10 - 16 January 2002
Issue No.568
|
Al-Ahram Weekly Online 10 - 16 January 2002 Issue No.568 |
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Current issue | Previous issue | Site map | ||
In the tracks of the Arab-Afghans
Waqai' Sanawat Al-Jihad: Rihlat Al-Afghan Al-Arab (Years of Jihad: the Journey of the Arab-Afghans) Mohamed Salah, Cairo: Khuloud Publishing, 2001. pp261
The often poorly understood notion of jihad, together with the presence in Afghanistan during the 1990s of so-called Arab- Afghans fighting in many cases alongside the Taliban, has focused world attention on how these individuals came to be where they are and on their understanding of radical Islamism. In Years of Jihad: the Journey of the Arab-Afghans, Mohamed Salah, a journalist with the London-based newspaper Al- Hayat specialised in radical Islamism and political Islam, offers his account of jihad and of the Arab-Afghan fighters, summarising the history of radical Islamist movements in Egypt over the past two decades. Although the book might not be the first to have appeared on those members of radical Islamist groups in Egypt who went to Afghanistan to fight first with the mujahidin against occupying Soviet forces and then with the Taliban, it, as Abdel-Wahab Badrakhan, senior columnist in Al-Hayat, comments in his foreword, "certainly presents an authoritative account of the beginnings of the Afghan-Arab drama, which almost triggered a virtual world war."
Arab-Afghan prisoners after the fall of Kabul
The book is divided into eight chapters, shedding light on the environment that created the Arab-Afghans, on the birth of the radical Islamist movements and on the political activities of the radical Islamist groups during the rule of late Egyptian President Anwar El-Sadat. It also describes the activities of members of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, the connections between radical movements in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the arrival in that country of contingents of Arab-Afghans from Egypt and from other countries. It offers information on radical Islamist thought in Egypt and on how the discourse of such groups has shifted from attacking the Egyptian government alone to the targeting of US interests. There is an account of Dr Ayman El-Zawahri, an Egyptian physician from a well-off family who went on to become a leading member of the Arab-Afghans in Afghanistan, and there is an account too of Osama Bin Laden and of his unique relationship with the Egyptian Arab-Afghans.
However much one reads on the contemporary Islamist movements, whether radical or not, it is difficult to find a consensus over their history and meaning. It is particularly difficult to be sure that what one is reading is true or authoritative, since much vital information pertaining to the formation and activities of the Islamist groups is embargoed by the authorities and is the special province of the state security apparatus. This makes the task of journalists such as Salah all the more difficult, since it is hard, or even impossible, to come by accurate information on this issue, which is one of Egypt's most politically sensitive. Salah does not reveal his sources for the most part, leaving the reader wondering what they are; in particular, how far are the views expressed in this book the author's own, and how far are they views fed to him by the security services?
The first chapter begins by saying that "as soon as President Gamal Abdel-Nasser died in September 1970, the morale of Egypt's Islamists in general, and of the Muslim Brotherhood in particular, was boosted." The Brothers, Salah states, "welcomed" Sadat's becoming president "since historically they had not found themselves in conflict with him", and, moreover, Sadat had "met Hassan El-Banna [founder of the Muslim Brotherhood] very early on in 1940, and he had later attended classes held by Al-Banna in the Brotherhood's headquarters. Sadat was known for his piety, and Nasser had frequently made use of this when he wanted to promote the Islamic character of the Egyptian State. [Nasser], for example had appointed Sadat secretary-general of the Islamic Conference Organisation, formed in 1965 to mobilise Islamic public opinion outside Egypt."
Salah concludes from this that radical Islamist views found fertile soil in Sadat's Egypt, but he nevertheless ends with the tired comment that Sadat "could not then have known that his end would come at the hands of a group that had adopted the same ideology. In this way, Sadat reaped what he had sown." This view, favoured by the security apparatus, is often put forward by those, including those on the Left as well as secularists, that believe that Islamists, whether radical or not, should not be allowed to take part in Egypt's political life and should not be granted legitimacy.
