Subject: [COMMUNISM LIST]Fw: historical questions
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 00:13:01 +0100
From: "Karl Carlile" <dagda@...>
Reply-To: communism@...
Organization: Communism List
To: <communism@...>
Communism List:
http://homepage.eircom.net/~kampf/
Workers of the world unite!
_______________________________________
The Guardian (London), November 23, 1995
PAKISTAN IS SECRET OF TALIBAN'S SUCCESS;
By John-Thor Dahlburg
IT HAS been one of the most breathtaking advances in the annals of
modern warfare: master of little more than a single city in
Afghanistan a year ago, the Taliban now controls more than half the
country.
And standing at the gates of Kabul, the Muslim fundamentalists
announced at the weekend that they had launched their final assault
to overrun the capital and chase President Burhanuddin Rabbani from
office.
Many observers believe it is only a matter of time before the
political map of a country mauled by more than 15 years of warfare
will be changed decisively.
The Taliban, a motley band of fighters chiefly composed of
inexperienced but courageous Islamic students, credits its lightning
success to its creed and to Allah. "The only real superpower is
Allah," said a commander, Mulvi Abdul Samad. But in the rugged
countryside of Baluchistan, the sparsely populated Pakistani province
of mountain and desert that runs parallel to Afghanistan for 670
miles, more worldly reasons come to light.
Attracted by the sacred Islamic ideal of jihad, or holy war, young
Pakistanis have flooded across the border to embrace Kalashnikov
rifles and the Taliban's cause.
And, despite repeated official denials, the Islamic republic of
Pakistan has given enormous support to the Muslim Afghan fighters in
the past year, the Los Angeles Times has learnt.
"Pakistan has decided not to give financial or military support to
any faction of the Afghans," the prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, told
an Iranian audience earlier this month.
But from Pakistan have come petrol for the Taliban's tanks, aircraft
and armoured vehicles, lorry convoys filled with munitions and other
supplies, and telecommunications equipment, experts and advice.
"This is the work of the Lawrence of Arabias of the ISI
(Inter-Services Intelligence)," said an opposition senator, Abdur
Rahim Khan Mandokhel of Baluchistan, who accuses the government of
trying to play puppet-master in Afghanistan.
===
The Guardian (London)
April 8, 1995
MUFTI IQBAL'S SCHOOL FOR MARTYRS;
'Rent-a-jihad' groups are sending out Muslims, including foreigners,
to fight abroad. Benazir Bhutto must crack down on fundamentalism to
prove her pro-Western credentials, but dare not go too far. Kathy
Evans in Peshawar reports on her dilemma
By Kathy Evans
THE bearded mullah sat cross-legged on the floor, fingering his beard
thoughtfully. "No, money is not a problem. We have many supporters
and they help us keep the jihad going," Mufti Iqbal smiled.
Mufti Iqbal is the Karachi front man for Harakat al Ansar, one of
Pakistan's numerous "rent-a-jihad" services. It is his job to recruit
local volunteers, receive foreign Muslims, and send them on to jihads
of their choosing. It is one of Pakistan's growing businesses.
The focus of Harakat's attention is Kashmir, the slither of territory
claimed by both India and Pakistan. Liberating the Kashmiri Muslims
from the Indian yoke is a national cause in Pakistan shared by
government and the man in the street. Mufti Iqbal, himself an Afghan
jihad veteran, offers contacts to other causes and conflicts,
however.
"Our main objective is to help Muslims all over the world secure
their freedom. We have received thousands of volunteers to fight in
Kashmir, Bosnia, Tajikistan and Chechenia. Jihad is, after all, an
obligation on all Muslims."
It was through Harakat al Ansar's conduit for would-be martyrs that
the young east London Pakistani, Ahmed Sheikh, was reported to have
passed. The former London School of Economics student now faces
charges of kidnapping two British tourists in India. Mufti Iqbal, the
Karachi recruiter, denies any knowledge of him.
Harakat al Ansar says it has several hundred foreign Muslims who have
come to "learn". Among the volunteers are Pakistanis, black American
Muslims, Arabs, Indians, Afghans, and even one Canadian.
The movement's officials deny they offer military training, saying
such skills are acquired at the front line. But Western diplomats in
Karachi say they have a well-established camp in Miranshahr, a remote
area bordering neighbouring Afghanistan.
The rent-a-jihad service is just one of the avenues available in
Pakistan to young Muslims from all over the world who seek to grow in
their religion and get an insight into the growing list of conflicts
in which Muslims find themselves in, against oppressive
Western-backed governments and the Christian world.
For such Muslims, Pakistan offers a number of attractions. It is a
cheap, police are bribeable, arms all too easily available, and in
whole chunks of the country government officials rarely venture.
The tribal areas function as playgrounds for the heroin and weapons
mafia. Here you can buy vital necessities for a terrorist movement.
Moreover, some of the causes espoused by religious groups enjoy
government support.
Throughout the interview with Mufti Iqbal, a man sat beside him on
the floor, prompting his answers. He claimed he was from a Pakistani
news agency.
"It's the ISI man" laughed my local newspaper colleague as we left.
"He is his minder".
ISI is the acronym for the Inter-Services Intelligence, one of
Pakistan's main intelligence agencies. It has many rivals, but none
enjoys the covert power of the ISI. That power is the product of the
multi-billion-dollar war effort launched by the West at the beginning
of the eighties to fight communism in Afghanistan. Today, its main
focus is Kashmir.
Afghanistan was the West's last war against the Soviet Union. More
than $ 10 billion was ploughed into this "heroic" cause by the US,
Britain and Saudi Arabia.
An early agreement in the conflict between America's CIA and the ISI
made the Pakistani agency the sole channel for the billions of
dollars worth of arms to the jihad. This gave the agency an
unprecedented influence in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, which
lingers to this day. Headed by General Hamid Gul, working under
General Zia ul-Haq, ISI established the seven guerrilla groups known
as the mojahedin.
Today, the mojahedin groups have become little more than heroin
warlords.
In Pakistani internal politics, ISI functions as an instrument of the
government in power, drumming up evidence against opponents and
making and un-making political parties.
Embarrassingly, some of its creations are thought to be behind the
recent killing sprees in Karachi, including possibly the shooting
last month of two US embassy officials.
