wounded. And the wound continues to bleed.
Regrettably, after nearly two weeks, [since the death of Bin Laden], we have not yet heard the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia request the release of the wives and children of a Saudi national. More regrettably, the Saudi ambassador to Islamabad has not condescended to ask about his compatriots and arrange for their travel to the country of their father and forefathers to live among their families in dignity like the rest of human beings after years of unbearable suffering. It is not easy to be a son, daughter, or wife of a man who had been pursued by all the world's intelligence services for more than 15 years, and who succeeded in evading them all those years until his end came.
The Al-Qa'idah Organization will not be weaken by the assassination of its leader; in fact, it may become stronger because it is no longer a centralized organization, and because the new generation of its leaders are more militant than the founding old guard. We should recall that HAMAS did not weaken by the martyrdom of its founder, Shaykh Ahmad Yasin, nor, for that matter, has the Muslim Brotherhood declined by the execution of Shaykh Dr. Sayyid Qutb or the assassination of its founder, Shaykh Hasan al-Banna. In fact, it has become stronger and more powerful.
The world is not safer after the assassination of the leader of the Al-Qa'idah Organization, as President Barack Obama said after the news of his [death] was announced, not only because the organization will inevitably avenge the killing of its leader, but because the reasons that led and will lead to the emergence of militant movements and organizations in the Islamic world - primarily the Israeli terrorism and US support for it - have not changed.
Stability and security will not prevail in the world as long as the greatest superpower does not abide by the rule of law, and as long as it continues to resort to killing and liquidation to eliminate [adversaries] like mafia gangs and outlaws. The unarmed man deserved to be placed in the dock in front of independent judiciary to defend himself like other more dangerous men who committed more terrorist acts. We should not forget that those in London and Texas who killed a million Iraqi people still enjoy freedom and prosperous living conditions in the countries of wise, democratic rule.
Abdel Bari Atwan is editor-in-chief on the London-based pan-Arab newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi and the author of The Secret History Of al-Qa'ida
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miércoles, 18 de mayo de 2011
Why bin Laden was radicalized - Abdel Bari Atwan
Why bin Laden was radicalized
By Abdel Bari Atwan
May 17, 2011
Editor's note: Abdel Bari Atwan is editor of al-Quds al-Arabi, a London-based pan-Arab daily newspaper. He is author of The Secret History of al Qaeda and is currently working on his next book, Al Qaeda: The Next Generation. In May 2010 Middle East magazine named Atwan as one of the 50 most influential Arabs.
I spent three days with Osama bin Laden in 1996 when I traveled to the remote, mountainous Tora Bora area of Afghanistan to interview him. I found him gently spoken, humble -- even shy -- and extremely polite. It is difficult to reconcile these personal memories of the man with the fact that he presided over so much terror and destruction.
Why did he hate the Americans so much? Why did he turn to the most extreme form of radical Islam and why did he chose violence to express this hatred and this faith?
His extraordinary metamorphosis may have started in childhood. Osama was the 43rd of 53 siblings but somehow in the chaotic scramble for attention he became his millionaire father Muhammad Awad bin Laden's favorite. His brothers have described him as aloof and quiet as a child -- while others of his age were playing outside or engaged in the noisy chatter and petty squabbles that characterize most childhoods, Osama preferred to accompany his father to business and religious meetings, sitting silently by his side.
At the age of 10, Osama's life was turned upside down when Muhammad Awad's private plane crashed and all on board were killed. The pilot who made the fatal error of judgement was American. It is possible that Osama's later antipathy towards the U.S. was compounded by this tragedy.
After Muhammad's death, the family continued his tradition of offering hospitality to pilgrims during the Hajj season. As he entered his teens, Osama was already in the habit of discussing theology with these visitors, some of whom espoused the Salafist form of Islam and introduced the young man to the radical teachings of Sayyid Qutb, which clearly resonated with Osama.
Unlike many wealthy Saudis, Osama wasn't beguiled by the west. He decided to marry his cousin, Najua Ghanem, when he was only 17, and involved himself in the family construction business. He saw himself as occupying the moral high ground even then and his criticisms of western values -- or lack of them -- later became a recurrent theme in his speeches and informed his impulse towards jihad with an atheistic, "infidel" west.
When the U.S.S.R invaded Afghanistan in 1979, resistance erupted in the form of the Islamic mujahedeen. By now, Osama had become the protégé of the radical Islamist scholar Abdullah Azzam, who preached that incitement and jihad were religious duties. In 1982, when he was 25, Osama decided to relinquish his privileged and comfortable life and head for the front line.
In Afghanistan, Osama came face to face with the U.S. military advisers who were arming and training the mujahedeen. When the Soviet troops finally withdrew in 1989 the U.S. began to worry about possible "blow-back" from the hard core of battle-hardened militant Islamists that remained.
