Through Our Enemies' Eyes

by Michael Scheuer

  Beyond the Afghans’ attitude, however, Omar had solid and measurable reasons for not only tolerating but wanting bin Laden to stay in Afghanistan. The most obvious, but not the most important, was the money bin Laden contributed to the Taliban’s coffers. It is clear that bin Laden paid for his keep in Afghanistan in the same way he did in Sudan; that is, by helping the Taliban consolidate power. Bin Laden’s reputation, persuasiveness, and funds, for example, brought tangible benefit to the Taliban almost as soon as he relocated to Afghanistan. Just after his arrival, Al-Quds Al-Arabi has reported, bin Laden visited Hizbi Islami commander Jalaluddin Haqqani—whom he had fought alongside at Khowst late in the 1980s—and convinced him to put his military expertise and fighters into the service of the Taliban, thereby augmenting the professionalism of his own Arab Afghan cadre with Haqqani’s leadership skills and veteran insurgents. Then, according to Newsweek, bin Laden provided cash that allowed the Taliban in 1996 to buy strategic defections among Masood’s commanders “that stripped away Kabul’s defenses” and facilitated its capture.21

  Bin Laden also supplied his hosts “a number of specialized young people to help the Taliban in planning, management, and development of the new state.” These professionals helped begin rebuilding the country’s war-damaged infrastructure by supervising the building of roads, housing, and irrigation systems in southern and eastern Afghanistan, thereby providing jobs for Afghans and al Qaeda’s fighters. It is likely too that these specialists applied modern agricultural methods to poppy cultivation and heroin production.22 Also, as he did with the National Islamic Front (NIF) in Sudan, bin Laden signed agreements with the Taliban allowing him to start “large-scale businesses” in Afghanistan.23 The first of these were agricultural projects that profited himself and his hosts. “Osama has managed to take various agricultural farms on lease in Jalalabad … and adjacent areas,” Peshawar’s Frontier Post has said. “He has been allowed to export fruit from these farms to the Gulf States, using Peshawar as the transit route. These farms mostly produced olive, lemon, orange and pomegranate. Especially olive, which is in great demand in the Gulf states.”24 If bin Laden was following the tack he used in Sudan, he made partners of many senior Taliban officials, thus giving them a chance to make a buck and another reason to let him stay in Afghanistan.

  Bin Laden’s Support for the Taliban

  After returning to Afghanistan, bin Laden strengthened Mullah Omar’s stature—publicly calling Mullah Omar “our chief,” pledging loyalty to him as “legitimate ruler of the state of Afghanistan,” and describing him as the “embodiment of Islamic respect”—and increased the Taliban’s international credibility as an Islamist government. Bin Laden also praised the hospitality, piety, and Islamist purity of his Taliban hosts, and also showed respect for their religious scholars by consulting senior Afghan ulema. “The Taliban have established the rule of Allah in Afghanistan,” bin Laden told the Muslim media, “the pious caliphate will start from Afghanistan.” This constituted the expected, and in bin Laden’s case genuine, politeness and gratitude from a guest, but it also served to paint Mullah Omar and his Taliban lieutenants further into a corner from which escape might well be suicidal. Through public and private words bin Laden established that a Taliban failure to protect him would amount to abandoning Islam and kowtowing to America. In this dual-pronged approach, bin Laden made use of what ABC’s John Miller has described as a “public relations apparatus [that] is a sophisticated and complete network of agents and intermediaries.”25

  Bin Laden also repeatedly lectured all Muslims about their duty to help ensure the Taliban’s survival. “As it is a religious obligation for every Muslim to support the mujahedin fighting for the freedom of the sacred places,” bin Laden said in 1998, “similarly they are also obligated by their religion to support the Taliban government in Afghanistan, because by enforcing Shariat in Afghanistan the Taliban have established the system of God on God’s land.”26 In 1999–2000, bin Laden explained the importance of the Taliban regime to the Muslim world and extolled his excellent relations with the regime.