ISI's Afghan jihad operation was also a siren call to militant
Muslims in the Middle and Far East. The agency turned a blind eye to
the thousands who flocked to Afghanistan for military training.
Afghanistan became a playground for any disgruntled Muslim who felt
oppressed.
Today, veterans of the Afghan war dominate terrorist groups in
Algeria and Egypt, and they remain a latent and feared force in the
Gulf states.
A number of Arab veterans of the Afghan war are facing trial in New
York for suspected involvement in the bombing of the World Trade
Centre in 1993. The latest suspect to join them in the New York
courtroom is Ramzi Youssef, said to be the master bomber.
If Western intelligence sources are to be believed, Ramzi Youssef was
one of the world's most dangerous terrorists. However, it is still
unclear whether he is a Pakistani Baluch, a Kuwaiti or an Iraqi.
Since his arrest, many stories have grown up around him. He was known
to have travelled to Manila, allegedly to kill the Pope on his tour
there.
It is not just abroad that Youssef was allegedly active. Benazir
Bhutto, Pakistan's prime minister, told journalists last month that
he was also behind an attempt to assassinate her in 1993. Pakistani
press reports have linked him with the Sunni extremist group Sepah
Sehaba, believed to be behind dozens of killings of Shias in Karachi,
and also a bombing in Iran.
Today the Arab route to training grounds in Afghanistan has virtually
ceased to exist. Dozens of Arab mojahedin have been arrested and
hundreds more have fled.
It has become virtual grounds for arrest to be an Arab and an Afghan
veteran and still live in Pakistan.
It is not just Arabs who have been subjected to the police's tactic
of rounding up the usual suspects. Last week, offices of the region's
oldest and largest Islamic group, the Jamaat Islami, were raided in
the police effort to root out militants.
The crackdown on militants preceded the vital trip to the United
States this week by Ms Bhutto. For her, it is the most important trip
of her administration, one in which she will attempt to portray
herself as the only reliable partner Washington and the West has to
fight fundamentalism in the region.
Only last year, Pakistan narrowly avoided being put on the American
list of states sponsoring terrorism. But in the effort to clean
militants out of Pakistan and brush up the country's image, Ms Bhutto
risks all.
Gen Hamid Gul, the former head of ISI, warns that if these arrests
continue, a typhoon will hit Pakistan.
"What is a fundamentalist anyway? A man with a beard? If the state
machinery goes after what it calls extremists, then the reaction
could be very very nasty. Inflation, the effects of IMF policies - if
mixed with a danger to the faith - could be very dangerous for the
country," he says.
Naturally, the first beneficiary of such a backlash would be groups
Gen Gul is associated with. The former intelligence chief is said to
be a key figure behind the increasingly political campaign by the
former playboy-cricketer Imran Khan.
Another beneficiary of any reaction from Muslim groups is Ms Bhutto's
long-standing rival, the Lahore businessman Nawaz Sharif. Mr Sharif
has already been able to accuse her of attacking Islam to appease the
Americans. Unwittingly or not, Ms Bhutto has provided her opponents
with potent slogans.
It is not just on the parliamentary front that dangers lurk for Ms
Bhutto. Kashmir is a cause supported by both the ISI and the army,
two institutions which Ms Bhutto has to live with. India accuses both
of training and arming the Kashmiri militants. Western diplomats
believe that help is being organised by renegade elements in the ISI
and the army.
Figures such as Gen Gul continue to be admired in military circles
for their devotion to Islamic causes. In the past year, Ms Bhutto has
been trying to clean out Jamaat Islami sympathisers in the
intelligence service through her new ISI chief and loyalist, Javed
Ashraf.
Jamaat officials shrug off such changes, saying that in the end Ms
Bhutto has to do "her duty" towards Kashmir.
Publicly, Pakistani officials have consistently denied that they are
arming and training the militants. However, few Pakistanis would
bother to deny that the militants are able to buy weapons freely or
that they are helped to cross over to the Indian-controlled part of
Kashmir.
Any attack on these delicate covert mechanisms by Ms Bhutto would
lead to charges that the prime minister is not only against Islam but
against Pakistan's national cause, Kashmir. During the last 15 months
she has made her support for the cause a central platform from which
to reaffirm all her Islamic credentials. Rarely does she make a
speech without mentioning Kashmir and Islam in the same breath.
In private, her diplomats wonder why Pakistan cannot consider the
unthinkable third option - supporting total independence for
Kashmiris from both India and Pakistan. That way, they argue, the
fundamentalist groups and the role of the intelligence agencies, can
be wiped away in one go.
Gen Gul argues that if the West is really interested in curbing the
terrorism carried out in the name of Kashmir, it should try to
resolve the conflict, rather than fighting its symptoms.
Meanwhile, the prime minister's crackdown on militants is getting
closer to the groups and rent-a-jihad services that the Kashmir cause
has created. Ms Bhutto may find she can go only so far. It is a
dilemma which even her friends in Washington cannot help her with.
--
Communism List _______________________________________________
Communism@...
Subject:
[COMMUNISM LIST]Fw: Very interesting article from 1999 about
Bin Laden
Date:
Mon, 17 Sep 2001 00:10:23 +0100
From:
"Jeff Seaman" <scratcher11@...>
Reply-To:
communism@...
To:
<communism@...>
Communism List:
http://homepage.eircom.net/~kampf/
Workers of the world unite!
_______________________________________
Sent: Sunday, September 16, 2001 3:31 PM
Subject: Very interesting article from 1999 about Bin Laden
I remember being struck by the tone of this article when it appeared.
It
suggests that Bin Laden is more the inspiration for terrorists than
their
mastermind, and that his grievances are focused on the US presence in
Saudi
Arabia. I had seen nothing like it in the mainstream media before, and
nothing since. Did anyone see the Frontline documentary related to this
article?
Steven Sherman
April 13, 1999, Tuesday
U.S. Hard Put to Find Proof Bin Laden Directed Attacks
By TIM WEINER
American commandos are poised near the Afghan border, hoping to capture
Osama
bin Laden, the man charged with blowing up two American embassies in
Africa
eight months ago, senior American officials say.
But they still do not know how to find him. They are depending on his
protectors in Afghanistan to betray him -- a slim reed of hope for one
of the
biggest and most complicated international criminal investigations in
American history.