Osama learned (from Pakistani intelligence, interestingly) that he was among a group of men targeted for assassination by the CIA. He fled back home only to find himself placed under house arrest. Not surprisingly, perhaps, Osama felt the mujahedeen had been exploited and cheated by the Americans and deeply resented the fact that the Saudi regime was so compliant with the U.S. agenda.
Osama became involved in the burgeoning reform movement and his attentions may never have strayed beyond the Saudi borders had it not been for Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
Learning that the Saudis were considering asking the U.S. for help, Osama wrote a letter to the Saudi Minister of the Interior, offering to put together an army of ex-mujahedeen to liberate the tiny state. His offer was refused and shortly afterwards 100,000 U.S. troops arrived on Saudi soil.
In Osama's eyes, this was sacrilege: Saudi Arabia is home to Islam's two most sacred sites, Mecca and Medina, where the presence of non-Muslims is explicitly forbidden in the Koran. Osama described this moment to me as "the most shocking," in his life. Deeply angered and embittered, he made plans to secretly leave the land of his birth and by December 1991 had found refuge in Khartoum whence he orchestrated attacks on Saudi-based U.S. targets .
Al Qaeda had been established in 1988 and in Sudan Osama revived discussions about the group's agenda with fellow founding members, including the Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri. The radical drive towards globalizing jihad came from al-Zawairi who identified two battlefronts: the "near enemy," -- the Middle East's assorted tyrants and dictators (and here al-Zawahiri had form, having participated in the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat) -- and the "far enemy," -- the western powers, mainly America.
Al Qaeda's first attack on western soil came in 1993 with a truck bomb outside New York's World Trade Center that killed six and injured many more. Letters to the media (under the moniker "Liberation Army, fifth battalion") brought Israel into the equation for the first time with the group demanding that the U.S. cease all interference in the Middle East and end its "aid to Israel," as well as diplomatic ties.
The failure to find a just settlement for the Palestinians and America's perceived unconditional support for the Jewish state was another causus belli for Osama bin Laden.
In 1998, having re-established their headquarters in the Tora Bora mountains of Afghanistan where I started my story, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri (among others) announced the formation of the "World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders," and launched a series of attacks on U.S. targets which culminated, on September 11 2001, with the catastrophic destruction of the twin towers, the attack on the Pentagon and the deaths of more than 3,000 people. The rest, as they say, is history.
Abdel Bari Atwan is editor-in-chief on the London-based pan-Arab newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi and the author of The Secret History Of al-Qa'ida
By Abdel Bari Atwan
May 17, 2011
Editor's note: Abdel Bari Atwan is editor of al-Quds al-Arabi, a London-based pan-Arab daily newspaper. He is author of The Secret History of al Qaeda and is currently working on his next book, Al Qaeda: The Next Generation. In May 2010 Middle East magazine named Atwan as one of the 50 most influential Arabs.
I spent three days with Osama bin Laden in 1996 when I traveled to the remote, mountainous Tora Bora area of Afghanistan to interview him. I found him gently spoken, humble -- even shy -- and extremely polite. It is difficult to reconcile these personal memories of the man with the fact that he presided over so much terror and destruction.
Why did he hate the Americans so much? Why did he turn to the most extreme form of radical Islam and why did he chose violence to express this hatred and this faith?
His extraordinary metamorphosis may have started in childhood. Osama was the 43rd of 53 siblings but somehow in the chaotic scramble for attention he became his millionaire father Muhammad Awad bin Laden's favorite. His brothers have described him as aloof and quiet as a child -- while others of his age were playing outside or engaged in the noisy chatter and petty squabbles that characterize most childhoods, Osama preferred to accompany his father to business and religious meetings, sitting silently by his side.
At the age of 10, Osama's life was turned upside down when Muhammad Awad's private plane crashed and all on board were killed. The pilot who made the fatal error of judgement was American. It is possible that Osama's later antipathy towards the U.S. was compounded by this tragedy.
After Muhammad's death, the family continued his tradition of offering hospitality to pilgrims during the Hajj season. As he entered his teens, Osama was already in the habit of discussing theology with these visitors, some of whom espoused the Salafist form of Islam and introduced the young man to the radical teachings of Sayyid Qutb, which clearly resonated with Osama.
Unlike many wealthy Saudis, Osama wasn't beguiled by the west. He decided to marry his cousin, Najua Ghanem, when he was only 17, and involved himself in the family construction business. He saw himself as occupying the moral high ground even then and his criticisms of western values -- or lack of them -- later became a recurrent theme in his speeches and informed his impulse towards jihad with an atheistic, "infidel" west.
When the U.S.S.R invaded Afghanistan in 1979, resistance erupted in the form of the Islamic mujahedeen. By now, Osama had become the protégé of the radical Islamist scholar Abdullah Azzam, who preached that incitement and jihad were religious duties. In 1982, when he was 25, Osama decided to relinquish his privileged and comfortable life and head for the front line.
