Modern Islamist Movements: History, Religion, and Politics (30 page)

a strict Islamist, agreed with Bin Laden’s goals of creating Islamist states in Sudan and throughout the world, and was strongly allied with Sudan’s government.132 Bin Laden contributed to Sudan economically by employ- ing Sudanese citizens in the various businesses that he operated there, including his import-export company, an investment company that marketed a variety of agricultural products, and a construction company, which was devoted to public works in Sudan. Bin Laden also opened a $50 million bank account in al-Shamal Islamic Bank, which helped recapitalize that institution, while he provided the NIF with communication equip- ment, radios, and rifles.133 In return, al-Turabi and the Sudanese government gave Bin Laden the freedom to establish a massive set of operations that would enable al-Qaida to engage in militant attacks against Western interests and spread its Islamist ideas in Sudan and various parts of the majority-Muslim world.134

Using his freedom and the large revenues from his businesses, Bin Laden organized training camps in Sudan for Islamist militants at which thousands of Islamists could receive instruction in militant tactics. A large number of the trainers in these camps had fought in Afghanistan and had trained members of the mujahideen there.135

Bin Laden viewed his social service work and the training of Islamist militants as two ways of practicing his Islamic faith. Bin Laden believed that much like Muhammad had helped the underprivileged people of Mecca and Medina during the seventh century, so too he was helping the underprivileged people of Sudan by providing them with economic opportunities.136 He also viewed the training and support of Islamist militants as being in conformity with the example of Muhammad in the sense that during Muhammad’s life he took the necessary measures to defend Islam from its enemies. So too, Bin Laden believed that training Islamist militants and sending them into battle against modern enemies of Islam were actions, following the example of the Prophet, that would help Muslims defend themselves from their current enemies.137 In addition, Bin Laden viewed his simple lifestyle as being in full conformity with Muhammad’s example, a fitting model for Muslims, and one of several ways of showing the difference between his modesty and the ostentation of the Saudi royal family.138 According to one of Bin Laden’s friends, Khaled al-Fawwaz, Bin Laden lived without the comforts of a multimillionaire; referring to Bin Laden’s house in Sudan, al-Fawwaz stated, “When I observed [Bin Laden’s] house and his way of living, I couldn’t believe my eyes. He had no fridge at home, no air conditioning, no fancy car, nothing.”139 Bin Laden’s ability to project the simplicity of his lifestyle, together with his skill in expressing what he believed to be the grounding of his ideas in the Quran, Hadith, and example of the Prophet, made him a persuasive religio-political figure for many Muslims in various parts of the world.140

Bin Laden’s Involvement in Somalia

In the midst of his efforts to generate revenue for al-Qaida, train and educate Islamist militants, and spread his message, Bin Laden claimed victory in the ousting of the United States’ soldiers from Mogadishu, Somalia during the American military’s Operation Restore Hope which began in December 1992. The goals of this operation were to provide humanitarian assistance and food to starving Somalis and to capture the Somali clan leader Mohamed Farrah Aideed, whose apprehension the United States government believed would lead to a decrease in violence in Somalia. Bin Laden and other members of al-Qaida viewed the American involvement in Somalia, which occurred roughly two years after the stationing of hundreds of thousands of American soldiers in Saudi Arabia, as part of an American strategy to conquer increasing amounts of territory in the majority-Muslim world.141 During a major battle in early October 1993 between American forces who were trying to capture Aideed, on the one hand, and opposing forces, including members of al-Qaida, on the other, 18 Americans and at least 500 Somalis were killed, while three American Black Hawk helicopters were shot down. After Bin Laden had heard of American military involvement in Somalia, he sent one of his military commanders, Abu Hafs, and an al-Qaida mortar specialist, among other al-Qaida members, to Somalia.142 The Somalis and al-Qaida members who battled the Americans in Somalia had gained their expertise in shooting down helicopters from the training they had received from American CIA agents in Afghanistan during the Afghan war against the Soviets; these Islamists then used this training in their successful attacks against the American soldiers in Somalia.143 Within a week of this battle in Mogadishu, the United States announced its intention to withdraw from Somalia.144