Capturing Mr. bin Laden alive could deepen the complications. American
officials say that so far, firsthand evidence that could be used in
court to
prove that he commanded the bombings has proven difficult to obtain.
According to the public record, none of the informants involved in the
case
have direct knowledge of Mr. bin Laden's involvement.
For now, officials say, Federal prosecutors appear to be building a case
that
his violent words and ideas, broadcast from an Afghan cave, incited
terrorist
acts thousands of miles away.
In their war against Mr. bin Laden, American officials portray him as
the
world's most dangerous terrorist. But reporters for The New York Times
and
the PBS program ''Frontline,'' working in cooperation, have found him to
be
less a commander of terrorists than an inspiration for them.
Enemies and supporters, from members of the Saudi opposition to present
and
former American intelligence officials, say he may not be as globally
powerful as some American officials have asserted. But his message and
aims
have more resonance among Muslims around the world than has been
understood
here.
''You can kill Osama bin Laden today or tomorrow; you can arrest him and
put
him on trial in New York or in Washington,'' said Ahmed Sattar, an aide
to
Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind Egyptian cleric convicted of
inspiring the
bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. ''If this will end the
problem --
no. Tomorrow you will get somebody else.''
Interviews with senior American officials and knowledgeable observers of
Mr.
bin Laden in Pakistan, Sudan and elsewhere suggest that there is
widespread
support among ordinary people in the Muslim world for his central
political
argument: that American troops should get out of Saudi Arabia. The
embassy
bombings, they note, took place eight years to the day after the G.I.'s
were
ordered onto Saudi soil.
The interviews also raise questions about key assertions that have been
made
by the Government about Mr. bin Laden. Senior intelligence officials
concede
that their knowledge of him is sketchy.
''We can't say for sure what was going on'' with him from 1991 to 1996
--
most of the years covered in the indictment -- one senior official said.
His Affluence Seems Overstated
Present and former American officials and former business associates of
Mr.
bin Laden say he appears to control only a fraction of the $250 million
fortune that the American Government says he possesses.
''Clearly, his money's running out,'' said Frank Anderson, a former
senior
Central Intelligence Agency official who maintains close Middle Eastern
contacts.
Larry Johnson, the State Department deputy counterterrorism director
from
1988 to 1993, said Administration officials had ''tended to make Osama
bin
Laden sort of a Superman in Muslim garb -- he's 10 feet tall, he's
everywhere, he knows everything, he's got lots of money and he can't be
challenged.''
Milton Bearden, a retired senior C.I.A. official who ran the agency's
war in
Afghanistan and retired in 1995, said the Government had ''created a
North
Star'' in Mr. bin Laden.
''He is public enemy No. 1,'' Mr. Bearden said. ''We've got a $5 million
reward out for his head. And now we have, with I'm not sure what
evidence,
linked him to all of the terrorist acts of this year -- of this decade,
perhaps.''
Political leaders in Sudan and Pakistan who have met Mr. bin Laden
describe
him as intelligent, soft-spoken, polite. They also say he is deadly
serious
about his violent brand of radical politics and capable of killing in
God's
name.
Mr. bin Laden was born into the ruling class of Saudi Arabia. His father
was
the favorite construction magnate of the Saudi royal family, who gave
Mr. bin
Laden's family huge contracts to renovate the holy cities of Mecca and
Medina
and build palaces for Saudi princes.
American officials calculated Mr. bin Laden's fortune by estimating the
family fortune at $5 billion and dividing by 20, the number of male
heirs.
But business associates of Mr. bin Laden said his family cut him off
years
ago and are managing his share of his inheritance for him as long as he
is
disowned. Business associates say that Mr. bin Laden has been living on
a
generous allowance from his eldest brother and that his assets in Saudi
Arabia are now frozen.
In 1980, at 22, Mr. bin Laden left Saudi Arabia and moved to the Afghan
frontier. In Peshawar, Pakistan -- working alongside, but never directly
allied with, the C.I.A. -- he used his money and his machines to help
the
Afghan rebels fight the Soviet Army invaders.
The Afghan war shaped Mr. bin Laden, those who know him say. ''He is an
ordinary person who is very religious,'' said President Omar Hassan
al-Bashir
of Sudan, who met Mr. bin Laden often from 1992 to 1996. ''He believes
in the
rule of Islam and where possible the establishment of an Islamic state.
The
time that he spent in Afghanistan led him to believe that this might be
achieved through military means.''
Legend has it that Mr. bin Laden fought bravely against Soviet troops.
But
former C.I.A. officers say he was a financier, not a warrior -- ''a
philanthropist supporting a number of health care, widows-and-orphans
charity
operations in Peshawar for Afghan refugees,'' as Mr. Anderson put it.
He also helped create a headquarters called Al Qaeda, the Base. It was a
way
station in Peshawar where Egyptian and Saudi volunteers rested before
setting
off for battle in Afghanistan. Its name became a kind of flag uniting
Mr. bin
Laden's followers. American officials call it a global terrorist
network.
When the Soviet forces left Afghanistan in 1989, Mr. bin Laden went home
to
Saudi Arabia. He soon set his sights on the last remaining superpower.
''He himself was very much wary about America,'' said Saad al-Faqih, a
Saudi
exile living in London, who worked as a surgeon for wounded Afghan
fighters,
''very skeptical about America and the Saudi regime.''
He found a new enemy on Aug. 7, 1990, when the United States began
sending
half a million soldiers to Saudi Arabia, preparing for war against Iraq.
''One of the stories put out by bin Laden is that he went to King Fahd
and
promised that he would raise holy warriors who would protect Saudi
Arabia,''
said Mr. Anderson, who was the chief of the C.I.A.'s Near East
operations in
the mid-1990's. ''His violent opposition to the Saudi royal family began
when
King Fahd denied or rejected that offer.''
Americans Painted As New Crusaders
To Mr. bin Laden the deployment of Americans in the land of Mecca and
Medina
smacked of the Crusades, the Christian religious wars against Islam that
began nine centuries ago. His rage transformed him into a stateless
outlaw.
In November 1991, Saudi intelligence officers caught Mr. bin Laden
smuggling
weapons from Yemen, his father's homeland. They withdrew his passport.
Soon
afterward he made his way to Sudan, which had decreed its borders open
to all
Muslims, with or without passports or visas.
