by Aimen Dean
‘We are looking into it. A big campaign of jihad lies ahead of us. And Khurasan [Afghanistan] is where we must build up our strength,’ he replied.?‘What is your plan?’ Farouq pressed.
A ripple of laughter could be heard from the Egyptians.
‘If you want to know what we are planning then join us and we will tell you,’ Abu Hafs said dismissively.
Bin Laden smiled. I remember what he said next, word for word.
‘My brothers, while we are sitting here the land of the two holy mosques and the lands of Arabia are being desecrated by the presence of the Crusader Americans and their Jewish masters, at the invitation of the unworthy rulers of Arabia. The Jewish presence in Jerusalem means we have to liberate Jerusalem, just as the Crusader presence in the land of the two holy mosques makes it necessary that jihad liberates our lands.’
As he paused there was utter silence.
‘It is not Jamaat al-Qaeda’s wish to spill Muslim blood in Arabia or fight against our brothers in the security services, but if they stand in our way we will not have any choice. If we don’t wage this campaign now to drive out the Crusaders, who will? We will be cursed by the next generations. They are stealing our oil wealth and are extorting the royal family for protection money. They are supporting Israel against the Palestinians. They are bombing Iraq and starving hundreds of thousands to death through sanctions. Look at Bosnia. They betrayed the Muslims and rewarded the Serbs with half the country. It is our duty to drive them out of Arabia.’
Afghanistan had been foretold by a hadith as the future crucible of the struggle. Bin Laden raised his index finger as he recited:
‘Armies hoisting the black banners shall march from Khurasan; no power will be able to stop them until they finally reach Jerusalem and hoist their banners above it.’22
‘My dear brothers, this blessed land of Khurasan, irrigated by the blood of thousands of martyrs, will be the launching pad for the armies of the black banners.’
Khurasan was the ancient Islamic name for Afghanistan and its use by bin Laden did not go unnoticed. Al-Qaeda would be the vanguard of those armies – delivering salvation for Islam in its hour of need.*
His words tapped into a deep vein of hostility towards the United States among the Saudi contingent sitting around him and many more pious Sunnis in the kingdom. They disapproved of the influence of US oil companies and of the oil-for-security understanding between the House of Saud and successive US administrations. This arrangement, of course, had culminated in the arrival of US forces after the invasion of Kuwait.
‘It sounds like you will end up fighting the royal family,’ one of our group said. For many jihadis, including myself, this was still unthinkable.
‘This is not our intention. But jihad to liberate our lands must start somehow,’ bin Laden replied.
‘Like the Khobar bombings?’ Farouq asked.
Bin Laden smiled.
‘As Abu Hafs said, if you join us we will tell you. As for what happened in Khobar, that was an honour we missed.’**
With that, his Egyptian ‘minders’ signalled it was time for bin Laden to leave. He insisted we should stay to eat at the compound, where we were served a meal of lamb and daal, a rare treat.
As we drove back to Darunta at dusk, the last rays of the sun retreating from the mountainsides, I reflected on what bin Laden had said. Al-Qaeda was clearly here to stay and formulating ambitious plans. But I for one was not ready to contemplate war in my own homeland. His speech had left me with more questions than answers.
On 23 August 1996, bin Laden took his message to the world – issuing a communiqué demanding that jihad be initiated against the ‘Israelis and Americans’ to expel the ‘polytheists from the Arabian Peninsula’.24
‘By the Grace of God, there became available a safe base in Khurasan, high in the peaks of the Hindu Kush . . . And today, in the same peaks of Afghanistan, we work to do away with the injustice that has befallen our Ummah (global Muslim community) at the hands of the Judeo-Christian alliance, especially after its occupation of Jerusalem and its appropriation of Saudi Arabia,’ the statement read.
Again he had used the word Khurasan. Al-Qaeda’s adoption of the black banners of Khurasan – more than 1,200 years after they had been hoisted on the eve of the Abbasid rebellion against the Umayyad dynasty – was highly symbolic. Al-Qaeda was following in the footsteps of the early Muslim generations. The Muslim profession of faith superimposed on a black banner was appearing in the camps in Afghanistan. It would soon become the banner of disparate jihadi groups; a version of the flag was later adopted by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, better known as ISIS.