After what Bin Laden believed to be the victory of “true Muslims” in Afghanistan, the victory of al-Qaida and their Somali allies against the Americans in Somalia was further evidence for Bin Laden and the members of al-Qaida that, once again, God was blessing and empowering “true Muslims” with the ability to defeat the American aggressors in Muslim lands.145 The victories in Afghanistan and Somalia were particularly potent for al-Qaida and the anti-American Somali militants because in both cases Muslim forces had defeated segments of two of the world’s largest militaries (those of the Soviets and the Americans) and, in both cases, had caused portions of these militaries to withdraw from majority-Muslim countries.146 Once again, after the victory of al-Qaida and its allies in Somalia, Bin Laden believed that God had granted them victory in the same way that God had granted the Prophet Muhammad and the anti-Crusader Muslims victories against their enemies in the seventh century and during the Crusades of the Middle Ages.147 Bin Laden also believed that the announcement of the

withdrawal of American soldiers from Somalia so soon after the deaths of just 18 American soldiers was indicative of the weakness and cowardice of the Americans in combat (as the United States had already shown in its withdrawal of its forces from Lebanon after the Islamist attack in Beirut in 1983 which had killed 241 American Marines).148

Usama bin Laden and the Internationalization of al-Qaida

Energized by the victory in Somalia, Bin Laden and al-Qaida continued in their efforts to support Islamist militants in various parts of the world. Al-Qaida opened a satellite office in Baku, Azerbaijan, sent militants to Chechnya to fight the Russians, dispatched additional Islamists to Tajikistan in order to strengthen the Islamist resistance there, supported al-Qaida affiliates in Jordan and Egypt, sent hundreds of Arabs who had fought in Afghanistan to battle alongside of Muslims in Bosnia, and established alliances with Islamist groups in Egypt, Algeria, Libya, and Syria.149 In 1993, members of al-Qaida began planning the simultaneous attacks which were to take place against the United States’ embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania on August 7, 1998.150 Because of Bin Laden’s verbal attacks on the Saudi government and its belief that Bin Laden was a threat, he was stripped of his Saudi citizenship in 1994. By 1996, as a result of American pressure on Sudan’s government, Bin Laden was expelled from that country and he returned to Afghanistan.151

Usama bin Laden’s Interpretation of Islamic History

Bin Laden stated that he viewed his trip to Afghanistan in 1996 in much the same way as Muslims view Muhammad’s departure from Mecca and trip to Medina (the hijra) in 622.152 The hijra, which marks the first year of the Muslim calendar, is of great importance to Muslims because: (1) it constitutes the departure of Muhammad and the early Muslim community from an extremely dangerous situation in Mecca; (2) Medina constituted a relatively stable location for the consolidation and spread of early Islam; and

(3) Medina was the city that formed the base of operations for what Muslims perceive to be several successful battles against Islam’s early enemies.153 In a similar vein, Bin Laden believed that much like Muhammad faced a dangerous situation in Mecca, he too faced dangerous circumstances in Sudan and had to flee. Much like Muhammad used Medina as a base for defending and spreading Islam in the seventh century, so too Bin Laden wanted to use Afghanistan to defend and spread Islam in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. As in almost every other aspect of his life,

Bin Laden relates his interpretation of Islamic history to his own actions in such a way that he believes justifies his actions and gives them ultimate significance, both in terms of his own life history and that of Islam.154

Similarly, Bin Laden believed that al-Qaida’s attacks against the United States’ embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in 1998 were wholly justified on the basis of the Quran and Islamic history, in the sense that for Bin Laden the United States posed as much of a threat to Muslims in the modern era as Islam’s enemies did to Muhammad and early Muslims in the seventh century. Bin Laden maintained that much like Muhammad and the early Muslims were justified in using force to defend Islam then, so too modern Muslims are justified in using force to oust Islam’s enemies from Islamic lands today; the attacks in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam were part of that process.155

There are three aspects of the attacks against those embassies that carry religio-political symbolism for Bin Laden and al-Qaida. First, Bin Laden chose August 7, 1998 as the date for those attacks because August 7, 1990 was the date when the first American troops were dispatched to Saudi Arabia as part of Operation Desert Shield, an operation which Bin Laden viewed as sacrilegious to Islam; thus, Bin Laden wanted to attack the Americans on the same day that they began the “occupation” of Islam’s holiest land.

