One of his students went down to buy some breakfast for them. He saw the cars waiting outside, so, he retreated. He saw six cars used by the intelligence, waiting. He tried to go back into the apartment building, but they caught him. This youth was carrying a pocketknife—the residents of Hamah usually carry knives in their back pockets—and the car was filled with six intelligence officers. So, his youth stood next to them, pulled out his knife, slaughtered each one of them, then he escaped. The sirens then began going off all over Damascus. The police began chasing him until they finally caught up with him in a building, where he jumped from the third or fourth floor to escape. He managed to get away from them, finally making it to Jordan.
Back to Shaykh Marwan: the police cars began surrounding his apartment building after the Fajr, and they began calling out through the microphone: “O residents of this building! Get out, as there is an Iraqi spy who we wish to arrest!”—at this time, there were disputes between Syria and Iraq. So, Shaykh Marwan grabbed his own microphone (he had his own microphone that he would use to call to prayer), saying: “O intelligence officers! O police! O you who are surrounding the building! We will give you fifteen minutes, and you must leave within these fifteen minutes. After this, we will begin fighting you if you do not leave”. And he actually waited fifteen minutes, and after fifteen minutes, he began with the grenades and machinegun fire. Calls were being made to local police stations, and, eventually, over 1,000 police and intelligence officers were surrounding the house, against Marwan and one other brother with him, along with his wife. They tried entering the building, so, the other brother went down and met them at the entrance with some TNT. They then tried entering from above, landing on the building’s roof with a helicopter—but who would be the brave one to enter first? One thousand against two.
By the time it was afternoon, they were still unable to enter the apartment building. They would fire from below, and he would fire back from above. After the afternoon, they finally entered the apartment. This was the excuse of Shaykh Marwan: he became injured in his hand, rendering it useless. He came out with his head up high. They took along with them his wife, who he had not consummated his marriage with.
The news was relayed to Hafiz al-Asad, who went crazy, as many officers were killed in the process. Hafiz al-Asad said: “I wish to solve this with him personally”. So, he went to him personally, saying to him: “O Marwan! Let us open a new page with each other! Let Allah Forgive what has happened, and we will not take you to account for anything you did, with one condition: that you abandon your weapons”. Marwan replied: “I agree, with one condition: that you assist me in establishing an Islamic state in Syria”. Hafiz al-Asad gathered himself and left the room.
The Military Council gathered, including Naji Jamil—the commander of the Air Force—and Mustafa Tallas [Tlas] was also present, as well as a large group of the Nusayri officers and generals. They came to Shaykh Marwan. He sat down, looked to Naji Jamil and Mustafa Tallas, and said: “Woe to you, you dog, Naji Jamil! Do you think that we will let you live? I made the youth promise that they would start with you, you and Mustafa Tallas. Because of you, you dogs, we have been humiliated by these Nusayris; they violated our honor. As for you, you Nusayri generals, I made the youth promise that they would kill at least 5,000 of you”. Naji Jamil said: “Take this insane man; take him away from me”.
Afterwards, they would bring his wife into the cell next to him, trying to violate her while he was in captivity, and his soul began to tighten. Someone like this, with a free and honorable soul, sees her honor being violated, and he can do nothing about it. He is in captivity.
He lost so much weight that he reached 45 kg (99 lbs), and his weight used to be around 100 kg (around 220 lbs).
He finally died in prison, without anyone knowing whether he was killed or had died a natural death. Towards the end, his veins would not even accept glucose. When he died, they sent to his father to take his body. He asked them: “Did you kill him?” They replied: “No”, and they buried his body in a graveyard in Damascus, with a hundred soldiers guarding his funeral, out of fear that the youth would take his body and demonstrate in Damascus”.
Source: Abdullah Azzam, Fi Dhilal Surat at-Tawbah, pp. 21–5, available online at: http://forums.islamicawakening.com/f18/abdullah-azzam-onmarwan-hadeed-2222/ (Wording and style retained as in source).
APPENDIX 4
ABU MUS’AB AL-SURI ON THE TRAINING TACTIC OF AL-TALIA AL-MUQATILA
Al-Talia created its own system for training; the physical fitness part of training was encouraged by the leadership but depended largely on the individuals’ effort. The members were trained to disassemble then reassemble weapons in safe houses, then they would be taken along on a military operation (e.g. assassination attempt) as an observer, this breaks the psychological barrier. The second time, the trainee will be armed but this time he has a mission: to protect those people carrying out the military operation, then he will be asked by the seniors of his group to carry out the assassination himself. Many times, the first shots fired by the mujhaideen hit the heads of the infidels, very quickly trainees will learn. Many military operations were carried out using trainees, the most successful were lead by the martyr captain Ibrahim Youssef (May Allah have mercy on his soul), he was able to establish and supervise a limited organized training program in the small mountains near Aleppo. Unfortunately the lack of forests and mountains prevented al-Talia from establishing its own camps on the inside. Later, al-Talia members were sent to Iraq for professional military training, they trained on different types of weapons especially the effective use of rocket propelled grenades (R.P.G.), they attended military lectures on the tactics of war, some of them got trained on tank warfare, some returned and participated in the fight, others stayed abroad, settled down and went about their daily lives and thus lost all they have learned.