In Afghanistan, Osama came face to face with the U.S. military advisers who were arming and training the mujahedeen. When the Soviet troops finally withdrew in 1989 the U.S. began to worry about possible "blow-back" from the hard core of battle-hardened militant Islamists that remained.
Osama learned (from Pakistani intelligence, interestingly) that he was among a group of men targeted for assassination by the CIA. He fled back home only to find himself placed under house arrest. Not surprisingly, perhaps, Osama felt the mujahedeen had been exploited and cheated by the Americans and deeply resented the fact that the Saudi regime was so compliant with the U.S. agenda.
Osama became involved in the burgeoning reform movement and his attentions may never have strayed beyond the Saudi borders had it not been for Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
Learning that the Saudis were considering asking the U.S. for help, Osama wrote a letter to the Saudi Minister of the Interior, offering to put together an army of ex-mujahedeen to liberate the tiny state. His offer was refused and shortly afterwards 100,000 U.S. troops arrived on Saudi soil.
In Osama's eyes, this was sacrilege: Saudi Arabia is home to Islam's two most sacred sites, Mecca and Medina, where the presence of non-Muslims is explicitly forbidden in the Koran. Osama described this moment to me as "the most shocking," in his life. Deeply angered and embittered, he made plans to secretly leave the land of his birth and by December 1991 had found refuge in Khartoum whence he orchestrated attacks on Saudi-based U.S. targets .
Al Qaeda had been established in 1988 and in Sudan Osama revived discussions about the group's agenda with fellow founding members, including the Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri. The radical drive towards globalizing jihad came from al-Zawairi who identified two battlefronts: the "near enemy," -- the Middle East's assorted tyrants and dictators (and here al-Zawahiri had form, having participated in the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat) -- and the "far enemy," -- the western powers, mainly America.
Al Qaeda's first attack on western soil came in 1993 with a truck bomb outside New York's World Trade Center that killed six and injured many more. Letters to the media (under the moniker "Liberation Army, fifth battalion") brought Israel into the equation for the first time with the group demanding that the U.S. cease all interference in the Middle East and end its "aid to Israel," as well as diplomatic ties.
The failure to find a just settlement for the Palestinians and America's perceived unconditional support for the Jewish state was another causus belli for Osama bin Laden.
In 1998, having re-established their headquarters in the Tora Bora mountains of Afghanistan where I started my story, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri (among others) announced the formation of the "World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders," and launched a series of attacks on U.S. targets which culminated, on September 11 2001, with the catastrophic destruction of the twin towers, the attack on the Pentagon and the deaths of more than 3,000 people. The rest, as they say, is history.
Abdel Bari Atwan is editor-in-chief on the London-based pan-Arab newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi and the author of The Secret History Of al-Qa'ida
Al Qaeda after Bin Laden - Abdel Bari Atwan
Al Qaeda after Bin Laden
By Abdel Bari Atwan
Published on 8 May 2011
Essay of the Week Scottish Herald
I AM probably the only man in Britain who can honestly claim to have slept in the same cave as Osama bin Laden.It was November 1996 and I had come to the Tora Bora mountains in Afghanistan to interview the al-Qaeda leader, who was then comparatively unknown. As night fell, he indicated that I should bed down on a battered mattress suspended over crates of hand grenades, amid a forest of guns and other weaponry. He was similarly accommodated at the other end of the cave. Frankly, I was terrified and woke every five minutes, expecting the ammunition to explode or the CIA to raid the hideout at any moment. My companion had no such trouble, slumbering peacefully, his Kalashnikov rifle by his side.
Let me make it clear that I am no apologist for al-Qaeda and abhor the loss of innocent lives they have caused. I mention these details because my experience of the man - with whom I spent three days - is so very much at odds with the various accounts of his assassination in Abbottabad last Monday.
Although he had already masterminded several acts of terrorism against US military targets when I met him, Osama bin Laden behaved in a curiously gentle manner with those around him. He spoke quietly and listened intently. He had a Kalashnikov slung over his shoulder everywhere he went. When he sat down, to talk or eat, the gun lay across his knees. He had no interest in comfort - how else could he have forsaken his family's billions for the sake of jihad - and seemed to subsist on bread and eggs.
During my interview with bin Laden, he told me that his greatest desire was to "die a martyr". Later, one of his bodyguards revealed in my newspaper Al-Quds al-Arabi that he had been tasked with shooting the al-Qaeda leader dead in the event of his imminent capture. There was even a special pistol for the purpose, loaded with just two bullets.