Veterans of the Afghan jihad, or holy war, against Moscow followed Mr.
bin
Laden, under Al Qaeda's banner. But ''when Al Qaeda was moved to Sudan,
it
lost around 70 percent of its members,'' Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, accused
of
being an associate of Mr. bin Laden, said during an interrogation by the
German police after his arrest in September.
''This group didn't have a purpose except to carry out the jihad,'' Mr.
Salim
said, ''and since nobody carried out the jihad, it lost a lot of its
members.''
He Lived As an Investor
There were three kinds of men in Al Qaeda, he said. First, ''people who
had
no success in life, had nothing in their heads and wanted to join just
to
keep from falling on their noses.'' Second, ''people who loved their
religion
but had no idea what their religion really meant.'' And third, ''people
who
have nothing in their heads but to fight and solve all the problems in
the
world with battles.''
Mr. bin Laden lived in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, ''as an
investor,''
said President Bashir. ''With his money, he was adventurous, and
probably he
gained this mentality by his experiences as a fighter.''
The indictment against Mr. bin Laden says he provided training camps in
Sudan
where Afghan war veterans prepared for terrorist missions. But a senior
American intelligence official contradicted that, saying, ''There was
never a
bin Laden-financed training camp in Sudan.''
The official added: ''In 1993, '94, '95, he's managing and building up
his
legitimate business presence there in Sudan. I won't pretend we've got a
good
intelligence base on this period, but we think he was laying the
groundwork
for Al Qaeda.''
In 1995 two C.I.A. officers were stalked by teen-age followers of Mr.
bin
Laden in the streets of Khartoum. ''Bin Laden was approached by us and
was
told that this would not be tolerated,'' said Ghazi Salaheldin, the
Sudanese
Information Minister. Sudan expelled the teen-agers.
In the face of such perceived threats -- though some were mirages, based
on a
slew of false C.I.A. reports -- the United States withdrew from Sudan in
late
1995. The absence of American diplomats and spies in the country
diminished
Washington's ability to know what Mr. bin Laden was doing at the very
moment
he stepped up his political war.
In 1995, after the Saudi Government rescinded his citizenship, he began
sending scathing attacks on the royal family from Khartoum.
''Bin Laden took a chance and started doing some political activities,''
President Bashir said, ''not terrorist activities, but he started
issuing
political bulletins and communiques and faxes'' denouncing the Saudi
Government as corrupt and repressive.
The United States took notice. ''There had been confusion'' after the
World
Trade Center bombing about the nature of radical Islamic threats to the
United States, said Mr. Johnson, the former senior counterterrorism
official.
No Evidence To Implicate Him
''There were lots of theories, not very good intelligence, and so the
intelligence community actually started generating a picture that Osama
bin
Laden was, if you will, the new face of terrorism,'' he said.
On May 31, 1996, four Saudis were beheaded after confessing to bombing a
Saudi National Guard post in Riyadh and killing five Americans. All told
their interrogators that they had received Mr. bin Laden's communiques.
Only
25 days later, a truck bomb tore through a military post in Dhahran,
killing
19 American soldiers.
Mr. bin Laden was blamed by American officials for instigating the
attacks.
But no known evidence implicates him, and the Saudi Interior Minister,
Prince
Nayef ibn Abdel Aziz, has absolved him. ''Maybe there are people who
adopt
his ideas,'' Prince Nayef said. ''He does not constitute any security
problem
to us.''
Shortly before the Dhahran attack, Mr. bin Laden and members of his
entourage
left Sudan in a C-130 military transport plane. The Sudanese had asked
him to
leave -- at the request of the United States. Mr. bin Laden landed at an
American-built airport in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Three months later, on
Aug.
23, 1996, he declared war on the United States.
''The situation in Saudi Arabia is like a great volcano about to
erupt,'' his
declaration stated. ''Everyone talks openly about economic recession,
high
prices, debt'' and ''the filling up of the prisons.''
How Did He Control the Bombers?
Mr. bin Laden's criticisms of Saudi repression and corruption closely
corresponded with State Department reports and C.I.A. analyses. But Mr.
bin
Laden blamed the United States. ''The root of the problem is the
occupying
American enemy,'' he proclaimed, ''and all efforts should focus on
killing,
fighting and destroying it.''
A second, more ominous warning from him came on Feb. 23, 1998: ''To kill
Americans and their allies, both civil and military, is an individual
duty of
every Muslim who is able, in any country where this is possible,'' until
American armies, ''shattered and broken-winged, depart from all the
lands of
Islam.''
Then came the embassy bombings last August. American authorities say the
men
who attacked the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were controlled by Mr.
bin
Laden. But they still have no clear idea how.
Despite efforts at the highest levels of the United States Government,
Mr.
bin Laden and his closest associates remain isolated in Afghanistan.
It is difficult to say precisely where the criminal case against Mr. bin
Laden stands. Prosecutors have obtained unusually restrictive court
orders
that bar the defendants and their lawyers from communicating with
virtually
anyone.
The Case Runs Out of Steam
Publicly, at least, the case has lost momentum. While two men suspected
of
being bombers were quickly apprehended, many other suspects are still at
large. The last arrest was more than six months ago. A spokesman for the
United States Attorney in Manhattan declined comment.
Now the hunt for Mr. bin Laden depends on whether the Taliban, his
radical
hosts in Afghanistan, will betray him. The United States has little
leverage
with the Taliban, and little fresh intelligence on how to capture Mr.
bin
Laden. It has no spies in Afghanistan and little new information on
precisely
how he might have instigated the deadly bombings.
''I do not have a clear picture yet of what happened when,'' said
Prudence
Bushnell, the United States Ambassador to Kenya, who was wounded in the
bomb
blast, which killed 12 of her colleagues. ''I may not ever have a clear
picture of what happened when. None of us may.''
A COLLABORATION
This article resulted from a collaboration between The New York Times
and the
PBS program ''Frontline,'' which will broadcast a documentary tonight
about
Osama bin Laden that will run on most PBS stations at 9 o'clock. The
''Frontline'' program was based on the work of Lowell Bergman,
correspondent,
Martin Smith, producer, and Orianna Zill and Ivana Damjanov, associate
producers.
ON THE WEB
Past coverage of Mr. bin Laden, the 1998 bombings of the American
embassies
in East Africa and the American response to terrorism is available from
The
New York Times on the Web:
www.nytimes.com/ international
Communism List _______________________________________________
Communism@...
