Markaz Dawa al Irshad: Talibanisation
of nuclear Pakistan
by B.Raman
The 40-year-old Osman Bin Laden is
the son of a Yemeni peasant who migrated to Saudi Arabia and became one of
the richest construction magnates with assets worth US $ 5 billion of
which , according to the "Time" magazine of May 6,1996, Osman
Bin Laden personally controlled assets worth US $ 300 million.
The company owned by his family was
given the contract by the King of Saudi Arabia for the renovation of the
holy mosques in Mecca and Medina. During his participation in this
construction as a student, Osman Bin Laden became intensely religious.
After the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan in 1979, Osman Bin Laden, who had just then graduated from the
King Abdul Aziz University, left the family business and moved over to
Pakistan to organise a jihad against the Soviet troops in Afghanis
tan, with the help of his money and
with over 6,000 Muslim volunteers recruited from the Arab and other
Islamic countries. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the US and
other Western intelligence agencies welcomed the assistance from Osman Bin
Laden and his volunteers and helped them with guidance, training and arms
and ammunition for fighting against the Soviet troops and those of the
then Afghan President, the late Najibullah.
Osman Bin Laden personally
participated in the fighting , constructed tunnels and other defensive
structures along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and distinguished himself
in the battles against Soviet troops at Jaji and Shaban.
He became a legendary figure for his
religious intensity and courage. While recruiting volunteers for
Afghanistan, he used to say: "One day of jihad in Afghanistan is
equivalent to 1,000 days of namaz in a mosque."
In an interview to the
"Time" (May 6,1996), Hamza Mohammed, one of the Palestinian
volunteers who had served under Osman Bin Laden in Afghanistan, spoke of
him reverentially as follows: "He was a hero to us because he was
always on the front line, always moving ahead of everybody else.He not
only gave his money, but also gave himself. He came down from his palace
to live with the Afghan peasants and the Arab fighters. He cooked with
them, ate with them, dug trenches with them. That was Bin Laden’s
way."
After the withdrawal of the Soviet
troops from Afghanistan in 1988 and the fall of Najibullah in 1992, many
of the Arab volunteers returned to their countries and started assisting
local Islamic extremist groups in countries such as Algeria, Tunisia,
Egypt, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia in organising an armed struggle against
their Governments.
Even during the Afghan war, Osman
Bin Laden had become a strong critic of the Saudi ruling family for its
alleged corruption and failure to adhere strictly to the tenets of the
religion. His criticism of the Saudi ruling family and particularly of
King Fahd increased after the Gulf war of 1991. He described the King’s
action in allowing US and other Western troops into Saudi territory for
fighting against Iraq as desecration of the holy land by armed infidels.
He allegedly fell out with the officers of the CIA and demanded the
withdrawal of the US troops from Saudi territory.
Angered over his criticism, the King
cancelled his Saudi passport and, before he could be arrested,Osman Bin
Laden escaped to the Sudan and took shelter there.A large number of the
Arab volunteers of Afghanistan vintage joined him there. He floated a
construction company in the Sudan in which he gave jobs to these
volunteers and allegedly used them for jihad in other countries.
The "Time" magazine
reported that after he took sanctuary in the Sudan, Osman was suspected in
the following incidents:
* In December, 1995, the British
Police raided the London residence of an Algerian named Rachid Ramda and
recovered communications from the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria, which
was involved in seven explosions in France in 1995.They also discovered
records of money transfers and allegedly managed to trace them to Osman
Bin Laden’s office in Khartoum in the Sudan.
* Egyptian authorities suspected
his involvement in a plot to assassinate President Hosni Mubarak in
December,1995, which was foiled by the Egyptian security agencies.
* According to Egyptian
security agencies, Osman Bin Laden was the major financier of a training
camp at Kunar in Afghanistan, where members of two terrorist
organisations of Egypt called the Islamic Jihad and the Islamic Group
(possibly the Al Gama Al Islamiya) were being trained.
* Citing its own intelligence
sources, the US State Department claimed that Osman Bin Laden helped
finance three terrorist training camps in Northern Sudan, where
extremists from Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt were trained.
* The State Department also
suspected that Osman Bin Laden had helped finance two bombing incidents
in Aden in 1992 allegedly directed against US troops transiting to
Somalia. While they escaped, two Italian tourists were killed.