When I heard the version of events in Abbot-tabad first suggested by President Obama's counter-terrorism adviser, John Brennan, I sensed immediately they were untrue. I simply could not imagine the Osama bin Laden I had met using his wife as a human shield, or living a life of "luxury". Because the story has changed many times now, I am still not sure what to believe. It is interesting in all the accounts, bin Laden died from two bullet wounds, which allows for the possibility that whoever was in possession of the "special pistol" shot his "Sheikh" rather than see him captured.
Clearly, the circumstances of Osama bin Laden's death are being "managed" by the White House to such an extent that they risk a total credibility meltdown. And in the absence of truth, how can we be assured that justice has been done?
The main evidence, the body, was "buried at sea" - a practice which is un-Islamic. The explanation, that bin Laden's tomb may become a holy shrine for his followers, ignores the Salafist form of Islam al-Qaeda espouses, which regards the veneration of tombs as haram (sin). Meanwhile, the much-publicised and photographed house in Abottabad has already become a magnet for followers, mourners and the curious.
Unsurprisingly, conspiracy theories have abounded in the absence of proof as to how Osama bin Laden died. The White House fears we are too squeamish to view the photographs, but we are used to gruesome images of dead enemies: Saddam Hussein on the gallows, for example, or the corpses of his sons Uday and Qusay, which were displayed for the world's media in 2003.
Even the Archbishop of Canterbury has questioned the legality of the US undertaking this raid unilaterally on Pakistani soil and the killing of bin Laden without a trial if, as is claimed, he was unarmed. Thursday's official version of events suggests he was shot in the back: "Bin Laden then turned and retreated into the room before being shot twice - in the head and in the chest."
The situation reminds me of the capture of Saddam Hussein in December 2003. The Sunday Herald was the first British newspaper to reveal that Kurdish special forces actually captured Saddam long before the arrival of the US forces. He was then sedated and placed in the "spider hole" for the world's press to get its photo opportunity and for US administrator Paul Bremer to announce: "We got him." Eight years later, Obama uttered exactly the same phrase to colleagues assembled in the White House bunker.
America thrives on the simplistic "good guys/bad guys" paradigm - from "Reds" to al-Qaeda - but it is unlikely that the death of Osama bin Laden, however it is spun, will mark the end of "the war on terror". The USSR's ultimate implosion had nothing to do with America's sustained campaign against communism, or the wars it fought to defeat it (in Vietnam, for example). Saddam's execution did not vindicate America's invasion of Iraq but saw the insurgency enter a much bloodier phase, which endures today.
Historical precedents suggest that far from extinguishing a militant Islamist movement, eliminating its leader can have the opposite effect. When the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood's theologian, Said Qutb, was hanged in 1956, Islamism enjoyed a renaissance - both Osama bin Laden (born in 1957) and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, revered Qutb and subscribed to his ideology. The Israelis assassinated Hamas leader Sheikh Yassin in 2004 hoping his death would diminish the movement's fortunes, but by 2006 Hamas was so popular that it won the majority of seats in Palestinian parliamentary elections.
Following his flight from Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11, bin Laden's involvement in al-Qaeda was restricted to decision-making and strategy planning within the central Shura (consultative council). His symbolic importance as the semi-mythical figurehead of a global jihadist movement expanded, however. His image - like an Arab Che Guevara - adorns T-shirts, scarves, even cigarette lighters, for sale in Middle Eastern bazaars.
The aura of invincibility that surrounded him during the 10 years it took the US to track him down will now be replaced by the glow of martyrdom and a treasury of legends - it is this that the US rightly fears and seeks to obscure by "managing" the details of his death.
Al-Qaeda is a robust organisation that has existed for more than 20 years. The pyramid structure - which saw Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri at the top - was long ago replaced by a horizontal network of loosely affiliated "branches", cells and individuals. Power is widely delegated, so that if one leader is killed or captured it will have a minimal impact on the group's survival. It is ironic that this structure was suggested to the Afghan-Arab mujahideen by US military advisers during their decade- long fight against the USSR.
Al-Qaeda's most active "branches" at present are in Yemen (where al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula - AQAP - is based), Somalia (where it has a formal alliance with al Shabaab) and North Africa (home to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb - AQIM). The chaotic situation in Libya may provide new opportunities for AQIM, which last month killed 15 in a suicide attack on a Marrakesh cafe, and whose proximity to Europe must worry us all if reprisals for bin Laden's assassination are being considered.
Al-Qaeda has an energetic online presence and uses the internet to pursue "cyberjihad", recruiting, training and communicating with increasingly devious encryption techniques. It has a high quality independent media network, with its own film production house (As- Sahab) and glossy monthly English language magazine, Inspire, produced by AQAP and aimed at Western recruits. It seems unlikely that such a complex, diversified network will simply collapse with the demise of Osama bin Laden.