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 00:13:01 +0100
From: "Karl Carlile" <dagda@...>
Reply-To: communism@...
Organization: Communism List
To: <communism@...>
Communism List:
http://homepage.eircom.net/~kampf/
Workers of the world unite!
_______________________________________
The Guardian (London), November 23, 1995
PAKISTAN IS SECRET OF TALIBAN'S SUCCESS;
By John-Thor Dahlburg
IT HAS been one of the most breathtaking advances in the annals of
modern warfare: master of little more than a single city in
Afghanistan a year ago, the Taliban now controls more than half the
country.
And standing at the gates of Kabul, the Muslim fundamentalists
announced at the weekend that they had launched their final assault
to overrun the capital and chase President Burhanuddin Rabbani from
office.
Many observers believe it is only a matter of time before the
political map of a country mauled by more than 15 years of warfare
will be changed decisively.
The Taliban, a motley band of fighters chiefly composed of
inexperienced but courageous Islamic students, credits its lightning
success to its creed and to Allah. "The only real superpower is
Allah," said a commander, Mulvi Abdul Samad. But in the rugged
countryside of Baluchistan, the sparsely populated Pakistani province
of mountain and desert that runs parallel to Afghanistan for 670
miles, more worldly reasons come to light.
Attracted by the sacred Islamic ideal of jihad, or holy war, young
Pakistanis have flooded across the border to embrace Kalashnikov
rifles and the Taliban's cause.
And, despite repeated official denials, the Islamic republic of
Pakistan has given enormous support to the Muslim Afghan fighters in
the past year, the Los Angeles Times has learnt.
"Pakistan has decided not to give financial or military support to
any faction of the Afghans," the prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, told
an Iranian audience earlier this month.
But from Pakistan have come petrol for the Taliban's tanks, aircraft
and armoured vehicles, lorry convoys filled with munitions and other
supplies, and telecommunications equipment, experts and advice.
"This is the work of the Lawrence of Arabias of the ISI
(Inter-Services Intelligence)," said an opposition senator, Abdur
Rahim Khan Mandokhel of Baluchistan, who accuses the government of
trying to play puppet-master in Afghanistan.
===
The Guardian (London)
April 8, 1995
MUFTI IQBAL'S SCHOOL FOR MARTYRS;
'Rent-a-jihad' groups are sending out Muslims, including foreigners,
to fight abroad. Benazir Bhutto must crack down on fundamentalism to
prove her pro-Western credentials, but dare not go too far. Kathy
Evans in Peshawar reports on her dilemma
By Kathy Evans
THE bearded mullah sat cross-legged on the floor, fingering his beard
thoughtfully. "No, money is not a problem. We have many supporters
and they help us keep the jihad going," Mufti Iqbal smiled.
Mufti Iqbal is the Karachi front man for Harakat al Ansar, one of
Pakistan's numerous "rent-a-jihad" services. It is his job to recruit
local volunteers, receive foreign Muslims, and send them on to jihads
of their choosing. It is one of Pakistan's growing businesses.
The focus of Harakat's attention is Kashmir, the slither of territory
claimed by both India and Pakistan. Liberating the Kashmiri Muslims
from the Indian yoke is a national cause in Pakistan shared by
government and the man in the street. Mufti Iqbal, himself an Afghan
jihad veteran, offers contacts to other causes and conflicts,
however.
"Our main objective is to help Muslims all over the world secure
their freedom. We have received thousands of volunteers to fight in
Kashmir, Bosnia, Tajikistan and Chechenia. Jihad is, after all, an
obligation on all Muslims."
It was through Harakat al Ansar's conduit for would-be martyrs that
the young east London Pakistani, Ahmed Sheikh, was reported to have
passed. The former London School of Economics student now faces
charges of kidnapping two British tourists in India. Mufti Iqbal, the
Karachi recruiter, denies any knowledge of him.
Harakat al Ansar says it has several hundred foreign Muslims who have
come to "learn". Among the volunteers are Pakistanis, black American
Muslims, Arabs, Indians, Afghans, and even one Canadian.
The movement's officials deny they offer military training, saying
such skills are acquired at the front line. But Western diplomats in
Karachi say they have a well-established camp in Miranshahr, a remote
area bordering neighbouring Afghanistan.
The rent-a-jihad service is just one of the avenues available in
Pakistan to young Muslims from all over the world who seek to grow in
their religion and get an insight into the growing list of conflicts
in which Muslims find themselves in, against oppressive
Western-backed governments and the Christian world.
For such Muslims, Pakistan offers a number of attractions. It is a
cheap, police are bribeable, arms all too easily available, and in
whole chunks of the country government officials rarely venture.
The tribal areas function as playgrounds for the heroin and weapons
mafia. Here you can buy vital necessities for a terrorist movement.
Moreover, some of the causes espoused by religious groups enjoy
government support.
Throughout the interview with Mufti Iqbal, a man sat beside him on
the floor, prompting his answers. He claimed he was from a Pakistani
news agency.
"It's the ISI man" laughed my local newspaper colleague as we left.
"He is his minder".
ISI is the acronym for the Inter-Services Intelligence, one of
Pakistan's main intelligence agencies. It has many rivals, but none
enjoys the covert power of the ISI. That power is the product of the
multi-billion-dollar war effort launched by the West at the beginning
of the eighties to fight communism in Afghanistan. Today, its main
focus is Kashmir.
Afghanistan was the West's last war against the Soviet Union. More
than $ 10 billion was ploughed into this "heroic" cause by the US,
Britain and Saudi Arabia.
An early agreement in the conflict between America's CIA and the ISI
made the Pakistani agency the sole channel for the billions of
dollars worth of arms to the jihad. This gave the agency an
unprecedented influence in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, which
lingers to this day. Headed by General Hamid Gul, working under
General Zia ul-Haq, ISI established the seven guerrilla groups known
as the mojahedin.
Today, the mojahedin groups have become little more than heroin
warlords.
In Pakistani internal politics, ISI functions as an instrument of the
government in power, drumming up evidence against opponents and
making and un-making political parties.
Embarrassingly, some of its creations are thought to be behind the
recent killing sprees in Karachi, including possibly the shooting
last month of two US embassy officials.
ISI's Afghan jihad operation was also a siren call to militant
Muslims in the Middle and Far East. The agency turned a blind eye to
the thousands who flocked to Afghanistan for military training.
