Inside Al Qaeda

Global Network of Terror

Rohan Gunaratna

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Year: 2002
• ISBN:
  9780231501828
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Freedom
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Inside Al Qaeda examines the leadership, ideology, structure, strategies, and tactics of the most violent politico-religious organization the world has ever seen. The definitive work on Al Qaeda, this book is based on five years of research, including extensive interviews with its members; field research in Al Qaeda-supported conflict zones in Central, South and Southeast Asia and the Middle East; and monitoring Al Qaeda infiltration of diaspora and migrant communities in North America and Europe.

Although founded in 1988, Al Qaeda merged with and still works with several other extremist groups. Hence Al Qaeda rank and file draw on nearly three decades of terrorist expertise. Moreover, it inherited a full-fledged training and operational infrastructure funded by the United States, European, Saudi Arabian and other governments for use in the anti-Soviet Jihad.

This book sheds light on Al Qaeda's financial infrastructure and how they train combat soldiers and vanguard fighters for multiple guerrilla, terrorist and semi-conventional campaigns in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, the Caucuses, and the Balkans. In addition, the author covers the clandestine Al Qaeda operational network in the West.

Gunaratna reveals:

how Osama bin Laden had his mentor and Al Qaeda founder, "Azzam", assassinated in order to take over the organization and that other Al Qaeda officers who stood in his way were murdered,

Al Qaeda's long-range, deep-penetration agent handling system in Western Europe and North America for setting up safe houses, procuring weapons, and conducting operations,

how the O55 Brigade, Al Qaeda's guerrilla organization, integrated into the Taliban,

how the arrest of Zacarias Moussaoui forced Al Qaeda to move forward on September 11,

how a plan to destroy British Parliament on 9/11 and to use nerve gas on the European Union Parliament were thwarted,

how the Iran--Hezbollah--Al Qaeda link provided the knowledge to conduct coordinated, simultaneous attacks on multiple targets, including failed plans to destroy Los Angeles International Airport, the USS Sullivan, the Radisson Hotel in Jordan, and eleven US commercial airliners over the Pacific ocean,

that one-fifth of international Islamic charities and NGOs are infiltrated by Al Qaeda,

how the US response is effective militarily in the short term, but insufficient to counter Al Qaeda's ideology in the long-term.

Finally, to destroy Al Qaeda, Gunaratna shows there needs to be a multipronged, multiagency, and multidimensional response by the international community.

1

WHO IS OSAMA BIN LADEN?

“The West, and the rest of the world, are accusing Osama bin Laden of being the prime sponsor and organizer of what they call ‘international terrorism’ today. But as far as we are concerned, he is our brother in Islam. He is someone with knowledge and a mujahid fighting with his wealth and his self for the sake of Allah. He is a sincere brother and he is completely the opposite to what the disbelievers are accusing him of. We know that he is well established with the mujahideen in Afghanistan and other places in the world. What the Americans are saying is not true. However, it is an obligation for all Muslims to help each other in order to promote the religion of Islam. Osama bin Laden is one of the major scholars of the jihad, as well as being a main commander of the mujahideen worldwide. He fought for many years against the Communists in Afghanistan and now is engaged in a war against American imperialism.” (Ibnul-Khattab, military commander of the mujahidin in the Caucasus)¹

Al Qaeda’s Emir-General, Osama bin Muhammad bin Laden, was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on July 30, 1957.² The son of migrants, his father Muhammad bin Awdah bin Laden, also known as Muhammad bin Laden, came from Yemen and his mother Hamida from Damascus, Syria. Osama was the seventeenth son of fifty-two children, his father having had four wives and many concubines, although he also married and divorced several women he met during his travels. He provided for them all, including the children, wives and mistresses living in houses scattered throughout Saudi Arabia. Osama had no brothers from his mother, only sisters, including one who would later marry Muhammad Jamal Khalifa.³ His mother, Hamida, is still alive, had re-married and was till recently in contact with her son.

Osama’s father, Muhammad bin Laden, hailed from the Hadhramat, in Yemen, his family having moved to Saudi Arabia in the 1930s. It is well known how he rose from poverty, starting off as a dockworker in the port of Jeddah, to become Saudi Arabia’s foremost construction magnate. He refrained from politics yet saw his Saudi Bin Laden Group—as the company is now known—win huge infrastructural projects in the Arabian Peninsula and elsewhere. His contracts included the renovation of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, including its mosques, and he rebuilt the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. Thus the 300-strong bin Laden family became highly respected in the eyes of Saudi royals and commoners alike.