That bin Laden was able to live undisturbed in Abbottabad, home to the prestigious Kakul military academy, suggests that his presence was, at the very least, tolerated by the Pakistani military and the intelligence agency, the ISI. In September 2006, ABC news reported the Pakistani army was pulling out of North Waziristan as a result of a "peace deal" with al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Major General Shaukat Sultan Khan told journalists then that if bin Laden was in Pakistan he "would not be taken into custody ... so long as one (sic) is being a peaceful citizen".
While the US and British troops were fighting "the war on terror" in Afghanistan, neither bin Laden nor the Taliban leadership were actually based in that country. Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, and his Shura have been based for several years in Quetta, Pakistan, from where they direct attacks on Western forces over the border.
Al-Qaeda's survival has long depended on the semi-official protection of governments - Osama bin Laden and other key figures lived openly in Sudan from 1992-1996, moving from there to Afghanistan (under the Taliban) where they were allowed to establish their Tora Bora lair.
Nor is al-Qaeda generally unpopular in the Middle East. I was once mobbed by Osama bin Laden fans in the Yemeni capital Sana'a because I had been in the presence of "the Sheikh". While many do not espouse al-Qaeda's brand of radical Islam, the organisation champions many deeply felt, shared causes under the appealing banner of the Umma (global Muslim community).
Recently, however, the resentments and aspirations of Arab youth have found a new channel in the so-called "Arab Spring". Having overcome the barrier of fear engendered by brutally repressive regimes, thousands of brave citizens have taken to the streets to demand reform, their human rights, democracy and the departure of unelected dictators and tyrants.
This secular, spontaneous, mass movement arguably presents a far greater threat to al-Qaeda's future than the US military. If, on the other hand, the Arab Spring is derailed - by the ferocious crackdowns it has met with in Libya, Bahrain and Syria, or by achieving only partial regime change which sees the same rotten forms of government glossed over by new faces - then radical Islam might represent the only remaining conduit for all the new recruits to resistance and their frustration and unspent anger.
The US administration has pledged to "bury the rest of al- Qaeda", but given that it took 10 years to track down bin Laden and cost more than a million civilian lives in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, not to mention $1trn of US taxpayers' money, we might do better to look at the causes of militant Islam - rather than the effects - and see if they can be dealt with more peaceably.
Many of the problems which caused the rise of al Qaeda still exist. Among them, Western military intervention and US hegemony, which has often seen the superpower arming and backing the region's most repressive regimes. The absence of justice for the Palestinians in their conflict with a US-backed Israel is another concern, as is the rise of "Islamophobia" in the West and global media.
As long as there are battles to be fought, the final question is, who will succeed Osama bin Laden and what effect will that have? His deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri is, if anything, more militant than bin Laden, as is the younger generation of potential leaders - some of whom have spent most of their lives as fugitives and jihadists - such as bin Laden's son, Saad. AQAP leader al-Awlaki, the so-called "Sheikh of the Internet", is another possibility.
Any internal power struggle will inevitably weaken the organisation. It may opt, instead, to unite under the banner of its dead icon, bin Laden, who once expressed the wish that "my blood would become a beacon that arouses the zeal and determination of my followers". This would be the most dangerous outcome.
Abdel Bari Atwan is editor-in-chief on the London-based pan-Arab newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi and the author of The Secret History Of al-Qa'ida
By Abdel Bari Atwan
Published on 8 May 2011
Essay of the Week Scottish Herald
I AM probably the only man in Britain who can honestly claim to have slept in the same cave as Osama bin Laden.It was November 1996 and I had come to the Tora Bora mountains in Afghanistan to interview the al-Qaeda leader, who was then comparatively unknown. As night fell, he indicated that I should bed down on a battered mattress suspended over crates of hand grenades, amid a forest of guns and other weaponry. He was similarly accommodated at the other end of the cave. Frankly, I was terrified and woke every five minutes, expecting the ammunition to explode or the CIA to raid the hideout at any moment. My companion had no such trouble, slumbering peacefully, his Kalashnikov rifle by his side.
Let me make it clear that I am no apologist for al-Qaeda and abhor the loss of innocent lives they have caused. I mention these details because my experience of the man - with whom I spent three days - is so very much at odds with the various accounts of his assassination in Abbottabad last Monday.
Although he had already masterminded several acts of terrorism against US military targets when I met him, Osama bin Laden behaved in a curiously gentle manner with those around him. He spoke quietly and listened intently. He had a Kalashnikov slung over his shoulder everywhere he went. When he sat down, to talk or eat, the gun lay across his knees. He had no interest in comfort - how else could he have forsaken his family's billions for the sake of jihad - and seemed to subsist on bread and eggs.
During my interview with bin Laden, he told me that his greatest desire was to "die a martyr". Later, one of his bodyguards revealed in my newspaper Al-Quds al-Arabi that he had been tasked with shooting the al-Qaeda leader dead in the event of his imminent capture. There was even a special pistol for the purpose, loaded with just two bullets.