Source: Abu Mus’ab al-Suri, “Lessons learned from the Jihad ordeal in Syria” (Document captured by US troops in Afghanistan in 2002, referenced as AFGP-2002–600080, full translation), p. 33, available at: http://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/lessons-learned-from-the-jihad-ordeal-in-syria-english-translation (Wording and style retained as in source).
APPENDIX 5
ABU MUS’AB AL-SURI ON THE BATTLE OF HAMA IN FEBRUARY 1982
The battle of Hama proved, beyond a shadow of doubt, the conventional wisdom that any revolution that goes into an open all out confrontation in a defined geographical location that needs to be defended, without any intervention by outside forces to aid it, and without starting marginal confrontations in other areas to force the army to relocate some of its forces, and on timing not its own, is doomed to utter failure and destruction. Even though the mujahideen were forced into the battle through a well-orchestrated plan by the regime, this does not change the fact that it lead to total failure. A lesson we should take to heart. The leader of the mujahideen in Hama, Abu Bakr Umar Jawad (May Allah have mercy on his soul) distributed eight thousand Russian machine guns the morning of the day the battle broke out, there were one thousand mujahideen and many thousands of armed civilians trying to defend the city, there was plenty of arms and munitions, they had medium duty weapons like R.P.G.s and heavy machine guns, but the city could not withstand the onslaught, they had no supply or reinforcement routs, they ran out of anti armor weapons after four days only. The organization that lead the fight was a strong one with ten years of experience, they had spent three years preparing for the battle, they could not hold out, the city was sacked, most of the mujahideen got martyred, many civilians threw down their arms and surrendered, half the city was totally destroyed, and it was a real disaster. And even though the enemy suffered heavy losses there is no comparison between their losses and ours.
Source: Abu Mus’ab al-Suri, “Lessons learned from the Jihad ordeal in Syria” (Document captured by US troops in Afghanistan in 2002, referenced as AFGP-2002–600080, full translation), p. 33, available at: http://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/lessons-learne
d-from-the-jihad-ordeal-in-syria-english-translation (Wording and style retained as in source).
APPENDIX 6
THE SYRIAN MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD’S MOST IMPORTANT STATEMENT REGARDING THEIR EVOLUTION AND THEIR VISION OF SYRIA’S FUTURE
The Political Perspective for Syria
The Muslim Brotherhood’s Vision of the Future
Preamble
In obedience to God’s instructions: “Call people to the path of your Lord with wisdom and goodly exhortation, and argue with them in the most kindly manner”. (Q. 16: 125);
In line with our comprehensive and self-renewing understanding of Islam, its noble faith and values, as well as its legal code based on justice, kindness and compassion;
Recognizing that Islam enshrines the basic concept of faith that ‘God is the Lord of all the worlds’, that Muhammad, God’s final Messenger who preached the pure divine faith, was sent to all mankind as manifestation of God’s grace, and that ‘all creatures are God’s dependents. Among them, the ones God loves most are those who bring the most benefit to His dependents’;
In fulfilment of the goals of Islamic law, which aims to remove stress and hardship from people’s lives;
And continuing our long march that adopts a positive, centralist and open approach that is free of rigidity and extremism;
We, the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, present our political programme. It reflects our clear and enlightened vision, commitment to the truth and to our principles and a positive response to the changing needs of our society. It represents a step towards the rebuilding of our country at all three levels: the individual, the social and the state. It is indeed a contribution to the work aiming to lay the foundation of a solid national structure that is based on participation by all in making the future better and happier. We thus stretch our hand offering what is good and aiming for what is good. We strongly adhere to our identity, proud of belonging to our nation, stressing both its Islamic and Arab dimensions that characterise its civilisation and role. We pledge to make Syria the home of all Syrians, while stressing our right to function as a national group committed to dialogue, recognizing the unity of our nation and rejecting all forms of unilateralism, oppression and dictatorship that have long plagued our country.
Ever since its inception in 1945, the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria stood out as a nationalist group ready to defend our nation and representing a broad popular trend opposed to imperialism and all its schemes and designs, as also to tyranny and dictatorship. It has positively interacted with all political, social and cultural groups. It has demonstrated its commitment to keep Syrian society free of religious and sectarian fanaticism, open to all.
Mustafa al-Sibaie, Muhammad al-Mubarak, Issam al-Attar, Abd al-Fattah Abu Ghuddah, Muhammad al-Hamid and many other leading Islamic figures were fully engaged in the national and political debate. They presented their views in reply to other views, but when they were met with harm and oppression they reacted with patience and forbearance, committing themselves always to remain within the law and advocating free and fair elections.