Osama was raised in Medina and the Hijaz under the influence of his Syrian mother. After schooling in Jeddah he married a Syrian, a relative of his mother, and later attended King Abdulaziz University where he studied economics and management with the intention of joining the family business. An average student, he was especially interested in government and international politics, but left during his third year. While at university in Jeddah, Osama was taught Islamic studies by Muhammad Qutb, the brother of Sayyid Qutb, the ideologue of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Abdullah Azzam, both of whom created a deep impression on him.⁴ Contrary to press reports, however, he did not study engineering, nor did he complete his degree. Nor for that matter did he visit Sweden in 1971 or learn to fly near Oxford in England.

There was much respect and affection between the Saudi King, Faisal ibn Abdul Aziz, and Muhammad bin Laden. When the latter was killed in a helicopter crash in Saudi Arabia in 1968, the King was visibly upset, and some 10,000 people, including Osama, attended the funeral. Immediately afterwards King Faisal met the bin Laden family and told the children he was placing them under royal decree. Muhammad bin Laden’s estate was placed in trust to a committee appointed by the King. Apart from Ali, who was twenty-one at the time, all the others accepted the arrangements. Ali took his share of the inheritance and has since lived in Lebanon and Paris, apparently regretting his decision.

Muhammad bin Laden had always urged his children to refrain from politics and religious debate, declining general political posts offered by the King. After Muhammad bin Laden’s death, in keeping with his advice, another of his sons also politely turned down a cabinet post. The only member of the family to take a sustained interest in politics, from about 1973 onwards, was Osama. While working for the family business he focused his energies and resources on the advancement of Islam and Islamism. In particular he supported the Saudi-based Islamists of South Yemen who were fighting to oust the Communists. Although very little is known of his role at this time, Osama was for nearly two decades one of the key players in this struggle, even after his return to Saudi Arabia from Afghanistan in 1989.

Within a month of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan on December 26, 1979, Osama left Saudi Arabia for Pakistan to assess the situation. There he saw the Afghan leaders Burhanuddin Rabbani and Abdur Rab Rasool Sayyaf, whom he had met on the Hajj.⁵ A teacher of theology, Rabbani led the Jamaat-i-Islami, and Sayyaf, a mullah, the Itehar-i-Islami. They were among the seven principal commanders that spearheaded the anti-Soviet jihad with the military, logistical and financial support of a multinational coalition organised by the CIA and comprising the United States, Britain, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, China and several other countries. Intelligence and military personnel from most of these countries were active on the ground in Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan, funding and training Afghans and Arab volunteers to fight the Soviets.

The other five Afghan leaders were Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a student activist and leader of the Hizb-i-Islami; Yunus Khalis, a mullah, and chief of the Hizb-i-Islami; Nabi Muhammadi, a mullah, the driving force of Harakat-i-Inqilab Islami; Syed Ahmed Gailani, a spiritual elder [pir] who led the Mahaz-i-Milli; and Sibghatullah Mujaddidi, another mullah, who led the Jabha-i-Nitaz-i-Milli. Osama also met Ahmed Shah Masood, the celebrated military commander of Jamaat-i-Islami and an associate of Rabbani.

When Osama arrived in Peshawar there were only a few dozen Arab mujahidin in Afghanistan preparing for the anti-Soviet jihad. Within a few months, Osama fell under the influence of the Jordanian Palestinian, Sheikh Dr Abdullah Azzam, one of the leading Islamists of his generation. Azzam—a stalwart of the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood—influenced Osama’s thinking for the next ten years. As well as teaching at the International Islamic University in Islamabad, he played a key role in formulating and articulating the jihad doctrine that mobilised Afghans and Arab volunteers to fight the Soviets.

Azzam was born in 1941 in the village of Selat al-Harithis, in northern Palestine. Later he joined the Muslim Brotherhood “before he had even come of age,”⁶ and after studying and teaching obtained a bachelor’s degree in shariah (Islamic law) from Shariah College, Damascus University. In the wake of the Israeli annexation of the West Bank in 1967, he went to Jordan and joined the resistance to the Israeli occupation, during which he also studied shariah at al-Azhar University in Cairo. With the expulsion of the Palestine Liberation Organisation from Jordan in 1968, he left for Egypt where he both taught and studied for a doctorate in Islamic jurisprudence at al-Azhar University in Cairo. Azzam was expelled from King Abdul-Aziz University in 1979 for Islamic activism, after which he left for Pakistan.