Second, the attacks in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam took place simultaneously, which became a distinctive signature of al-Qaida’s work in these and other attacks.156 The symbolic significance of the simultaneous aspect of the attacks is twofold: (1) Bin Laden believed that Muhammad engaged in effective simultaneous attacks against his enemies and (2) simultaneous attacks could create a dramatic effect for the media – gaining attention for al-Qaida from Muslims and non-Muslims alike, while sending the message that al-Qaida is responsible for such actions.157

The third symbolic aspect of the attacks against the embassies in east Africa was that al-Qaida was careful to initiate these actions at precisely the time many Muslims would be praying in mosques so as to lessen the potential harm of these actions on Muslims.158 Bin Laden and al-Qaida took five years to plan these attacks and used their training camps in Afghanistan to prepare several of the leaders who conducted these assaults.159

The United States’ Attack on al-Qaida in Afghanistan

In response to al-Qaida’s actions against the embassies, President Bill Clinton ordered a series of cruise missile attacks against the al-Qaida leadership, including Bin Laden, and suspected al-Qaida bases in Afghanistan; these attacks took place on August 20, 1998.160 The United States’ attack did not

succeed in killing Bin Laden, Zawahiri, or other significant leaders of al-Qaida because the evacuation of American diplomatic personnel from Pakistan and the evacuation of all foreigners from Kabul, together with other indications, left Bin Laden with the impression that the Americans intended to kill him. With this possibility in mind, Bin Laden seems to have left one of the main al-Qaida complexes in Afghanistan for a location that he believed the Americans were less likely to attack.161

One unintended consequence of the attacks against Bin Laden was that they reinforced the image of him as a hero in the minds of many Muslims. They began to view Bin Laden as a courageous man who was prepared to stand firm for his principles even in the face of a violent death, while confronting the most powerful military in the world. After the attacks and even after the September 11 attacks on the United States, “Usama” became an increasingly popular name among many Muslims in the world.162 In the words of Maulana Sami ul-Haq, a Muslim leader who runs one of the larg- est Islamic schools in Pakistan, the attacks against Bin Laden made him “a symbol for the whole Islamic world against all those outside powers who were trying to crush Muslims. He is the courageous one who raised his voice against them. He is a hero to us, but it is America that first made him a hero.”163

Usama bin Laden and the Taliban

When Bin Laden reentered Afghanistan from Somalia in 1996, a civil war was raging in Afghanistan. By that time, the Taliban, a very strict Islamist group which was comprised mostly of ethnic Pashtuns, controlled most of Afghanistan.164 The Taliban’s main opponent in Afghanistan was the United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan, which is also called the Northern Alliance. While the Pashtuns, who controlled the Taliban and are the single largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, comprise 42 percent of Afghanistan’s population, the Northern Alliance consisted of Tajiks (27 percent of Afghanistan’s population), Hazaras (9 percent), and Uzbeks (9 percent).165 By 1996, this Northern Alliance was able to maintain some control over Afghanistan’s northern provinces, while the Taliban controlled most of the rest of the country. During the 1980s and 1990s Bin Laden maintained a strong relationship with some of the strictest Islamists in Afghanistan, who were ethnic Pashtuns, many of whose Islamic leaders had been educated in strict Islamic schools in Pakistan.166 Because of Bin Laden’s own strict Islamic beliefs and other factors he identified very strongly with the strict Islamists who were members of the Taliban. Thus, Bin Laden had supported the Taliban for some time before he returned to Afghanistan in 1996 and he viewed the Taliban as his natural ally when he returned to Afghanistan in that year.167