In his introduction, Salah says that his is an objective account of the Egyptian radical Islamist groups at this time, reminding the reader that for much of the past decade Al- Hayat had been one of the only sources of information on radical Islamism. (This was before the contemporary explosion in satellite television channels.) The paper was one of the few platforms that members of such groups could use, and Salah's name often appeared on articles providing exclusive material and scoops on their activities. This being so, the present book may come as a disappointment to some, at least for those familiar with Salah's reporting over the years. For, despite its 261 pages, the book offers little by way of analysis of how and why radical Islamism in Egypt grew into the powerful movement that it has, or why the radical Islamist theorist Ayman El-Zawahri, now better known as Bin Laden's close aide, abandoned politics in Egypt in order to join forces with the Arab-Afghans. Salah offers little more here than the already exhausted views that most of us are by now well familiar with.
According to Salah, the story of the Arab-Afghans begins during Sadat's presidency, Sadat himself being assassinated in 1981 at the hands of the Al-Gama'a al-Islamiya (Islamic Group) coalition. Salah traces the Afghan connection back to the 1970s, emphasising the important role played by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in drumming up support for the conflict in Afghanistan following that country's invasion by Soviet forces in 1979. Salah's book includes, for example, an eye-witness account by Sayed Hassan, a "prominent former member" of the Brotherhood, who spent a year and a half in Peshawar in the early 1980s to co-ordinate this group's support for the mujahidin and for volunteers from Egypt arriving to fight the Russians in Afghanistan. Hassan claims that Sadat removed barriers on Egyptians going to Pakistan and Afghanistan to join mujahidin forces, since this is what the US wanted. A deal was therefore done between Sadat and the US on the one hand, and Sadat and the Brotherhood on the other; thus, the "holy war" fought by the mujahidin in Afghanistan in the 1980s was orchestrated from the first by the United States, anxious to undermine the then Soviet Union. If true, this is enough to discredit both the Islamists and the then Egyptian regime.
Salah's book devotes a chapter to the connections between the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the Afghan fighters. However, here he overstresses the importance of the question of how far those members of the Brotherhood who volunteered to go to Afghanistan actually saw battle service or took up arms against the Soviets. For even at this time a far more interesting question was that of the differences between the Muslim Brotherhood and the radical Islamist groups that were fiercely critical of the Brotherhood for allegedly co- operating with the regime and abandoning confrontation with it. The Jihad Group's most prominent figure, El-Zawahri, for example, visited Peshawar in 1980 and stayed there for several months, meeting Osama Ben Laden and agreeing that while they would co-operate the two groups would remain separate. Al-Qae'da was to remain a pool for various Arab nationals not belonging to any of the established Islamist groups, while the Jihad Group's membership would be limited to Egyptians only.
Until 1990, there were few examples of radical Islamist activities in Egypt itself. In 1986, attempts had been made on the lives of former Minister of the Interior Nabawi Ismail and prominent journalist Makram Mohamed Ahmed, but these remained the exception and not the rule. However, things changed in 1990 when Al-Gama'a Al-Islamiya spokesman Alaa Moheidin was shot dead by what Salah refers to as "unidentified persons," and the Al-Gama'a, accusing the security services of being behind the killing, planned a revenge attack on the then minister of the interior, Abdel-Halim Moussa. The plan was to attack Moussa's motorcade in the Garden City neighborhood of Cairo, which Al-Gama'a did, only to find that they had attacked the wrong motorcade, killing parliamentary speaker Refaat El-Mahgoub in error. Salah writes that it was evident that some of those responsible for this attack "had received training in Afghanistan," and an escalation in violence between the police and the radical Islamist groups followed.
By 1992, clashes had intensified, and the death toll on both sides was increasing at an alarming rate, especially in Upper Egypt. Things took a dangerous turn when this violence reached the capital, with several bombings, as well as the assassination of the writer Farag Foda and of several high- ranking police officers, being carried out. The tourism industry, a major source of revenue for the Egyptian economy, suffered as the attacks not only drove tourists away, but also targeted them. There were attempts on the lives of the ministers of information and of interior affairs, on the prime minister and on Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz. Sweeping arrests were made of members of the radical Islamist groups, subsequent investigation showing, Salah writes, that "some elements" among them had been trained in Afghanistan.