* The Saudi authorities suspected
his involvement in the explosion in November,1995, in a centre for the
Saudi National Guards at Riyadh run by US troops. They also alleged his
links with an anti-monarchy organisation called the Advice and
Reformation Committee, which was then reportedly operating from London.
Even though Osman Bin Laden strongly
refuted Western allegations of his involvement in terrorism, the
"Time" reported as follows: "Despite his denials, Bin Laden
remains a grave concern to those corrupt regimes (of the Gulf). He is, as
a US official said, a big fish , since his heroic reputation gives him
influence.According to this official, Bin Laden is the kind of guy who can
go to someone and say, "I need you to write out a six-figure
check" and he gets it on the spot. He hits up Islamic businessmen who
in some cases may not know where their money is going. A lot of it isn’t
going to re-build mosques in Bosnia or feed starving Muslims in Somalia. A
lot of it is going to set up camps and support networks and procure
material for terrorist operations."
In a report to the Congress in 1996,
the US State Department called Bin Laden " one of the most
significant financial sponsors of Islamic extremist activities in the
world" and linked him to terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and
the Sudan and alleged that he supported a group that tried to bomb US
servicemen in Yemen in 1992.The report also revealed that for three years
before the bombing in the World Trade Centre at New York in February,1993,
Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, one of the main perpetrators, who has since been
arrested and sentenced to long terms of imprisonment by a New York court,
had lived in a guest house in Pakistan paid for by Osman Bin Laden.
The State Department’s annual
report for 1996 on "Patterns of Global Terrorism" highlighted
the role of individual financiers in sponsoring terrorism. Testifying on
the subject before the Congress, Mr.Philip C.Wilcox, the then head of the
Counter-Terrorism Division of the State Department, said that the Hamas
and the Islamic Jihad received significant support from individuals in the
Persian Gulf as well as in the US. He added that while some contributors
believed that they were supporting legitimate charitable organisations,
others knowingly gave money to radical groups.
Reporting on the subject, the
"New York Times" ( August 16,1996) said: " Much of the
financial support for terrorists who attack Americans, Israelis and others
sympathetic to the West comes from wealthy individuals from Saudi Arabia
and other Persian Gulf countries allied with the US. Over the last decade,
the US has focussed its anti-terrorism efforts on State sponsors of
terrorism, forbidding trade with countries like Libya and Iran. But
officials said that the emergence of sophisticated, privately financed
networks of terrorists posed a new and even thornier set of diplomatic and
legal challenges for Western Governments."
It added: " US officials
suspect that businessmen in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab
Emirates helped finance the operations of Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, who has been
charged with masterminding New York’s World Trade Centre bombing in
February,1993, and a plot to blow up 11 American airliners. US
intelligence agencies are closely examining the activities of Osman Bin
Laden, the scion of a wealthy Saudi family stripped of his Saudi
citizenship in 1994, who finances a host of hard-line groups from Egypt to
Algeria. Officials in several countries, including the US, say that Bin
Laden’s money , as well as money he raised, paid for terrorist acts in
Europe, Africa and the Middle East against Americans and other
Westerners."
The paper quoted Mr. Larry C.Johnson,
a former counter-terrorism expert of the State Department, as saying as
follows: "The ability of extremely wealthy individuals to bankroll
mercenaries for their own end is a relatively new development and one we
are not well equipped to deal with from an intelligence standpoint."
Ramzi Ahmed Yousef , the suspected
beneficiary of alleged assistance from Osman Bin Laden, had arrived at the
John F.Kennedy airport at New York on September 1,1992, with an Iraqi
passport without a visa and sought political asylum in the US as an
anti-Saddam Hussein political dissident and was allowed to enter the US
temporarily pending examination of his application.
On November 9,1992, Ramzi Yousef
reported to the Jersey City Police that he was a Pakistani national by
name Abdul Basit Mahmud Abdul Karim, a Baluch, who had grown up in Kuwait
and that he had lost his Pakistani passport after his entry into the US
with a valid visa. With a copy of the loss report issued by the police, he
went to the Pakistani Consulate in New York on December 31,1992, with
photocopies of Abdul Basit’s previous passports and applied for a new
passport. The Pakistani Consulate issued him a restricted validity
passport valid for six months only. After the New York World Trade Centre
bombing, he managed to escape to Pakistan with this passport.