Together with Osama, Azzam set up the Afghan Service Bureau (MAK) in 1984. Also known as the Afghan Bureau, the Office Bureau or the Service Bureau, it catered primarily for the foreign mujahidin, above all Arabs. As an organisation staffed and managed by the mujahidin, it played a decisive role in the anti-Soviet resistance. In addition to recruiting, indoctrinating and training tens of thousands of Arab and Muslim youths from countries ranging from the US to the Philippines, MAK disbursed $200 million of Middle Eastern and Western, mainly American and British, aid destined for the Afghan jihad. Osama also channelled substantial resources of his own to the cause, a gesture that resonated with his fighters, raising his credibility and allowing him to raise more funds and recruit even more volunteers.

At the height of the influx of Arab and other foreign Muslim fighters from 1984-6, Osama spent most of his time in Afghanistan, moving in 1986 to Peshawar in Pakistan, where he worked from offices in a two-storey villa in the university district.⁷ Osama and Azzam built his first camp, al-Ansar, in Jaji, in Afghanistan’s Paktia province, bordering the North-West Frontier province of Pakistan.⁸ He was fully immersed in fieldwork, which he described as “jihad.”⁹ Azzam also travelled widely, recruiting jihadists from among the Muslim Brotherhood and others, as well as raising funds, especially in the Arab world. He also travelled to Germany and to the US, where he lectured to Muslim communities and was welcomed and feted by Muslims worldwide for his role in the war against the Soviet Union. At one meeting organised by the Muslim American Youth Association (MAYA) in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1982, the audience included Essam al-Ridi, a flight instructor. He was so inspired by Azzam’s rhetoric that he later joined Al Qaeda, serving both as a procurement officer and as Osama’s personal pilot.

Occasionally Osama returned to Saudi Arabia, especially to consult with Saudi intelligence about the Afghan campaign. His wife remained there too, but his son Abdullah, then aged twelve, visited him in Afghanistan.¹⁰ After the anti-Soviet campaign began in earnest, his family rarely saw Osama. For instance, his half brother Yeslem, the eighth or ninth son, claims to have seen him on only a handful of occasions, mostly family functions, till the mid-1980s. Meanwhile Salem, who was educated in Britain and had married an Englishwoman, took over the family business. It was he who transformed it into a global enterprise with offices around the world; but, like his father, he was killed in a plane crash—in Texas, in 1988. Bakr, another brother, then succeeded Salem as chairman of the Saudi Bin Laden Group. Osama invested most of the wealth he inherited from his father’s fortune overseas. Intelligence sources differ over the sums involved: the Swiss, with access to superior banking information, opt for a figure of $250-500 million.¹¹ The Australian government believes it to be over $250 million,¹² while the British estimate is $280-300 million.¹³ In fact Osama inherited between $25-30 million, which through prudent investment was soon generating a very healthy annual return, according to intelligence sources.

To improve Al Qaeda’s social and military infrastructure, Azzam and Osama built for the Arab mujahidin several training camps and guest-houses, including Beit al-Ansar (House of the Companions), Ma’sadat al-Ansar (House of Lions) and the Sidda camp. With Arab fighters in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the early 1980s now numbering 400, the Pakistani government asked the Saudi royal family to dispatch someone to lead this international brigade, and Osama, who had cultivated a close relationship with Prince Turki ibn Faisal ibn Abdelaziz, the Saudi chief of security and intelligence, was the natural choice. As aid for the mujahidin increased, by the mid-1980s Osama was drawing on his family skills, importing heavy machinery, building roads and cave complexes, and supervising the blasting of massive tunnels into the Zazi mountains of Paktia which were to hide field hospitals and arms depots.¹⁴ These facilities, spanning several kilometres, provided for the training and accommodation of hundreds of fighters.

MAK’s Emir (leader), Azzam, and his Deputy Emir, Osama, worked closely with Pakistan, especially its formidable ISI. They also had close contacts with the Saudi government and Saudi philanthropists and with the Muslim Brotherhood. The ISI was both the CIA’s conduit for arms transfers and the principal trainers of the Afghan and foreign mujahidin. The CIA provided sophisticated weaponry, including ground-to-air “Stinger” missiles and satellite imagery of Soviet troop deployments. The Saudi Chief of Intelligence, Prince Turki, worked closely with Osama to coordinate both the fighting and relief efforts, while two Saudi banks—Dar al-Mal al-Islami founded by Prince Turki’s brother Prince Muhammad Faisal in 1981—and Dalla al-Baraka, founded by King Fahd’s brother-in-law in 1982—supported the anti-Soviet campaigns.¹⁵ The two banks channelled funds to twenty NGOs, the best known of which was the International Islamic Relief Organisation (IIRO). Both IIRO and the Islamic Relief Agency functioned under the umbrella of the World Islamic League led by Mufti Abdul Aziz Bin Baz. In addition to benefiting from the vast resources and expertise of governments channelled through domestic and foreign sources, MAK developed an independent global reach. Several mosques and charities, including the Kifah refugee centre in Brooklyn and its mosque, served as MAK outreach offices in the US.

