20 - 26 September 2001
Issue No.552
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 20 - 26 September 2001 Issue No.552 |
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America's most wanted
Osama Bin Laden, the man whom the United States wants "dead or alive," is highly revered by his followers, Khaled Dawoud looks into his background
His full name is Osama Bin Mohamed Bin Awad Bin Laden and he was born in 1956 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. His father, originally a Yemeni from Hadramout, moved to Saudi Arabia more than 70 years ago, and died when Osama was 10 years old. The young Bin Laden had a peripatetic childhood, moving between cities in the region of Hejaz, namely, Mecca, Medina and Jeddah.
Bin Laden's father had been a construction tycoon, winning at one stage contracts to renovate the three holiest mosques: Al-Haram Al-Sharif in Mecca where the Ka'aba is located, the mosque in Medina where the Prophet Mohamed is buried, and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, prior to Israel's occupation of the city in 1967. "At one point he [the father] used to pray at the three mosques in the same day," Bin Laden said in a rare interview with the Qatari-based Al-Jazeera satellite television channel two years ago.
Winning the contracts to renovate such holy sites meant not only immense wealth for the Bin Laden family, which is still among the most well-to-do families in Saudi Arabia, but more importantly, it conferred great prestige on the clan.
When he reached university age, Bin Laden chose to study economics at King Abdel-Aziz University in Jeddah. Even before his graduation, he began to work for his family's empire, developing experience in building highways. This experience later proved to be useful when he joined the "Mujahedin" in Afghanistan, fighting to end the occupation of that country by the former Soviet Union.
The signing of the Camp David agreement by Egypt and Israel -- viewed by Islamist militants as a capitulation to the enemy -- and the former Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 were both turning-points in Bin Laden's life. After those two events, he decided to devote his life to "jihad for the sake of God."
Bin Laden vehemently denies what is now considered a fact by many experts and politicians: that it was the United States that provided the Mujahedin with decisive support, including the man who now tops "its most wanted" list. Bin Laden contends it was his immense wealth that was used to recruit and train thousands of young men from throughout the Arab world to join the fight against the Russians. Known as the "Arab Afghans," these fighters have been blamed for some of the most violent attacks in countries facing the threat of militant armed Islamist groups, including Egypt, Algeria, Jordan, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and several other Arab countries.
"The Americans are lying in order to distort our image," he said to deny the charge that the Arab Afghans were the progeny of the US Central Intelligence Agency, the CIA. "The support we received came mainly from Arab countries, and especially Gulf states. They were doing this not for God's sake, but to protect their thrones from the Russian conquest. I challenge the Americans to produce a single piece of evidence that we had any connection with them. We [the Mujahedin] were carrying out our duty in support of Islam. However, this duty served American interests in spite of our will."
However the most significant watershed for Bin Laden was Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, and the decision by Saudi Arabia's ruling family to allow the US to bring its troops to the country to launch its campaign to liberate Kuwait and deter Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from attacking the Kingdom. For an Islamist like Bin Laden, the presence of "foreign, non-Muslim" troops on Saudi soil was a major affront. According to the strict Islamist school of thought Bin Laden espouses, Saudi Arabia, as the guardian of Islam's holiest shrine, the Ka'aba, is holy land. Thus, foreign troops should not be allowed there. Throughout his lengthy interview with Al-Jazeera, Bin Laden repeated no less than a dozen times that his primary goal was to "liberate our land [Saudi Arabia] from the enemies and the Americans."
Bin Laden's recorded speeches demanding the departure of US troops became very popular in Saudi Arabia, and the country's authorities decided in 1994 to rescind his nationality.
In 1995, he moved to Sudan, which at that time harboured militants from throughout the world. Sudan's then de facto leader, the Islamist Hassan Al- Turabi (now in prison after a falling out with his former ally Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir), wanted Sudan to be the centre of an "Islamic Empire" in Africa. Yet, concerted American and international pressure on Sudan forced President Al-Bashir to give up the policy of supporting militant groups, especially after it was established that those involved in the failed attempt against President Hosni Mubarak's life in Ethiopia in 1995 launched their operation from Sudan.
Bin Laden was forced to leave Sudan, and returned to his supporters in Afghanistan. Due to his support for the ruling Taliban movement during the war against the former Soviet Union, the extremist government declared him a "guest" and offered him protection.