  Any aggression by the United States today against Afghanistan would not be against Afghanistan in itself, but against the Afghanistan that hoists the banner of Islam in the Muslim world, the true, mujahed Islam, which fights for the sake of God. Praised be God our relationship with them [the Taliban] is very strong and deep. This is an ideological relationship, based on doctrine, and not on political or commercial positions. Many states tried to pressure the Taliban, using the carrot and the stick, but God Almighty has made them firm in their stand.

  Allah has blessed Afghanistan, the people of Afghanistan, after the crusaders have split it into five sectors to turn them against each other. They were able to unify the country under the Taliban and under the leadership of Amir Mu’imineen [commander of the faithful] Mulanna Omar. So today, Afghanistan is the only country in the world that has the Sharia. Therefore, it is compulsory upon all the Muslims all over the world to help Afghanistan. And to make hijra to this land, because it is from this land that we will dispatch our armies all over the world to smash all kuffar all over the world (and to spread al-Islam).27

  Another step bin Laden took again had the politically astute impact of securing legitimate religious sanction for his February 1998 anti-U.S. fatwa, thereby reducing the chance of wavering among his Taliban hosts. Frontline’s unattributed biography says that bin Laden knew the senior Afghan ulema, or religious scholars, are the “driving force” in Taliban councils and acted to turn this to his advantage. According to the biography, bin Laden built a strong relationship with the Afghan ulema and “lobbied [them] specifically for the subject of American forces in the Arabian Peninsula.” As a result, the Afghan ulema issued a May 1998 fatwa “sanctioning the use of all means to expel American forces from the Peninsula.”28 This fatwa gave bin Laden more leverage with the Taliban because it came from the body the Taliban consults to ensure its policies and actions track with Islamic law. And, again, it displayed bin Laden’s respect for Islamic scholars by making sure that his future action had credible religious validation.29

  The most important contributions bin Laden made to Mullah Omar and the Taliban, and the ones the Taliban most valued and could least do without, lay in the military and domestic political spheres. From mid-1996, bin Laden and his senior cadre took control of most of the non-Afghan mujahedin who remained in post-Soviet Afghanistan, as well as those near Peshawar; in fact, Agence France-Presse and Al-Sharq Al-Awsat have claimed the Taliban required bin Laden to control the fighters as a condition of safe haven in Afghanistan. In any event, the importance of bin Laden’s veteran guerrilla fighters to the Taliban war effort has become apparent. As early as the summer of 1997, Al-Hayah attributed the slowing of the Northern Alliance’s advance toward Kabul to the “stiffening” provided to Taliban forces by bin Laden’s fighters. “It was the steadfastness of these fighters in the recent battles,” Al-Hayah claimed “that halted the advance of the alliance opposed to the Taliban.”30

  Then slowly, over the next two years, bin Laden’s forces, through their training activities, leadership, and combat performance, helped turn the tide of the war in the Taliban’s favor. Late in 1997, Al-Hayah again noted, “the hundreds of Arab fighters associated with bin Laden … enabled the Taliban to stop the advance of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance” north of Kabul.31 Then, when the Taliban took the offensive in 1998, the Boston Globe reported, bin Laden “provided critical support…. He trained Taliban fighters and loaned his own personal army to fight along side the Taliban.”32 As the Taliban advanced against the Northern Alliance, the important role of bin Laden’s guerrilla cadre was obvious. When the Taliban took Bamiyan Province in September 1998, for example, “Arab fighters loyal to bin Laden reportedly were seen in the front line.”33

  During the Taliban’s partially successful summer 1999 offensive in northern Afghanistan, bin Laden’s fighters played a spearhead role. At the start of the offensive, Ahme d
Rashid wrote in the Washington Times, “a brigade of some 400 Arab Islamic militants from a dozen countries in the Middle East, under the control of wanted Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden, have been moved from the barracks in Rishkor in Kabul and taken up positions along an eight-mile section of the front-line north of the city.” In the summer 2000 campaign, moreover, bin Laden’s veteran fighters played a pivotal role in the Taliban’s capture of Masood’s capital of Taloqan in Tahkar Province, as well as in other battles that by winter gave Mullah Omar control of 95 percent of Afghanistan.34