When I heard the version of events in Abbot-tabad first suggested by President Obama's counter-terrorism adviser, John Brennan, I sensed immediately they were untrue. I simply could not imagine the Osama bin Laden I had met using his wife as a human shield, or living a life of "luxury". Because the story has changed many times now, I am still not sure what to believe. It is interesting in all the accounts, bin Laden died from two bullet wounds, which allows for the possibility that whoever was in possession of the "special pistol" shot his "Sheikh" rather than see him captured.
Clearly, the circumstances of Osama bin Laden's death are being "managed" by the White House to such an extent that they risk a total credibility meltdown. And in the absence of truth, how can we be assured that justice has been done?
The main evidence, the body, was "buried at sea" - a practice which is un-Islamic. The explanation, that bin Laden's tomb may become a holy shrine for his followers, ignores the Salafist form of Islam al-Qaeda espouses, which regards the veneration of tombs as haram (sin). Meanwhile, the much-publicised and photographed house in Abottabad has already become a magnet for followers, mourners and the curious.
Unsurprisingly, conspiracy theories have abounded in the absence of proof as to how Osama bin Laden died. The White House fears we are too squeamish to view the photographs, but we are used to gruesome images of dead enemies: Saddam Hussein on the gallows, for example, or the corpses of his sons Uday and Qusay, which were displayed for the world's media in 2003.
Even the Archbishop of Canterbury has questioned the legality of the US undertaking this raid unilaterally on Pakistani soil and the killing of bin Laden without a trial if, as is claimed, he was unarmed. Thursday's official version of events suggests he was shot in the back: "Bin Laden then turned and retreated into the room before being shot twice - in the head and in the chest."
The situation reminds me of the capture of Saddam Hussein in December 2003. The Sunday Herald was the first British newspaper to reveal that Kurdish special forces actually captured Saddam long before the arrival of the US forces. He was then sedated and placed in the "spider hole" for the world's press to get its photo opportunity and for US administrator Paul Bremer to announce: "We got him." Eight years later, Obama uttered exactly the same phrase to colleagues assembled in the White House bunker.
America thrives on the simplistic "good guys/bad guys" paradigm - from "Reds" to al-Qaeda - but it is unlikely that the death of Osama bin Laden, however it is spun, will mark the end of "the war on terror". The USSR's ultimate implosion had nothing to do with America's sustained campaign against communism, or the wars it fought to defeat it (in Vietnam, for example). Saddam's execution did not vindicate America's invasion of Iraq but saw the insurgency enter a much bloodier phase, which endures today.
Historical precedents suggest that far from extinguishing a militant Islamist movement, eliminating its leader can have the opposite effect. When the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood's theologian, Said Qutb, was hanged in 1956, Islamism enjoyed a renaissance - both Osama bin Laden (born in 1957) and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, revered Qutb and subscribed to his ideology. The Israelis assassinated Hamas leader Sheikh Yassin in 2004 hoping his death would diminish the movement's fortunes, but by 2006 Hamas was so popular that it won the majority of seats in Palestinian parliamentary elections.
Following his flight from Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11, bin Laden's involvement in al-Qaeda was restricted to decision-making and strategy planning within the central Shura (consultative council). His symbolic importance as the semi-mythical figurehead of a global jihadist movement expanded, however. His image - like an Arab Che Guevara - adorns T-shirts, scarves, even cigarette lighters, for sale in Middle Eastern bazaars.
The aura of invincibility that surrounded him during the 10 years it took the US to track him down will now be replaced by the glow of martyrdom and a treasury of legends - it is this that the US rightly fears and seeks to obscure by "managing" the details of his death.
Al-Qaeda is a robust organisation that has existed for more than 20 years. The pyramid structure - which saw Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri at the top - was long ago replaced by a horizontal network of loosely affiliated "branches", cells and individuals. Power is widely delegated, so that if one leader is killed or captured it will have a minimal impact on the group's survival. It is ironic that this structure was suggested to the Afghan-Arab mujahideen by US military advisers during their decade- long fight against the USSR.
Al-Qaeda's most active "branches" at present are in Yemen (where al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula - AQAP - is based), Somalia (where it has a formal alliance with al Shabaab) and North Africa (home to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb - AQIM). The chaotic situation in Libya may provide new opportunities for AQIM, which last month killed 15 in a suicide attack on a Marrakesh cafe, and whose proximity to Europe must worry us all if reprisals for bin Laden's assassination are being considered.
Al-Qaeda has an energetic online presence and uses the internet to pursue "cyberjihad", recruiting, training and communicating with increasingly devious encryption techniques. It has a high quality independent media network, with its own film production house (As- Sahab) and glossy monthly English language magazine, Inspire, produced by AQAP and aimed at Western recruits. It seems unlikely that such a complex, diversified network will simply collapse with the demise of Osama bin Laden.