Having given such historical background on the conflict in Egypt, Salah turns to his main subject: the Arab-Afghans. During the Afghan jihad against the Soviet occupation (1979- 1989) large numbers of Islamists, mostly Egyptian, flocked to Afghanistan and Peshawar in Pakistan, where "new bases for the Al-Gama'a Al-Islamiya and the Jihad Group were being formed." According to "the fundamentalists themselves," says Salah, "the significant presence of the Al-Gama'a Al-Islamiya in Peshawar and then in Afghanistan began in 1987 with the arrival of three leaders of the group, namely Mohamed Shawqi El-Islambuli [brother of Sadat's assassin Khaled El- Islambuli], Ali Abdel Fatah and Refai' Taha." In May 1990, the group published the first issue of its monthly journal, Al- Murabitoun, set up a reception centre in Peshawar to receive "elements arriving from Egypt" and began in late 1990 to train these in special camps inside Afghanistan. For its part, the Jihad Group was more active within Afghanistan itself, Salah attributing this to El-Zawahri's early (in 1985) departure from Egypt for Afghanistan and his close relation with Osama Bin Laden. According to confessions made by defendants in the trials of Islamist groups, the Jihad Group had more training camps than did Al-Gama'a Al-Islamiya
At this point in his narrative Salah pauses, posing a riddle- like question. Why, he asks, did the Arab-Afghans then turn against the US, their previous supporter? Salah argues that they did this because they felt that, following Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, the US had "turned its back on them," even helping to hunt them down and handing them over to their governments to face terrorism charges. Yet, it seems clear that the Arab-Afghans were never the US stooges that they were taken for, and, indeed, Salah contradicts himself when he notes the anti-American discourse voiced by both the Jihad Group and Al-Gama'a Al-Islamiya in the early 1990s.
In the 1970s, the Jihad Group's main target had been the "near enemy," the Egyptian government, but that did not stop the group from also having a "far enemy," the US and Israel. In the 1990s priorities changed. In 1997, the Jihad Group issued a statement entitled America and the Illusion of Power, in which it clearly said that the enemy was the United States. "What would really hurt America and the Jews" read the statement, "is sending bodies back to them. If they bombard us with tons of explosives, tear the flesh of our children into pieces with their cluster bombs, burn the bodies of our sons with missiles, then we should throw the burnt and pounded flesh of their sons back in their faces."
In 1998, the Front for Combating Jews and Crusaders (FCJC) was formed, made up of Al-Qae'da, the Jihad Group and others. At this time, the Arab region was having to deal with heightened American and Israeli demands, and a heavily bombarded Iraq continued to reel from US-imposed economic sanctions. In addition, the peace process was proving futile, and this year was also the 50th anniversary of Al-Nakba, the catastrophe of Palestinian exile. "The only cause that can drive Islam's young men to risk their lives in attacking American targets is the injustice practised by the American administration towards the peoples of Islam, enabling the Jews to occupy Al-Aqsa," the FCJC's statement read.
Finally, it seems doubtful that the Arab-Afghans "turned against" the US because the US "turned its back" on them, as Salah argues, for the information he himself supplies indicates that there had always been a strong anti-American component to the Islamist groups' discourse, even as they were prepared to make a tactical alliance with the US to force the Soviet Union from Afghanistan.
In Years of Jihad: the Journey of the Arab-Afghans Salah has written a book on radical Islamism in Egypt from the late 1970s to the late 1990s. However though informative, it often lacks real substance, and in many cases, the business of supplying references for many of its assertions, whether deliberately or as a result of haste, since this is a book produced to catch the wave of interest created following the 11 September attacks on New York and Washington, is all too often ignored.
Reviewed by Amira Howeidy
© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||
| ARCHIVES Letter from the Editor Editorial Board Subscription Advertise! |
WEEKLY ONLINE: www.ahram.org.eg/weekly Updated every Saturday at 11.00 GMT, 2pm local time weeklyweb@ahram.org.eg |
 Al-Ahram Organisation |
Recommend this page