Osama’s philanthropy only made him more popular in Afghanistan. Although he came from a privileged background, his commitment to the jihad, his humility and simplicity and his ability to befriend and communicate with fighters on the ground appealed to the mujahidin. To quote one of them:

“He not only gave us his money, but he also gave himself. He came down from his palace to live with the Afghan peasants and the Arab fighters. He cooked with them, ate with them, dug trenches with them. This is Bin Ladin’s way.”¹⁶

Among the mujahidin, he became known as Shaykh Osamah Bin Muhammad bin Laden, alias Osama Muhammad al Wahad, alias Abu Abdallah, alias Al Qaqa.

While Osama was living on the Afghan-Pakistan border, his religious convictions deepened. He built close relationships with several religious authorities, including Sheikh Umar Abd al-Rahman, who came to Pakistan in 1985. Although Osama played a support, rather than a combat, role he participated in battles in the later stages of the campaign, especially in the 1989 attack on Jalalabad.

In 1987 the mujahidin mounted a daring and spectacular attack against a powerful Soviet offensive involving land and air power. It was one of the most famous battles of the whole war and, due to the high risk encountered, was known as the “Lion’s Den Operation.” Many notable mujahidin participated in it, such as Osama, Abu Zubair al-Madani and Shaykh Tameem Dnani. Shaykh ‘Abdullah Azzam was “in the second line of the front.”¹⁷ Osama was exposed to Soviet poison gas attacks and also suffered minor injuries, as revealed in an interview with Peter Arnett of CNN. And in 1989, Osama fought at Jaji, one of the campaign’s decisive battles, further bolstering his reputation in the eyes of many mujahidin. By winning this battle against the Soviets he showed how their huge military machine could be defeated by unconventional methods.

Osama’s wealth, influence and fearlessness made him a natural leader of the Arab mujahidin—most of whom were Saudis, Yemenis, Algerians or Egyptians—in the late 1980s. Until 1989, MAK kept no records of the number of foreign and Afghan mujahidin serving in Aghanistan, hence we have no precise tally, only estimates. These too vary greatly, with estimates of 25,000-50,000, and their Afghan counterparts numbering some 175,000-250,000.¹⁸

While Osama spent much of his time on the front line, Azzam was popularising the concept of jihad on the Pakistan-Afghanistan borders. His writings on the political dimension of Islam also influenced other Islamist movements, while some consider him to be one of the founders of Hamas. Contrary to public perception, it was Azzam who conceptualised Al Qaeda, primarily to stabilise and harness the massive mujahidin organisation his ideology had helped to create. Nonetheless, Osama’s aim of re-creating the Caliphate, or uniting the whole Muslim world into a single entity, appealed to the Arab mujahidin. At a practical level, Osama and his Egyptian-dominated mujahidin grouping wished to establish Islamic states where rulers deemed too secular held power, beginning with Egypt.

The broad outlines of what would become Al Qaeda were formulated by Azzam in 1987 and 1988, its founding charter being completed by him during that period. He envisaged it as being a organisation that would channel the energies of the mujahidin into fighting on behalf of oppressed Muslims worldwide, an Islamic “rapid reaction force,” ready to spring to the defence of their fellow believers at short notice. Towards the end of the anti-Soviet Afghan campaign, Osama’s relationship with Azzam deteriorated, and in late 1988 and in 1989 they disagreed over several issues. One of these concerned the al-Masada mujahidin training camp on the Afghan-Pakistan border. In early 1989 Osama asked Azzam whether it could be turned over to Al Qaeda in order to become its principal base. Azzam refused, notwithstanding Osama’s continued entreaties. Despite these differences, the two men maintained a public show of unity and continued working together. After Azzam’s death in 1989, Osama was one of the surviving few among the senior mujahidin who organised and supported the anti-Soviet campaign at a strategic level. Privately, Osam...

Table of contents

• Cover 
• Half title
• Dedication
• Title
• Copyright
• Publisher’s Note
• Acknowledgments
• Contents 
• Abbreviations
• Preface (2003)
• Appendix to the Preface (2003)
• Introduction
• 1. Who is Osama bin Laden?
• 2. Al Qaeda’s Organisation, Ideology and Strategy
• 3. Al Qaeda’s Global Network
• 4. Asia: Al Qaeda’s New Theatre
• 5. The Al Qaeda Threat and the International Response
• Notes
• Index