That bin Laden was able to live undisturbed in Abbottabad, home to the prestigious Kakul military academy, suggests that his presence was, at the very least, tolerated by the Pakistani military and the intelligence agency, the ISI. In September 2006, ABC news reported the Pakistani army was pulling out of North Waziristan as a result of a "peace deal" with al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Major General Shaukat Sultan Khan told journalists then that if bin Laden was in Pakistan he "would not be taken into custody ... so long as one (sic) is being a peaceful citizen".
While the US and British troops were fighting "the war on terror" in Afghanistan, neither bin Laden nor the Taliban leadership were actually based in that country. Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, and his Shura have been based for several years in Quetta, Pakistan, from where they direct attacks on Western forces over the border.
Al-Qaeda's survival has long depended on the semi-official protection of governments - Osama bin Laden and other key figures lived openly in Sudan from 1992-1996, moving from there to Afghanistan (under the Taliban) where they were allowed to establish their Tora Bora lair.
Nor is al-Qaeda generally unpopular in the Middle East. I was once mobbed by Osama bin Laden fans in the Yemeni capital Sana'a because I had been in the presence of "the Sheikh". While many do not espouse al-Qaeda's brand of radical Islam, the organisation champions many deeply felt, shared causes under the appealing banner of the Umma (global Muslim community).
Recently, however, the resentments and aspirations of Arab youth have found a new channel in the so-called "Arab Spring". Having overcome the barrier of fear engendered by brutally repressive regimes, thousands of brave citizens have taken to the streets to demand reform, their human rights, democracy and the departure of unelected dictators and tyrants.
This secular, spontaneous, mass movement arguably presents a far greater threat to al-Qaeda's future than the US military. If, on the other hand, the Arab Spring is derailed - by the ferocious crackdowns it has met with in Libya, Bahrain and Syria, or by achieving only partial regime change which sees the same rotten forms of government glossed over by new faces - then radical Islam might represent the only remaining conduit for all the new recruits to resistance and their frustration and unspent anger.
The US administration has pledged to "bury the rest of al- Qaeda", but given that it took 10 years to track down bin Laden and cost more than a million civilian lives in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, not to mention $1trn of US taxpayers' money, we might do better to look at the causes of militant Islam - rather than the effects - and see if they can be dealt with more peaceably.
Many of the problems which caused the rise of al Qaeda still exist. Among them, Western military intervention and US hegemony, which has often seen the superpower arming and backing the region's most repressive regimes. The absence of justice for the Palestinians in their conflict with a US-backed Israel is another concern, as is the rise of "Islamophobia" in the West and global media.
As long as there are battles to be fought, the final question is, who will succeed Osama bin Laden and what effect will that have? His deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri is, if anything, more militant than bin Laden, as is the younger generation of potential leaders - some of whom have spent most of their lives as fugitives and jihadists - such as bin Laden's son, Saad. AQAP leader al-Awlaki, the so-called "Sheikh of the Internet", is another possibility.
Any internal power struggle will inevitably weaken the organisation. It may opt, instead, to unite under the banner of its dead icon, bin Laden, who once expressed the wish that "my blood would become a beacon that arouses the zeal and determination of my followers". This would be the most dangerous outcome.
Abdel Bari Atwan is editor-in-chief on the London-based pan-Arab newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi and the author of The Secret History Of al-Qa'ida
Osama Bin Laden's Death: A Leader's Wish Fulfilled
By Abdel Bari Atwan
2 May 2011
The martyrdom rather than capture of its chief may fuel more radical action from a newly unified al-Qaida
When I met Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, in Afghanistan in 1996, he told me his greatest ambition in life was to die a martyr's death and join those who had gone before him in paradise. The first part of his wish has been fulfilled. As for the second, that is a matter for God alone to decide.
The circumstances of Bin Laden's death are not yet clear, but in a 2004 interview with my newspaper, Al-Quds al-Arabi, his former bodyguard, "Abu Jandal", disclosed that the al-Qaida leader had ordered him to shoot him dead if ever he was surrounded and in imminent danger of capture. Abu Jandal spoke of a special pistol loaded with only two bullets that he had been given for the purpose. "He would become a martyr, not a captive, and his blood would become a beacon that arouses the zeal and determination of his followers," Abu Jandal explained.
Bin Laden apparently died from two shots to the head, and rumours are already circulating that whichever bodyguard was in possession of that special pistol on Sunday night carried out this final command. That he was not captured alive, humiliated and executed in the way that Saddam Hussein was will greatly influence the way he is remembered. If Bin Laden becomes an iconic, unifying figurehead, his death may boost rather than diminish the future fortunes of al-Qaida.