Implicit in such branding was a bold claim. According to various hadith,25 the black banners in Khurasan would not only see the Mahdi – ‘the guided one’, a messianic figure – emerge from within their ranks, but pave the way for his rule on earth close to the end-of-days.
The Islamic prophecies foretell that the Mahdi will be recognized by the Muslim community as their political and military leader, free the Muslim world from tyranny, create a just and victorious new order and set the stage for the return of Jesus Christ.*
Al-Qaeda (and later ISIS) would see themselves as instruments of God laying the ground for the return of the Mahdi. It was an intoxicating message.
During my time in Darunta I made several trips into the mountains of eastern Afghanistan, relishing the thickly forested slopes and crystal-clear streams. But this was a challenging place. I suffered severe stomach cramps from the obscene globules of fat which laced every bowl of tired grey stew. Then followed my first bout of malaria; I was also stung by one of the ubiquitous yellow and black scorpions that had made a home inside my salwar kameez.* I concluded that our commitment was being tested by God.
We occasionally went west to Sarobi dam, not only a beautiful man-made lake with a breathtaking view of surrounding mountains but also a vast natural fortress that was the headquarters of our patron, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. There we were able to train on Russian-made T-55 and T-62 tanks and missile launchers that had been captured from the Communists.
On one occasion, Hekmatyar came to speak to the assembled fighters. His wispy beard, black turban and spectacles made him look more like a theologian than one of the country’s most brutal warlords. He was mild-mannered and soft-spoken, with excellent Arabic.
He told us about a dream in which he was holding two swords.
‘With one sword I was fighting the Russians, but with the other I was fighting the Americans,’ he declared. This was not a man wracked by self-doubt.
Maybe he thought it was what we wanted to hear, but there was rich irony in the remark, given that his war machine (Stinger missiles included) had been largely sustained by the US taxpayer.26
He spoke of his battles with other Afghan factions. (It was sometimes said about Hekmatyar that he spent more time fighting other Afghans than he did the Russians.)
‘Only I can bring Shariah rule to Afghanistan,’ he claimed, in an effort to outflank the growing influence of the Taliban. His own brutal commanders were hardly symbols of Islamic virtue but Hekmatyar continued to enjoy the patronage of some Arab governments and benefactors.
Hekmatyar told us he had asked God in prayer who to ally himself with out of the many Islamist factions. There was the Taliban, of course, and there was a respected warlord called Ahmed Shah Masoud, who had prevented the Russians from conquering his stronghold in northern Afghanistan. His soul and conscience, Hekmatyar claimed, had told him to side with Masoud and with President Burhanuddin Rabbani. It was a fragile alliance riddled with intrigue. Perhaps he was tempted by the possibility of becoming Afghan prime minister.
It turned out to be the wrong decision. The Taliban were at that time preparing for a second offensive against Kabul and were attracting increasing support from the Pakistani security services at Hekmatyar’s expense.27 What was not yet clear was how the Taliban regarded the hundreds of Arab fighters who had now come to Afghanista
n. Hekmatyar’s men insisted the Taliban would detain us and send us across the border. From there, the Pakistani authorities would send us all to Saudi Arabia, where we would rot in prison.
We would soon find out.
One morning in early September, Hanif, the snoozing doctor, arrived at Darunta with news from the border. He told us that Taliban fighters had seized the Torkham crossing – presumably with Pakistani help – and were racing towards Jalalabad in pickup trucks. On 11 September, we heard explosions in the distance as the Taliban attacked and took the city. It was time to move on. Hekmatyar’s forces blew up one of their own T-62 tanks to prevent the Taliban capturing it. Dozens of Arab fighters, myself included, joined them in a hurried retreat to Sarobi, east of Kabul. But there was no escaping the Taliban’s rapid advance. We retreated from one outpost to the next, but their remorseless progress continued.