  Bin Laden also tried to help Mullah Omar in the Byzantine world of Afghan politics. As noted, bin Laden involved himself deeply in trying to reconcile the Afghan resistance parties in the 1990–1991 period, and, while not successful, earned a reputation as an honest broker. After returning to Afghanistan, bin Laden tried to use his reputation and negotiating skills to draw to the Taliban the two major Pashtun leaders—Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Abdur Rasul Sayyaf—of Masood’s overwhelmingly non-Pashtun Northern Alliance. EIJ leader Zawahiri and retired Pakistani intelligence chief Lt. General Hamid Gul, both of whom worked with Hekmatyar and Sayyaf in the Afghan jihad, assisted bin Laden.35

  Early in 1998, when the Taliban was preparing its spring offensive, bin Laden contacted Hekmatyar, then in exile in Iran, to try to reconcile him with the Taliban.36 This try was unsuccessful, and bin Laden waited to make another until the Taliban scored some battlefield successes, which made Masood’s senior Pashtun colleagues begin to worry about being caught on the wrong side of the fence if the Alliance was decisively defeated. In late 1998, then, bin Laden—in what the Frontier Post called an “unexpected move”—renewed his efforts to reconcile Sayyaf and Gulbuddin with the Taliban by sending emissaries to talk to the two Pashtun leaders. The substance of the envoys’ talks with bin Laden’s former comrades-in-arms is not known. That bin Laden’s representatives were received warmly and given a hearing cannot be doubted, however, because “both Hekmatyar and Sayyaf have enjoyed a very close relation with Osama and the two leaders reportedly still had a soft corner for the Saudi dissident.”37

  In January 1999, bin Laden made his first visit to northern Afghanistan since returning from Sudan. His move into what had long been Masood’s sphere of influence was made possible, according to Al-Hayah, because the area was “under the control of commanders affiliated with the Islamic Party which is led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and allied with the Taliban Movement.”38

  Taliban Denunciations of United States

  Recognizing bin Laden’s vital contributions to the Taliban, motivated by respect for bin Laden and the “respectable lot” of Arab Afghans, and faced by the probably catastrophic consequences of selling out the “great mujahid,” Mullah Omar and his aides did the necessary and attacked the United States. In March 1999, Peshawar’s Frontier Post reported Mullah Omar had written President Bill Clinton to warn of the dangers inherent in another U.S. attack on Afghanistan. “Any attack on Afghanistan will be construed as an attack on our Islamic faith,” Omar wrote in terms precisely echoing bin Laden and reflecting Afghan character traits millennia old. “There is virtually nothing in Afghanistan to be destroyed,” Omar continued. “You definitely cannot destroy our will, nor [do] we fear death. The only thing we have is our faith in the Almighty God and the Holy Koran. And definitely you would not be able to destroy that faith.”39 Omar’s adviser Mowlawi Wakil Ahmed Mutawakil followed with more from bin Laden’s script, damning the United States for its double standard in dealing with Muslims. Washington, Mutawakil said, has a standard for those it considers “human beings” and another it “applies to other peoples, especially Muslim peoples. It deals with them as though they are not human beings or even living creatures.” Mutawakil summed up the Taliban’s decision to stand by bin Laden come what may in Al-Watan Al-Arabi. Telling his interviewer “we will never turn him over, since this will turn the Islamic world against us,” Mutawakil displayed quintessential Afghan pride, fatalism, and defiance. Mutawakil told the paper that

  Bin Laden lives in Afghanistan under the protection of a special [Taliban] security committee that supervises his residence and ensures his safety…. We believe that the continuous U.S. claims against Osama bin Laden are arousing reservations among many Muslims. And if the United States tried to abduct or assassinate him, the whole Islamic world would turn against it. What the U.S. administration cannot imagine is the strong reaction and rivers of blood which would flow if anything evil happens to this man. The United States does not realize that its interests in the whole world will be affected…. We do not control bin Laden or impose any ban on him. We provide him with protection and safety, because we know he is wanted…. He is not a prisoner. He has full freedom of movement but under Afghan protection.40