Afghanistan became a playground for any disgruntled Muslim who felt
oppressed.
Today, veterans of the Afghan war dominate terrorist groups in
Algeria and Egypt, and they remain a latent and feared force in the
Gulf states.
A number of Arab veterans of the Afghan war are facing trial in New
York for suspected involvement in the bombing of the World Trade
Centre in 1993. The latest suspect to join them in the New York
courtroom is Ramzi Youssef, said to be the master bomber.
If Western intelligence sources are to be believed, Ramzi Youssef was
one of the world's most dangerous terrorists. However, it is still
unclear whether he is a Pakistani Baluch, a Kuwaiti or an Iraqi.
Since his arrest, many stories have grown up around him. He was known
to have travelled to Manila, allegedly to kill the Pope on his tour
there.
It is not just abroad that Youssef was allegedly active. Benazir
Bhutto, Pakistan's prime minister, told journalists last month that
he was also behind an attempt to assassinate her in 1993. Pakistani
press reports have linked him with the Sunni extremist group Sepah
Sehaba, believed to be behind dozens of killings of Shias in Karachi,
and also a bombing in Iran.
Today the Arab route to training grounds in Afghanistan has virtually
ceased to exist. Dozens of Arab mojahedin have been arrested and
hundreds more have fled.
It has become virtual grounds for arrest to be an Arab and an Afghan
veteran and still live in Pakistan.
It is not just Arabs who have been subjected to the police's tactic
of rounding up the usual suspects. Last week, offices of the region's
oldest and largest Islamic group, the Jamaat Islami, were raided in
the police effort to root out militants.
The crackdown on militants preceded the vital trip to the United
States this week by Ms Bhutto. For her, it is the most important trip
of her administration, one in which she will attempt to portray
herself as the only reliable partner Washington and the West has to
fight fundamentalism in the region.
Only last year, Pakistan narrowly avoided being put on the American
list of states sponsoring terrorism. But in the effort to clean
militants out of Pakistan and brush up the country's image, Ms Bhutto
risks all.
Gen Hamid Gul, the former head of ISI, warns that if these arrests
continue, a typhoon will hit Pakistan.
"What is a fundamentalist anyway? A man with a beard? If the state
machinery goes after what it calls extremists, then the reaction
could be very very nasty. Inflation, the effects of IMF policies - if
mixed with a danger to the faith - could be very dangerous for the
country," he says.
Naturally, the first beneficiary of such a backlash would be groups
Gen Gul is associated with. The former intelligence chief is said to
be a key figure behind the increasingly political campaign by the
former playboy-cricketer Imran Khan.
Another beneficiary of any reaction from Muslim groups is Ms Bhutto's
long-standing rival, the Lahore businessman Nawaz Sharif. Mr Sharif
has already been able to accuse her of attacking Islam to appease the
Americans. Unwittingly or not, Ms Bhutto has provided her opponents
with potent slogans.
It is not just on the parliamentary front that dangers lurk for Ms
Bhutto. Kashmir is a cause supported by both the ISI and the army,
two institutions which Ms Bhutto has to live with. India accuses both
of training and arming the Kashmiri militants. Western diplomats
believe that help is being organised by renegade elements in the ISI
and the army.
Figures such as Gen Gul continue to be admired in military circles
for their devotion to Islamic causes. In the past year, Ms Bhutto has
been trying to clean out Jamaat Islami sympathisers in the
intelligence service through her new ISI chief and loyalist, Javed
Ashraf.
Jamaat officials shrug off such changes, saying that in the end Ms
Bhutto has to do "her duty" towards Kashmir.
Publicly, Pakistani officials have consistently denied that they are
arming and training the militants. However, few Pakistanis would
bother to deny that the militants are able to buy weapons freely or
that they are helped to cross over to the Indian-controlled part of
Kashmir.
Any attack on these delicate covert mechanisms by Ms Bhutto would
lead to charges that the prime minister is not only against Islam but
against Pakistan's national cause, Kashmir. During the last 15 months
she has made her support for the cause a central platform from which
to reaffirm all her Islamic credentials. Rarely does she make a
speech without mentioning Kashmir and Islam in the same breath.
In private, her diplomats wonder why Pakistan cannot consider the
unthinkable third option - supporting total independence for
Kashmiris from both India and Pakistan. That way, they argue, the
fundamentalist groups and the role of the intelligence agencies, can
be wiped away in one go.
Gen Gul argues that if the West is really interested in curbing the
terrorism carried out in the name of Kashmir, it should try to
resolve the conflict, rather than fighting its symptoms.
Meanwhile, the prime minister's crackdown on militants is getting
closer to the groups and rent-a-jihad services that the Kashmir cause
has created. Ms Bhutto may find she can go only so far. It is a
dilemma which even her friends in Washington cannot help her with.
--
Communism List _______________________________________________
Communism@...
Subject:
[COMMUNISM LIST]Fw: Very interesting article from 1999 about
Bin Laden
Date:
Mon, 17 Sep 2001 00:10:23 +0100
From:
"Jeff Seaman" <scratcher11@...>
Reply-To:
communism@...
To:
<communism@...>
Communism List:
http://homepage.eircom.net/~kampf/
Workers of the world unite!
_______________________________________
Sent: Sunday, September 16, 2001 3:31 PM
Subject: Very interesting article from 1999 about Bin Laden
I remember being struck by the tone of this article when it appeared.
It
suggests that Bin Laden is more the inspiration for terrorists than
their
mastermind, and that his grievances are focused on the US presence in
Saudi
Arabia. I had seen nothing like it in the mainstream media before, and
nothing since. Did anyone see the Frontline documentary related to this
article?
Steven Sherman
April 13, 1999, Tuesday
U.S. Hard Put to Find Proof Bin Laden Directed Attacks
By TIM WEINER
American commandos are poised near the Afghan border, hoping to capture
Osama
bin Laden, the man charged with blowing up two American embassies in
Africa
eight months ago, senior American officials say.
But they still do not know how to find him. They are depending on his
protectors in Afghanistan to betray him -- a slim reed of hope for one
of the
biggest and most complicated international criminal investigations in
American history.
Capturing Mr. bin Laden alive could deepen the complications. American
officials say that so far, firsthand evidence that could be used in
court to
prove that he commanded the bombings has proven difficult to obtain.