By the end of September the remnants among the Darunta Arabs were holed up on the outskirts of Kabul, a city in chaos. Ministries were burning files, looting had begun and warlords were preparing to flee. I saw Ahmed Shah Masoud leave by helicopter. His eyes were bloodshot and he looked bedraggled – hardly the ‘Lion of the Panjshir’ as he’d become known. I also saw Hekmatyar again, making a hurried departure from the prime minister’s office in a fleet of land cruisers; his ‘dream’ had become a nightmare.*
Many Arabs fled to Mazar-e Sharif in the north-west of Afghanistan or even across the border into the unruly Pakistani province of Baluchistan. But about forty of us, including my friends Farouq al-Kuwaiti and Abu Abdullah al-Maki, decided to stay and took refuge in what remained of the famous Balla Hisar castle, which was already littered with the wreckage of armour. An ancient fortress on a ridge overlooking Kabul, some of its walls were twelve feet thick. For a last stand there were worse choices. The sound of explosions and heavy gunfire grew louder and we braced ourselves for an onslaught.
At sunset on an already freezing October evening, just before the Maghreb prayer, we heard shouting outside. One of the Taliban called in Arabic for us to open the gate.
‘There’s nothing to be afraid of,’ he called. ‘You are our brothers.’
He came through the gate unarmed and repeated the message.
‘Just come outside. You are our guests.’
One of the Arab fighters replied that we had been warned the Taliban would deport us to Pakistan.
The Talib laughed.
‘Whoever told you that was lying.’
Farouq, who had always questioned Hekmatyar’s demonization of the Taliban, argued we should give ourselves up and trust to providence. He had got to know some of the Taliban fighters when at the Khalden camp, an area controlled by the Taliban.
As soon as we stepped through the gate we were met by a dozen Taliban brandishing AK-47s. We nervously laid our own weapons on the ground – at which point they came forward, picked them up and immediately handed them back to us with welcoming smiles.28
They assured us that the Darunta camps were protected and guarded with all our effects in safekeeping, but for now we were their guests and would stay that night at the Intercontinental Hotel, a Kabul landmark. It had seen better days – there was no electricity – but at least it still had a roof and running water, and some candles to make sure we didn’t walk into walls or fall down stairs.
‘I guess we’re not martyrs in paradise,’ al-Maki quipped when we were woken up the following morning.
The Taliban arranged transport back to our camps and gave us money and food. They were clearly allying themselves with international jihad, with al-Qaeda and bin Laden.
When the handful of us arrived at Darunta, the camps were virtually deserted. It was like a school without teachers; all the commanders had gone. For a week we tried to busy ourselves amid the treeless slopes and abandoned camps. I began giving lessons about the Koran, which became quite popular – but admittedly there were few alternative pastimes.
In time, once the Taliban’s tolerance for foreign fighters was established, people began drifting back to the camps. One man taking advantage of the Taliban takeover, despite having pledged not to pick sides, was Osama bin Laden, who showered Mullah Omar with deference, supplied his retinue with expensive cars, and bought off rival commanders.29
Under Taliban protection, and with fresh funds trickling in from sympathizers in the Gulf, bin Laden began to build al-Qaeda up in Afghanistan, reviving and expanding his old network of safe houses and training camps. But I was wanted on a mission to the jungle.
By late 1996, al-Qaeda was settling into its place in the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, methodically expanding its camps. The Taliban had pacified much of the country, but were still anticipating fierce battles against Ahmed Shah Masoud in the Panjshir and in western Afghanistan. I was frustrated that Muslims were continuing to shed each other’s blood rather than focus their fire on aggressors bent on crippling Islam.
On a winter’s morning, when the earth was as frozen as rock and my feet were numb despite an extra pair of woollen socks, I came across an unusually gloomy Farouq.
‘The thought of another two months of this, maybe three,’ he said shuddering. The scorching marshes around Basra were no preparation for the Hindu Kush in the depths of winter. The novelty of snowball fights – and digging latrines – had long worn off.
Farouq had recently been in Pakistan, where he’d met a few members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) from the Philippines. Filipino Muslims had long been part of jihad in Afghanistan but now the MILF (an acronym that would generate much mirth at academic conferences) wanted support on the home front. They were battling the Philippines military with the optimistic aim of establishing an Islamic State on the island of Mindanao, the second largest of the Philippines archipelago.