  Mutawakil ended the interview by saying “we believe in what we are doing, although only God is perfect. We apply the teachings of Islam.” When asked why the Taliban had not attacked U.S. interests after the 1998 attack and if they would do so if the United States attacked again, Mutawakil said, “We reserve the right to respond with the method and the time of our choice.”41

  Bin Laden’s Overtures to Pakistan

  As a fail-safe, bin Laden began a four-part policy toward Pakistan that saw him court the main elements of Pakistani society: the military, the politicians, the Islamic establishment, and the media. His goal was to ensure the Taliban’s benefactors in then-prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s regime did not cut support for, or acquiescence in, Mullah Omar’s decision to host him. Bin Laden and his aides worked this plan—which continued after General Pervez Musharraf and the military deposed Sharif in October 1999—by publicly praising Pakistan and simultaneously reminding Pakistanis of the history of their often-arrogant treatment by America; by currying favor and purchasing influence in the Pakistani media; and by expanding support from Pakistan’s religious elders and Islamist party leaders.

  An excellent example of bin Laden singling out Pakistan for praise came after the country’s May 1998 nuclear weapons test. In a statement published by Al-Quds Al-Arabi, bin Laden congratulated “Muslim” Pakistan at a historic moment, marking the “first time in the history of the Muslims” that they possessed nuclear weapons. “The explosions conducted by Pakistan over recent days have caused a disruption in the international balance and a change in the balance of conflicts,” bin Laden said, “which the nations of atheism have been eager to prevent the Islamic nation and all its people from influencing.” Saluting Pakistan’s achievement, bin Laden stressed that Pakistan’s leaders must “strengthen their nuclear power and demonstrate it with full strength,” and told all Muslims “to support the jihad of the Pakistani people and the Muslim peoples afflicted by the Indian occupation [of Kashmir].”42

  Bin Laden also used the test to portray Pakistan as being hurt by the U.S. double standard toward Muslims. “It is very strange,” he told Newsweek, “if America has all the mass destruction weapons, that is nothing. If the Jewish state has the same weapons, it is OK. But if a Muslim state like Pakistan tries to defend itself against the Hindu hegemony in South Asia, everything should be done to prevent it from doing so.” Just after bin Laden’s praise and pledge of support—which he complemented by asserting the United States “has started conspiracies against Pakistan whereas it is covertly supporting India”43—the newspaper Pakistan cited bin Laden’s increasing popularity with Pakistanis. In describing bin Laden’s support for Pakistan and attacks on “U.S. tyranny,” the paper said, with some hyperbole, that the “Pakistani ulema, taleba [religious students], and thousands of young people love Osama bin Laden and are eagerly waiting to sacrifice their lives if he calls…. Every Pakistani has accepted Osama bin Laden as his hero.”44

  Much of the favorable popular opinion arose naturally. The Islamization of Pakistan has been gradually accelerating since Moscow’s Afghan misadventure began in 1979 and, indeed, has been in train since Lord Mountbatten scuttled the Raj in 1947. In January 2000, for example, the Nation war
ned that Pakistan’s “ruling elite [is] gradually succumbing to the ideological onslaught of the conservative ulema, which started soon after the creation of Pakistan.” In Pakistan’s military forces, the most pivotal subset of Pakistani society, this process was fueled in the ranks and officer corps during General Zia ul-Haq’s eleven-year rule (1977–1988) because of Zia’s genuine personal piety, his Islamization of Pakistan’s legal and economic systems, his official support for the Afghan and Kashmir jihads, and his close ties to Pakistan’s religious parties. “Zia was an extremely modest man, and a genuinely religious one,” Eric Margolis has written, “[and he] was a passionate Muslim who ardently believed what he said and truly thought of himself as a Muslim soldier, whose duty, as the Koran says, is to defend the Muslim community when it is attacked.” Zia’s support for the Afghan jihad, moreover, raised the level of religious commitment among military and civilian Pakistanis, increased the stature and power of the country’s Islamic scholars, and permitted the unfettered entry of Islamist groups and nongovernmental organizations from across the Muslim world. From a ramshackle beachhead, these groups established a now virtually permanent presence in Pakistan that contributes to the militancy of Islam in Pakistan and rivals the government in the provision of basic social services.45