According to the public record, none of the informants involved in the
case
have direct knowledge of Mr. bin Laden's involvement.
For now, officials say, Federal prosecutors appear to be building a case
that
his violent words and ideas, broadcast from an Afghan cave, incited
terrorist
acts thousands of miles away.
In their war against Mr. bin Laden, American officials portray him as
the
world's most dangerous terrorist. But reporters for The New York Times
and
the PBS program ''Frontline,'' working in cooperation, have found him to
be
less a commander of terrorists than an inspiration for them.
Enemies and supporters, from members of the Saudi opposition to present
and
former American intelligence officials, say he may not be as globally
powerful as some American officials have asserted. But his message and
aims
have more resonance among Muslims around the world than has been
understood
here.
''You can kill Osama bin Laden today or tomorrow; you can arrest him and
put
him on trial in New York or in Washington,'' said Ahmed Sattar, an aide
to
Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind Egyptian cleric convicted of
inspiring the
bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. ''If this will end the
problem --
no. Tomorrow you will get somebody else.''
Interviews with senior American officials and knowledgeable observers of
Mr.
bin Laden in Pakistan, Sudan and elsewhere suggest that there is
widespread
support among ordinary people in the Muslim world for his central
political
argument: that American troops should get out of Saudi Arabia. The
embassy
bombings, they note, took place eight years to the day after the G.I.'s
were
ordered onto Saudi soil.
The interviews also raise questions about key assertions that have been
made
by the Government about Mr. bin Laden. Senior intelligence officials
concede
that their knowledge of him is sketchy.
''We can't say for sure what was going on'' with him from 1991 to 1996
--
most of the years covered in the indictment -- one senior official said.
His Affluence Seems Overstated
Present and former American officials and former business associates of
Mr.
bin Laden say he appears to control only a fraction of the $250 million
fortune that the American Government says he possesses.
''Clearly, his money's running out,'' said Frank Anderson, a former
senior
Central Intelligence Agency official who maintains close Middle Eastern
contacts.
Larry Johnson, the State Department deputy counterterrorism director
from
1988 to 1993, said Administration officials had ''tended to make Osama
bin
Laden sort of a Superman in Muslim garb -- he's 10 feet tall, he's
everywhere, he knows everything, he's got lots of money and he can't be
challenged.''
Milton Bearden, a retired senior C.I.A. official who ran the agency's
war in
Afghanistan and retired in 1995, said the Government had ''created a
North
Star'' in Mr. bin Laden.
''He is public enemy No. 1,'' Mr. Bearden said. ''We've got a $5 million
reward out for his head. And now we have, with I'm not sure what
evidence,
linked him to all of the terrorist acts of this year -- of this decade,
perhaps.''
Political leaders in Sudan and Pakistan who have met Mr. bin Laden
describe
him as intelligent, soft-spoken, polite. They also say he is deadly
serious
about his violent brand of radical politics and capable of killing in
God's
name.
Mr. bin Laden was born into the ruling class of Saudi Arabia. His father
was
the favorite construction magnate of the Saudi royal family, who gave
Mr. bin
Laden's family huge contracts to renovate the holy cities of Mecca and
Medina
and build palaces for Saudi princes.
American officials calculated Mr. bin Laden's fortune by estimating the
family fortune at $5 billion and dividing by 20, the number of male
heirs.
But business associates of Mr. bin Laden said his family cut him off
years
ago and are managing his share of his inheritance for him as long as he
is
disowned. Business associates say that Mr. bin Laden has been living on
a
generous allowance from his eldest brother and that his assets in Saudi
Arabia are now frozen.
In 1980, at 22, Mr. bin Laden left Saudi Arabia and moved to the Afghan
frontier. In Peshawar, Pakistan -- working alongside, but never directly
allied with, the C.I.A. -- he used his money and his machines to help
the
Afghan rebels fight the Soviet Army invaders.
The Afghan war shaped Mr. bin Laden, those who know him say. ''He is an
ordinary person who is very religious,'' said President Omar Hassan
al-Bashir
of Sudan, who met Mr. bin Laden often from 1992 to 1996. ''He believes
in the
rule of Islam and where possible the establishment of an Islamic state.
The
time that he spent in Afghanistan led him to believe that this might be
achieved through military means.''
Legend has it that Mr. bin Laden fought bravely against Soviet troops.
But
former C.I.A. officers say he was a financier, not a warrior -- ''a
philanthropist supporting a number of health care, widows-and-orphans
charity
operations in Peshawar for Afghan refugees,'' as Mr. Anderson put it.
He also helped create a headquarters called Al Qaeda, the Base. It was a
way
station in Peshawar where Egyptian and Saudi volunteers rested before
setting
off for battle in Afghanistan. Its name became a kind of flag uniting
Mr. bin
Laden's followers. American officials call it a global terrorist
network.
When the Soviet forces left Afghanistan in 1989, Mr. bin Laden went home
to
Saudi Arabia. He soon set his sights on the last remaining superpower.
''He himself was very much wary about America,'' said Saad al-Faqih, a
Saudi
exile living in London, who worked as a surgeon for wounded Afghan
fighters,
''very skeptical about America and the Saudi regime.''
He found a new enemy on Aug. 7, 1990, when the United States began
sending
half a million soldiers to Saudi Arabia, preparing for war against Iraq.
''One of the stories put out by bin Laden is that he went to King Fahd
and
promised that he would raise holy warriors who would protect Saudi
Arabia,''
said Mr. Anderson, who was the chief of the C.I.A.'s Near East
operations in
the mid-1990's. ''His violent opposition to the Saudi royal family began
when
King Fahd denied or rejected that offer.''
Americans Painted As New Crusaders
To Mr. bin Laden the deployment of Americans in the land of Mecca and
Medina
smacked of the Crusades, the Christian religious wars against Islam that
began nine centuries ago. His rage transformed him into a stateless
outlaw.
In November 1991, Saudi intelligence officers caught Mr. bin Laden
smuggling
weapons from Yemen, his father's homeland. They withdrew his passport.
Soon
afterward he made his way to Sudan, which had decreed its borders open
to all
Muslims, with or without passports or visas.