After living for some months in
Pakistan, Ramzi Yousef went to the Philippines where, in January,1995, he
and some of his associates had plotted to blow up 11 US commercial
aircraft. While mixing the material for the explosive device in a hired
Manila flat, there was an accidental fire following which he fled to
Pakistan leaving behind in the flat his personal computer which contained
details of his hide-outs in Pakistan. The police recovered from the flat a
letter which he had intended to send to the Manila authorities,
threatening acts of violence if one of his associates, who was then in
custody in Manila, was not released. In the letter, he had claimed that he
had the ability "to make and use chemicals and poisonous gas…..for
use against vital institutions and residential populations and the sources
of drinking water."
In February, 1995, he was arrested
in Pakistan and flown to the US to face trial. On March 8,1995, two
officials of the US Consulate in Karachi were assassinated by unidentified
elements. It was believed to be an act of reprisal against the arrest of
Ramzi Yousef.
Reports in the Pakistani press after
his arrest spoke of his involvement in acts of terrorism against Iran and
Saudi Arabia and of his links with the Markaz Dawa Al Irshad, an Islamic
extremist organisation of Pakistan, which has been involved in acts of
terrorism in Jammu & Kashmir and other parts of India through its
militant wing called Lashkar-e-Toiba.
The Pakistani press said that the
Pakistani authorities suspected his involvement in the explosion in the
shrine of Imam Ali Reza at Mashhad in Iran on June 20,1994, in which 70
Iranians were killed.The Pakistani press also claimed that Ramzi Yousef
had an Iraqi background and shared the anti-Iran and anti-Saudi feelings
of Iraq.
In an investigative report on Ramzi
Yousef, Mr.Kamran Khan, the well-known Pakistani journalist, wrote as
follows in the "News" of March 27,1995:
-
(a).Strong evidence suggested
that Ramzi ran a network of Saudi nationals committed to destabilising
the Saudi royal family.
-
(b).Through Munir Madni, a
suspected Saudi national residing in Karachi, he had set up a front
export-import company for importing holy water ("aabe zam zam")
from Saudi Arabia and selling it to pious Muslims in Pakistan. In
1994, this company earned Rs. Seven million which was used to finance
anti-royal family groups in Saudi Arabia.
-
(c). A highly informed source
connected with a large Pakistani Islamic organisation (the Markaz Dawa
Al Irshad) said that in the middle of 1994 a group of Saudis had
visited Pakistan as guests of the organisation (Markaz) and sought
political and material support for their campaign against the King.
The group was given (by the Markaz ) equipment and training to install
transmitters to relay radio broadcasts from a secret location inside
Saudi Arabia. Several members of that group had earlier fought against
Soviet troops in Afghanistan.
-
(d).Pakistani officials said
that acts of violence committed by these groups inside Saudi Arabia
were not known to the outside world. Pakistani investigation had also
revealed that dozens of Saudis committed to jihad all over the world
were visiting the military training camps inside Afghanistan.
"These training camps are ideal places to rub shoulders with
persons like Ramzi and to learn from their experience," said an
official who believed that Ramzi’s colleagues in Pakistan and
Afghanistan were still busy fuelling unrest in Saudi Arabia.
-
(e).Since the expulsion of
Soviet troops from Afghanistan, at least 10,000 Pakistanis belonging
to the Harkat-ul-Ansar, the Markaz, the Jamaat Islami and the Jamiat
Ulema Islam have been trained in the use of explosives and hand
grenades and in handling light and heavy weapons and in laying mines.
* Concerned over the activities of Osman Bin Laden and his extremist
followers from the Sudanese territory, the US authorities have placed
the Sudan in the list of State-sponsors of terrorism since 1993 and
have also imposed economic sanctions against it. They repeatedly
requested the Sudanese authorities for his arrest and extradition to
the US or Saudi Arabia so that he could be questioned on the
suspicions against him, but the Sudanese authorities did not oblige.
However, after the interview given
by him to the "Time" magazine, they asked him to leave the
country. Osman Bin Laden himself was feeling uncomfortable after the
Sudanese co-operation with the French authorities in the arrest and
deportation of Carlos from the Sudan in August,1994. Other Muslim
countries approached by him turned down his request for sanctuary.