Reports that Bin Laden was "buried at sea" are potentially inflammatory, too. There are no circumstances under which this could be "in accordance with Islamic practice" as a US spokesman claimed. Disposing of the body in this way will be seen as questionable by most Muslims (and conspiracy theorists) and as humiliating by the most militants, among whom there will be a desire to avenge Bin Laden's death.
Al-Qaida's most active "branches" at present are in Yemen, Somalia and the Maghreb. Just last week, an al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) suicide bomber killed 15 in a Marrakesh cafe[sic], and the chaotic situation in Libya also presents opportunities for the group. With its access to the Mediterranean coastline, a vengeful AQIM might be a real threat to mainland Europe.
The structure of al-Qaida has evolved in such a way that Bin Laden's demise may not greatly affect its future. The pyramid power structure it initially employed (with Bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri at the top) has been replaced by a network of enfranchised or otherwise affiliated groups, each with their own "emirs". Roles and power are widely delegated, so that if one leader is killed or captured it will have a minimum impact on the group's survival and ability to continue with their agenda undeterred. Paradoxically, the benefits of this structure were suggested to the Afghan-Arab Mujahideen by US military advisers during their decade-long fight against the USSR (1979–1989).
Al-Zawahiri – who will now take command of "al-Qaida central – is, if anything, more militant than Bin Laden, and is the suspected mastermind behind 9/11 and the bombings in Madrid and London. Furthermore there is a new generation of potential leaders, some of whom have spent most of their lives as fugitives and jihadists. These include Bin Laden's son, Saad, and, paradoxically, a growing number of militants from western backgrounds including the high-profile Adam Gadahn, "al-Amriki" (the American) who fronts many al-Qaida videos, and is from Oregon.
There is a danger that post-Bin Laden, al-Qaida may emerge even more radical, and more closely united under the banner of an iconic martyr.
2 May 2011
The martyrdom rather than capture of its chief may fuel more radical action from a newly unified al-Qaida
When I met Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, in Afghanistan in 1996, he told me his greatest ambition in life was to die a martyr's death and join those who had gone before him in paradise. The first part of his wish has been fulfilled. As for the second, that is a matter for God alone to decide.
The circumstances of Bin Laden's death are not yet clear, but in a 2004 interview with my newspaper, Al-Quds al-Arabi, his former bodyguard, "Abu Jandal", disclosed that the al-Qaida leader had ordered him to shoot him dead if ever he was surrounded and in imminent danger of capture. Abu Jandal spoke of a special pistol loaded with only two bullets that he had been given for the purpose. "He would become a martyr, not a captive, and his blood would become a beacon that arouses the zeal and determination of his followers," Abu Jandal explained.
Bin Laden apparently died from two shots to the head, and rumours are already circulating that whichever bodyguard was in possession of that special pistol on Sunday night carried out this final command. That he was not captured alive, humiliated and executed in the way that Saddam Hussein was will greatly influence the way he is remembered. If Bin Laden becomes an iconic, unifying figurehead, his death may boost rather than diminish the future fortunes of al-Qaida.
Reports that Bin Laden was "buried at sea" are potentially inflammatory, too. There are no circumstances under which this could be "in accordance with Islamic practice" as a US spokesman claimed. Disposing of the body in this way will be seen as questionable by most Muslims (and conspiracy theorists) and as humiliating by the most militants, among whom there will be a desire to avenge Bin Laden's death.
Al-Qaida's most active "branches" at present are in Yemen, Somalia and the Maghreb. Just last week, an al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) suicide bomber killed 15 in a Marrakesh cafe[sic], and the chaotic situation in Libya also presents opportunities for the group. With its access to the Mediterranean coastline, a vengeful AQIM might be a real threat to mainland Europe.
The structure of al-Qaida has evolved in such a way that Bin Laden's demise may not greatly affect its future. The pyramid power structure it initially employed (with Bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri at the top) has been replaced by a network of enfranchised or otherwise affiliated groups, each with their own "emirs". Roles and power are widely delegated, so that if one leader is killed or captured it will have a minimum impact on the group's survival and ability to continue with their agenda undeterred. Paradoxically, the benefits of this structure were suggested to the Afghan-Arab Mujahideen by US military advisers during their decade-long fight against the USSR (1979–1989).
Al-Zawahiri – who will now take command of "al-Qaida central – is, if anything, more militant than Bin Laden, and is the suspected mastermind behind 9/11 and the bombings in Madrid and London. Furthermore there is a new generation of potential leaders, some of whom have spent most of their lives as fugitives and jihadists. These include Bin Laden's son, Saad, and, paradoxically, a growing number of militants from western backgrounds including the high-profile Adam Gadahn, "al-Amriki" (the American) who fronts many al-Qaida videos, and is from Oregon.
There is a danger that post-Bin Laden, al-Qaida may emerge even more radical, and more closely united under the banner of an iconic martyr.
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