Veterans of the Afghan jihad, or holy war, against Moscow followed Mr.
bin
Laden, under Al Qaeda's banner. But ''when Al Qaeda was moved to Sudan,
it
lost around 70 percent of its members,'' Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, accused
of
being an associate of Mr. bin Laden, said during an interrogation by the
German police after his arrest in September.
''This group didn't have a purpose except to carry out the jihad,'' Mr.
Salim
said, ''and since nobody carried out the jihad, it lost a lot of its
members.''
He Lived As an Investor
There were three kinds of men in Al Qaeda, he said. First, ''people who
had
no success in life, had nothing in their heads and wanted to join just
to
keep from falling on their noses.'' Second, ''people who loved their
religion
but had no idea what their religion really meant.'' And third, ''people
who
have nothing in their heads but to fight and solve all the problems in
the
world with battles.''
Mr. bin Laden lived in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, ''as an
investor,''
said President Bashir. ''With his money, he was adventurous, and
probably he
gained this mentality by his experiences as a fighter.''
The indictment against Mr. bin Laden says he provided training camps in
Sudan
where Afghan war veterans prepared for terrorist missions. But a senior
American intelligence official contradicted that, saying, ''There was
never a
bin Laden-financed training camp in Sudan.''
The official added: ''In 1993, '94, '95, he's managing and building up
his
legitimate business presence there in Sudan. I won't pretend we've got a
good
intelligence base on this period, but we think he was laying the
groundwork
for Al Qaeda.''
In 1995 two C.I.A. officers were stalked by teen-age followers of Mr.
bin
Laden in the streets of Khartoum. ''Bin Laden was approached by us and
was
told that this would not be tolerated,'' said Ghazi Salaheldin, the
Sudanese
Information Minister. Sudan expelled the teen-agers.
In the face of such perceived threats -- though some were mirages, based
on a
slew of false C.I.A. reports -- the United States withdrew from Sudan in
late
1995. The absence of American diplomats and spies in the country
diminished
Washington's ability to know what Mr. bin Laden was doing at the very
moment
he stepped up his political war.
In 1995, after the Saudi Government rescinded his citizenship, he began
sending scathing attacks on the royal family from Khartoum.
''Bin Laden took a chance and started doing some political activities,''
President Bashir said, ''not terrorist activities, but he started
issuing
political bulletins and communiques and faxes'' denouncing the Saudi
Government as corrupt and repressive.
The United States took notice. ''There had been confusion'' after the
World
Trade Center bombing about the nature of radical Islamic threats to the
United States, said Mr. Johnson, the former senior counterterrorism
official.
No Evidence To Implicate Him
''There were lots of theories, not very good intelligence, and so the
intelligence community actually started generating a picture that Osama
bin
Laden was, if you will, the new face of terrorism,'' he said.
On May 31, 1996, four Saudis were beheaded after confessing to bombing a
Saudi National Guard post in Riyadh and killing five Americans. All told
their interrogators that they had received Mr. bin Laden's communiques.
Only
25 days later, a truck bomb tore through a military post in Dhahran,
killing
19 American soldiers.
Mr. bin Laden was blamed by American officials for instigating the
attacks.
But no known evidence implicates him, and the Saudi Interior Minister,
Prince
Nayef ibn Abdel Aziz, has absolved him. ''Maybe there are people who
adopt
his ideas,'' Prince Nayef said. ''He does not constitute any security
problem
to us.''
Shortly before the Dhahran attack, Mr. bin Laden and members of his
entourage
left Sudan in a C-130 military transport plane. The Sudanese had asked
him to
leave -- at the request of the United States. Mr. bin Laden landed at an
American-built airport in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Three months later, on
Aug.
23, 1996, he declared war on the United States.
''The situation in Saudi Arabia is like a great volcano about to
erupt,'' his
declaration stated. ''Everyone talks openly about economic recession,
high
prices, debt'' and ''the filling up of the prisons.''
How Did He Control the Bombers?
Mr. bin Laden's criticisms of Saudi repression and corruption closely
corresponded with State Department reports and C.I.A. analyses. But Mr.
bin
Laden blamed the United States. ''The root of the problem is the
occupying
American enemy,'' he proclaimed, ''and all efforts should focus on
killing,
fighting and destroying it.''
A second, more ominous warning from him came on Feb. 23, 1998: ''To kill
Americans and their allies, both civil and military, is an individual
duty of
every Muslim who is able, in any country where this is possible,'' until
American armies, ''shattered and broken-winged, depart from all the
lands of
Islam.''
Then came the embassy bombings last August. American authorities say the
men
who attacked the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were controlled by Mr.
bin
Laden. But they still have no clear idea how.
Despite efforts at the highest levels of the United States Government,
Mr.
bin Laden and his closest associates remain isolated in Afghanistan.
It is difficult to say precisely where the criminal case against Mr. bin
Laden stands. Prosecutors have obtained unusually restrictive court
orders
that bar the defendants and their lawyers from communicating with
virtually
anyone.
The Case Runs Out of Steam
Publicly, at least, the case has lost momentum. While two men suspected
of
being bombers were quickly apprehended, many other suspects are still at
large. The last arrest was more than six months ago. A spokesman for the
United States Attorney in Manhattan declined comment.
Now the hunt for Mr. bin Laden depends on whether the Taliban, his
radical
hosts in Afghanistan, will betray him. The United States has little
leverage
with the Taliban, and little fresh intelligence on how to capture Mr.
bin
Laden. It has no spies in Afghanistan and little new information on
precisely
how he might have instigated the deadly bombings.
''I do not have a clear picture yet of what happened when,'' said
Prudence
Bushnell, the United States Ambassador to Kenya, who was wounded in the
bomb
blast, which killed 12 of her colleagues. ''I may not ever have a clear
picture of what happened when. None of us may.''
A COLLABORATION
This article resulted from a collaboration between The New York Times
and the
PBS program ''Frontline,'' which will broadcast a documentary tonight
about
Osama bin Laden that will run on most PBS stations at 9 o'clock. The
''Frontline'' program was based on the work of Lowell Bergman,
correspondent,
Martin Smith, producer, and Orianna Zill and Ivana Damjanov, associate
producers.
ON THE WEB
Past coverage of Mr. bin Laden, the 1998 bombings of the American
embassies
in East Africa and the American response to terrorism is available from
The
New York Times on the Web:
www.nytimes.com/ international
Communism List _______________________________________________
Communism@...