The Burhanuddin Rabbani Government
of Afghanistan was prepared to give him shelter in the territory
controlled by it, but the Pakistani authorities were initially reluctant
to let him transit through Pakistani territory lest Pakistan incur the
displeasure of the US, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Ultimately, in 1996, they
agreed to let him transit to Afghanistan on condition that he would not
re-enter Pakistan again and would not indulge from Afghan territory in any
activities against the US, Saudi Arabia and Egypt which might cause
embarrassment to Pakistan.
In May,1996, "Asharq al-Aswat",
an Arabic journal published from London, reported that Osman Bin Laden had
moved from the Sudan to Afghanistan , but did not say when. On June
4,1996, the Sudanese Permanent Mission in New York informed the UN
Security Council that he had left the Sudan on its directions, but did not
say where he had gone.
In the first week of October,1996,
"Al Hayat", an Arab daily of Egypt, quoting Taliban sources,
reported that when the Taliban captured Jalalabad in September,1996, it
found Osman Bin Laden living there and took him under its protection. The
paper added that he had good relations with the Taliban even before it
captured Jalalabad and that 300 other Arab-Islamic extremists were living
in the areas controlled by the Taliban.
On March 28,1997, Mr.Amir Khan
Muttaqui, the Taliban Government’s Minister for Culture, confirmed that
Osman Bin Laden was living under the Taliban’s protection at Jalalabad
and added that the Taliban would reject any request from abroad for his
arrest and extradition. Mr.Muttaqui said that on March 25,1997, Osman Bin
Laden had met Mr.Mohammad Omar, the supreme leader of the Taliban, at
Kandahar, during which the latter had warned him not to launch any
military action against Saudi Arabia from Afghan territory. He added:
"Mullah Omar appealed to Osman to soften his stand on Saudi
Arabia.The meeting was designed to assure other Muslim countries that they
should not be concerned over the presence of Osman in Afghanistan."
On the same day, Radio Shariat of
the Taliban also broadcast a message assuring that Saudi Arabia could not
be a target because it was a sacred land for all Muslims.
"The Frontier Post" of
Peshawar reported on July 4,1997, that the CIA and the Federal Bureau of
Investigation of the US suspected that in addition to other acts of
terrorism already mentioned, Osman Bin Laden had also motivated Ramzi to
organise the New York World Trade Centre bombing and had, therefore,
mounted a special operation from Pakistani territory to have him captured
and taken to the US for interrogation.
Following the publication of this
report, the Taliban moved Bin Laden from Jalalabad to Kandahar, the
headquarters of its supreme leader, and provided him special protection
with 150 armed guards. The Taliban also warned that any attempt to capture
Bin Laden would prove costly to the US.
"The Muslim" of Pakistan
reported on March 30,1998, that the US and Egyptian authorities suspected
Osman Bin Laden in connection with a number of anonymous Fax messages
threatening action against the US and Egypt received by their diplomatic
missions in Pakistan and, hence, strengthened security.
In a statement issued on April
15,1998, Mr.Soofi Mohammad, the chief of the Tanseem Nifaz Sharia Mohammad
of the Malakand Division in the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA)
of Pakistan, warned the Government of Pakistan that there would a revolt
in the tribal areas if the Government helped the US in capturing Bin
Laden. He added: "Osman is the hero of the entire Muslim Ummah.We are
prepared to make any sacrifice for the protection of our hero."
The annual report for 1998 of the US
State Department on Patterns of Global Terrorism, submitted to the
Congress on May 4,1998, stated that Osman Bin Laden was shifted (by the
Taliban) from Jalalabad to the Taliban’s headquarters in Kandahar in
early 1997 and that he had established a new base of operations.It added
that Muslims from around the world, including a large number of Egyptians,
Algerians,Palestinians and Saudis, continued to use Afghanistan as a
training ground. The Taliban, as well as many other combatants of the
Afghan civil war, facilitated the training and provided indoctrination
facilities for the non-Afghans in the territories they controlled. Several
Afghan factions also provided logistic support , free passage and
sometimes passports to the members of various terrorist
organisations.These individuals , in turn, were involved in fighting in
Bosnia, Chechnya, Tajikistan, Jammu & Kashmir of India, the
Philippines and parts of the Middle East.
Earlier,during his visit to
Afghanistan in April, 1998, Mr.Bill Richardson, the then US Permanent
Representative to the United Nations, had urged the Taliban to arrest and
hand over Bin Laden to the US authorities for interrogation. The Taliban
turned down his request.