Farouq had been moved by the Filipinos’ plight, and the thought of a tropical climate combined with the lack of action at Darunta inspired him to help. In those days there was no formal process or paperwork – people moved in and out of the camps as free agents.
‘We could use your help, too,’ he said, stamping his feet.
‘Really?’ I had begun to feel irrelevant at Darunta.
‘Good Muslims in Kuwait have raised a lot of money for the Moro, but we have to get it there. I was screened and stamped when I left Bosnia; I’m a known quantity. You slipped out; you’re clean.’
A new front of jihad beckoned. I relished the chance to be back on the front lines. I might finally attain the martyrdom that had been denied me in Bosnia, and if not, Afghanistan would still be here in a few months.
‘I’ll do it,’ I said. The entire conversation had lasted five minutes.
I booked my flight to stop over in Kuwait, where I could pick up the money. I had also been invited to a reunion dinner of veterans of the Bosnia campaign.
The tepid warmth of the Gulf winter was a welcome relief from the dry bitterness of the Hindu Kush. The futuristic orbs of the Kuwait Tower and the tasteless extravagancies of Kuwait City were less appealing to my ascetic soul.
When I arrived at the dinner, I was stunned and delighted to see a grinning Khalid al-Hajj among the guests.
‘You see, I’m still a free man,’ he said, hugging me tightly. There were tears in his eyes. Perhaps my family’s anxieties about a crackdown in Saudi Arabia had been overdone.
His year back home had done him good. The light was shining again in his eyes. As the group recalled the highs and lows of the Bosnian campaign, he took me aside.
‘I think so often about that night you came to see me, when you found out I was going to Bosnia,’ he said.
‘You said something that stayed with me. I asked whether jihad really needed a kid like you. And you shot back that it was you who needed jihad. You looked so determined, grown-up all of a sudden. No longer the precocious kid whose hand shot up on quiz nights.
‘Now it’s my turn. I’ve been drifting here, unable to find the right path. So I’m coming with you to the Philippines.’<
br />
I couldn’t help myself. I put on an expression of mock solemnity as I recalled that fateful discussion about Bosnia.
‘You know Khalid, war is not a picnic . . .’
Before I left I was handed a small leather case with the money bundled together in $100 bills. I was told it had been raised from wealthy local families.* There was $150,000 in a variety of currencies. I had been selected as the courier, I was told, because ‘you’re young and you have a harmless face.’ It was a compliment of sorts.
Seats 23D and E on the Kuwaiti Airways flight to Manila were an island among a sea of chattering Filipino maids on their way home for brief vacations from their jobs working for wealthy Kuwaitis.
‘I’m glad the guys at Darunta can’t see this,’ I told Khalid, my head buried in my hands at the prospect of the next ten hours.
About an hour into the flight, a burly Kuwaiti in jeans and a black leather jacket approached and asked us to get up.
‘Where are you from?’ he asked. Before we had a chance to answer, he asked us to come with him and strode towards the front of the 747, making no effort to hide the fact he carried a pistol.
Are we being arrested? Did someone tip off the authorities? I wondered.
We entered a virtually empty Business Class.
‘Relax,’ the air marshal said. ‘I just hated to see fellow Gulf Arabs surrounded by all those noisy women. Make yourselves comfortable.’*
We looked at each other in disbelief.
‘So what’s your story?’ he asked, as we settled into the plush seats. ‘Two young men off to Manila . . .’
‘We’re going for dawa,’ (Islamic preaching) I said.
He raised his eyebrows.
‘Come on, guys.’
There was an awkward pause.
‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to turn you in. My cousin was a martyr in Bosnia.’
It turned out we had both met him. The air marshal was moved almost to tears by our recollections of his cousin in battle and said he had been immensely proud of him.30 Kuwaitis were very sympathetic to the Bosnian Muslim cause. Even a captain in the Emir’s personal guard had gone to Bosnia to provide sniper training.
