Yale University Press NEW HAVEN & 9 780300"089028 - Sito Mistero

136 TALIBANwas to plunge Algeria into a bloodbath, destabilize North Africa and leadto the growth of Islamic extremism in France. Algeria was only a foretasteof what was to come later. Bombings carried out in Egypt by Islamicgroups were also traced back to Egyptian veterans trained in Afghanistan.Bin Laden knew many of the perpetrators of these violent acts acrossthe Muslim world, because they had lived and fought together inAfghanistan. His organization, focused around supporting veterans of theAfghan war and their families, maintained contacts with them. He maywell have funded some of their operations, but he was unlikely to knowwhat they were all up to or what their domestic agendas were. Bin Ladenhas always been insecure within the architecture of Islam. He is neitheran Islamic scholar nor a teacher and thus cannot legally issue fatwas -although he does so. In the West his 'Death to America' appeals havebeen read as fatwas, even though they do not carry moral weight in theMuslim world.Arab-Afghans who knew him during the jihad say he was neither intellectualnor articulate about what needed to be done in the Muslim world.In that sense he was neither the Lenin of the Islamic revolution, nor washe the internationalist ideologue of the Islamic revolution such as CheGuevera was to revolution in the third world.Bin Laden's former associates describe him as deeply impressionable,always in the need for mentors - men who knew more about both Islamand the modern world than he did. To the long list of mentors during hisyouth were later added Dr Aiman al-Zawahiri, the head of the bannedIslamic Jihad in Egypt and the two sons of Shaikh Omar Abdel Rehman,the blind Egyptian preacher now in a US jail for the World Trade Centrebombing and who had led the banned El Gamaa Islamiyya in Egypt.Through the Afghan jihad, he also knew senior figures in the NationalIslamic Front in the Sudan, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas, the radicalIslamic Palestinian movement in Gaza and the West Bank. In Kandaharhe had Chechens, Bangladeshis, Filipinos, Algerians, Kenyans, Pakistanisand African-American Muslims with him — many of whom were widelyread and better informed than Bin Laden, but could not travel outsideAfghanistan because they were on US wanted lists. What they neededwas financial support and a sanctuary which Bin Laden gave them.After the Africa bombings the US launched a truely global operation.More than 80 Islamic militants were arrested in a dozen different countries.Militants were picked up in a crescent running from Tanzania,Kenya, Sudan, Yemen, to Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia and the Phillipines.15 In December 1998, Indian authorities detained Bangladeshi militantsfor plotting to bomb the US Consulate in Calcutta. Seven Afghannationals using false Italian passports were arrested in Malaysia andaccused of trying to start a bombing campaign. 16 According to the FBI,GLOBAL JIHAD: THE ARAB-AFGHANS AND OSAMA BIN LADEN ~ 137militants in Yemen who kidnapped 16 Western tourists in December 1998were funded by Bin Laden. 17 In February 1999, Bangladeshi authoritiessaid Bin Laden had sent US$1 million to the Harkat-ul-Jihad (HJ) inDhaka, some of whose members had trained and fought in Afghanistan.HJ leaders said they wanted to turn Bangladesh into a Taliban-styleIslamic state. 18Thousands of miles away in Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania inWest Africa, several militants were arrested who had also trained underBin Laden in Afghanistan and were suspected of plotting bomb explosions.19 Meanwhile during the trial of 107 Al-Jihad members at a militarycourt in Cairo, Egyptian intelligence officers testified that Bin Laden hadbankrolled Al-Jihad. 20 In February 1999 the CIA claimed that throughmonitoring Bin Laden's communication network by satellite, they hadprevented his supporters from carrying out seven bomb attacks againstUS overseas facilities in Saudi Arabia, Albania, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan,Uganda, Uruguay and the Ivory Coast - emphasizing the reach of theAfghan veterans. The Clinton administration sanctioned US$6.7 billionto fight terrorism in 1999, while the FBI's counter-terrorism budget grewfrom US$118 million to US$286 million and the agency allocated 2,650agents to the task, twice the number in 1998.But it was Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, the original sponsors of the Arab-Afghans, who suffered the most as their activities rebounded. In March1997, three Arab and two Tajik militants were shot dead after a 36-hourgun battle between them and the police in an Afghan refugee camp nearPeshawar. Belonging to the Wahabbi radical Tafkir group, they were planningto bomb an Islamic heads of state meeting in Islamabad.With the encouragement of Pakistan, the Taliban and Bin Laden,Arab-Afghans had enlisted in the Pakistani party Harkat-ul-Ansar to fightin Kashmir against Indian troops. By inducting Arabs who introducedWahabbi-style rules in the Kashmir valley, genuine Kashmiri militantsfelt insulted. The US government had declared Ansar a terrorist organizationin 1996 and it had subsequently changed its name to Harkat-ul-Mujaheddin. All the Pakistani victims of the US missile strikes on Khostbelonged to Ansar. In 1999, Ansar said it would impose a strict Wahabbistyledress code in the Kashmir valley and banned jeans and jackets. On15 February 1999, they shot and wounded three Kashmiri cable televisionoperators for relaying Western satellite broadcasts. Ansar had previouslyrespected the liberal traditions of Kashmiri Muslims but the activites ofthe Arab-Afghans hurt the legitimacy of the Kashmiri movement andgave India a propaganda coup. 21Pakistan faced a problem when Washington urged Prime MinisterNawaz Sharif to help arrest Bin Laden. The ISI's close contacts with BinLaden and the fact that he was helping fund and train Kashmiri militants