Despite the negative aspects of the Patriotic era, it witnessed the action of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria and its advocacy of intellectual enlightenment to counter both narrow rigidity on the one hand and immorality on the other. In so doing, it demonstrated its commitment to the reformist approach based on an enlightened understanding of Islam. At the same time, it worked hard for the eradication of superstitions and practices that were given a religious guise despite being alien to Islam. It worked for the eradication of ignorance, the spread of knowledge and education, the alleviation of poverty, the elimination of unemployment and the combating of other social ills, including complacency and weakness. It attended to the needs of Muslim women, supporting their emancipation, and rights of education, employment and full participation in public life. It sought to give women their proper position realising that the general concept of women’s role in society represented a confused mess of traditional practices that have no Islamic basis. Despite being forced into the underground, the Muslim Brotherhood remained committed to a moderate policy and strategy based on dialogue, guided by the Qur’anic instruction: “Call people to the path of your Lord with wisdom and goodly exhortation…” (Q. 16: 125).
However, since the military coup of 8 March 1963, a policy of tyrannical rule that allowed no opposition was imposed on Syria. People have endured much injustice and hardship, compounded by multi-faceted corruption that placed human, social and political relations on the wrong basis. No room was allowed for expression or change. Prisons were filled with people for no reason other than holding a different point of view. They were also subjected to all forms of torture. The advocates of Islamic revival were the main sufferers of all these practices, long before any act of violence.
Uncompromising tyrannical policies that sought to suppress religion and silence its advocates led to a state of social and political intolerance leading in turn to acts of violence committed by certain individuals who did not belong to our group. Such violence culminated in June 1979 into the massacre of students at the Artillery Academy, but the government used this event as a pretext to impose an extermination policy in our country that has continued ever since.
Although the Muslim Brotherhood was quick to denounce the massacre, issuing a formal statement dissociating itself of any such acts, and despite the fact that we never resorted to violent action nor advocated any policies of violence, the regime insisted on holding us responsible for it, as well as the violent actions that preceded it. The Minister of Interior at the time issued a statement to this effect, threatening the total extermination of the Muslim Brotherhood, chasing its members in the country and outside it. Tens of thousands of innocent citizens were rounded up to join the large numbers of Syrians who were already in prison. Many prominent figures were assassinated in Syria and elsewhere. This policy culminated in issuing Decree 49 of 1980 which imposes the capital punishment for nothing more than the membership of the Muslim Brotherhood. This decree was intended to provide a legal cover for the numerous massacres carried out in the streets and prisons in many villages, towns and cities in Syria, the worst of which was that committed in Hama in February 1982.
The security authorities have ever since followed a policy of no compromise that included the majority of Syrians. Although we continued to adhere to our peaceful policy, without ever entertaining any thought of resorting to military confrontation with the regime, we, together with large numbers of Syrian citizens, found ourselves forced to resort to self defence in a situation of spiralling violence that was certainly not of our making. It was indeed the policy followed by the government that led to such violence that culminated in a popular uprising that enjoyed broad support that included trade unions and other social groups which had always opposed the despotic policies of the regimes. On the other side, there was an extremist trend in government advocating a policy of extermination against us. Such people pursued policies that ensured the continuation of despotic policies that undermined all efforts that aimed to stop the spiral of violence and to bring about direct negotiations between us and the government. They also worked hard to undermine initiatives made by different figures aiming to achieve reconciliation. We, on our part, always responded positively to such efforts.
The Syrian authorities should have dealt with the early cases of violence as would suit individual and limited cases, looking at their causes and adopting remedies to ensure that they would not spread. Instead, elements intoxicated by power resorted to carry out a pre-planned policy that ensured the spread of violence and confrontation.
As we place such information before the world, we express our continued grief at the fact that tens of thousands of Syrians have been wrongfully imprisoned, forced to leave the country, killed or were lost without trace as a result of this confrontation in which they had no role. We certainly sympathise with all innocent victims of this confrontation. We also call for the formation of a national, indepe
ndent, legal inquiry into these events, with access to all relevant information in order to put the facts of those bloody events before our people. This is the only way to ensure that each party is made to bear the moral, political and legal responsibility for its own actions and their results.
Today, a quarter of a century after those tragic events, our nation is facing serious threats and challenges which require a full review of policies and attitudes by all parties so as to be able to shoulder our historic responsibilities. This is the only way that will help the wounds suffered by our nation to heal. The Muslim Brotherhood in Syria have already carried out a thorough review of its policies, and outlined a set of principles the details of which are outlined in the National Charter of Honour. Today, we are presenting this political project that explains our vision for the future. All this is made as a contribution to a wider effort to re-establish a solid national foundation for our country. It is undertaken in implementation of our principles and fulfilment of our aims, hoping for a better future for Syria.
Our political project emphasises the need to build a modern state in which we see a clear reflection of an Islamic state that is fundamentally different from the theocracies of the middle ages. The modern state we seek considers citizenship as the basis of justice and equality, ensures separation between the different authorities, and implements a national pluralistic contract that allows peaceful change of government. In our view, the most important challenge faced by Arab countries generally, and Syria in particular, is to put in place a sound mechanism to allow such peaceful change of government, ensuring a two-way democratic system that cannot be suspended or bypassed by any group or person.
Ashes of Hama: The Muslim Brotherhood in Syria Page 27