The Al-Jazeera interview -- one of the most recent Bin Laden has given -- took place a few months after the United States shelled Afghanistan and Sudan in August 1998 to avenge the bombing of its embassies in Kenya and Tanzania a few weeks earlier. Jamal Ismail, a Palestinian journalist close to Bin Laden who conducted the interview, published a book earlier this year claiming that Al-Jazeera did not run the entirety of their meeting which he said lasted for 1 hour and 40 minutes. The 50-page interview, which is included in the book, reveals much about Bin Laden's ideas.
In February 1998, Bin Laden, together with six militant groups, including Egypt's Jihad led by his close associate Ayman Zawahri, declared the formation of the International Islamic Front for Fighting against Jews and Crusaders. Its declared goal was to attack US and Israeli interests, and the organisation considers any American or Israeli adult male a target, whether civilian or military. "More than 70 per cent of Americans said they supported [former US President Bill] Clinton's bombing of Iraq. Thus, they are a legitimate target. Meanwhile, whom do Americans and Israelis kill in Iraq and Palestine? They kill children, and not just civilians."
After the attacks against the US embassies in Africa, Bin Laden and his Afghanistan-based group, Al-Qa'ida (The Base) became America's deadliest enemies. Besides the stray missiles that hit Afghanistan's mountains, killing more civilians than members of Al-Qa'ida (according to Bin Laden only seven of his followers were killed in the attack: two from Egypt, three from Yemen, one Saudi and one Turk), US intelligence has reportedly made more than 10 attempts to kill him. Yet, they all failed, due to Afghanistan's inhospitable terrain, and the staunch loyalty of the members of his group in spite of a US offer of $5 million to kill their leader. As Bin Laden explained, "These people have left their countries and homes to practice jihad for the sake of God. They are not the sort of people to be seduced by this kind of American offer. But because America worships money, it thinks that everyone else does."
Bin Laden, as a devout Muslim, would seem an unlikely supporter of Iraqi president and leader of the secular Baath Party, Saddam Hussein. However, since the bombing of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, rumours have circulated about the possibility of a link between the two. Bin Laden has denied these allegations, but has asserted that "Israel is the actual aggressor behind any attack today against any country in the Muslim world. The Jews were the ones who pushed the Americans and British to attack Iraq. What they were actually targeting was not Saddam Hussein, but any possible emerging force in the Arab and Islamic world."
Although the United States holds Bin Laden responsible for at least four major attacks -- 1995 and 1996 in Riyadh and Khobar in which 24 US servicemen were killed; the bombing of the US embassies in Africa; the suicide bombing of the USS Cole warship in Yemen in which 17 soldiers died last year; and finally last week's deadly attacks in New York and Washington, he never admitted any direct involvement in the attacks.
"My duty is to incite the [Muslim] nation to practice jihad against America, Israel and the enemies of God. We formed the International Islamic Front with many of our brothers, and I think that they are doing fine, and I hope God will help them in seeking revenge against Jews and America."
Bin Laden also speaks proudly of this front, saying that it "includes individuals of may nationalities who are spread widely and can move freely. However, they do not have to announce every action they make."
Pressed to answer whether he was directly responsible for the bombings of the US embassies in Africa, he said: "American accusations against me are false. However, if America means that I was responsible for inciting those who carried out the attacks, that is evident and I admit it on every occasion."
For his followers, Bin Laden is not just a political figure, but has a status almost akin to that of a saint or a messiah. Despite his enormous wealth -- which according to information revealed by President Mubarak is estimated to range between $1-2 billion dollars -- Bin Laden clearly leads a very humble life. Most of the time, he is dressed in military fatigues and lives in harsh conditions in the midst of mountains in Afghanistan. He sustains himself on a simple diet primarily consisting of cheese, milk and dates. His favourite hobby is riding horses, "sometimes up to 70 kilometres without making a stop," he said in the Al- Jazeera interview.
In the few interviews he has granted, Bin Laden has unfailingly recounted how the strength of his belief in God and the cause he was fighting for helped him survive many dangerous situations.
"Once I was only 30 metres from the Russians and they were trying to capture me," he told The Independent in an interview in Sudan in 1993. "I was being bombarded but I was so peaceful in my heart I fell asleep... I saw a 120-millimetre mortar shell land in front of me, but it did not blow up. Four more bombs were dropped from a Russian plane on our headquarters, but they did not explode."
Such tales serve to confirm for Bin Laden and his followers that God is on their side.
These are the "enemies" the US is facing now: young men with strong faith and enough conviction to make them feel they can beat the world's sole superpower. "As Muslims, we believe that when we die, we go to heaven. Before a battle, God sends us sakeena, [tranquillity]," Bin Laden said in his interview with The Independent.
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