Asia Times: US courts Muslim backlash


	September 12, 2001	atimes.com

India/Pakistan

US courts Muslim backlash
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - A group of Arabs which has been fighting in Afghanistan for many years and which is ideologically affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood (Al-Iqwannul Muslamoon) was behind the attacks on the United States east coast, sources have told Asia Times Online.

The attacks were in retaliation for plans by the US to attack Afghanistan to arrest Saudi millionaire Osama bin Laden and for the US role in the Middle East crisis, the sources said.

Bin Laden, who commands Islamic fundamentalists willing to die attacking the US, which they see as the ultimate enemy, has been the target of a massive US manhunt since 1998 when bomb attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania killed 224 people and injured 4,000. Bin Laden has lived in Afghanistan for several years with the support of the Taliban government.

The latest developments took place at a time when Lieutenant-General Mehmood Ahmed, the director general of Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence returned to Pakistan on Tuesday from a week-long visit to the US where he officially met with Central Intelligence Agency chiefs and other top officials at the Pentagon. He is reported to have agreed to allow the US to use Pakistan as a staging ground to launch an attack on Afghanistan to seize bin Laden, dead or alive.The chief of the US Central Command was scheduled to visit Pakistan on Wednesday to finalize the details of this operation, but the trip has been called off.

The Taliban leadership in Kabul has denied any involvement in the attacks and even expressed sympathy for the victims and their families. Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar and other officials of his hardline Islamic movement condemned the attacks as terrorist acts and said that they were too complex to have been organized by bin Laden from Afghanistan. Bin Laden is reported by an Arab journalist with access to him to have warned three weeks ago that he and his followers would carry out an unprecedented attack on US interests for its support of Israel.

Sources close to the Taliban government told Asia Times Online that the Afghan government had devised a strategy in the event of a US attack and that all precautionary measures had been taken to ensure the safety of bin Laden.And on Wednesday, a leader of the Taliban government, Mulla Zaheef, issued a statement to the press condemning the attack on the US, but at the same time warning US authorities that if any attack was made on Afghanistan, they will give a crushing reply.

In anticipation of US reprisals to be launched from Pakistan against Afghanistan, swarms of journalists have descended on Islamabad. Even the New Zealandcricket team, which was scheduled to arrive early on Wednesday, has landed in Singapore due to the uncertain situation.

According to sources close to the Taliban, the suicide bomb attack on Sunday on Ahmed Shah Masoud, the leader of the Northern Alliance fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, was carried out on the instructions of bin Laden. While the world's press claims that Masoud is dead, his aides deny it is so.

The charismatic Masoud is the only person capable of holding the Northern Alliance together. It comprises a number of groups, each with a different idealology. Should Masoud indeed be dead, it will be a short time before rival factions develop, effectively leaving the Taliban as the sole rulers of Afghanistan. They currently control about 90 percent of the country as it is.

Bin Laden has followers in every corner of the world, and many fought against the Soviets during their occupation of Afghanistan and received ideological training from the former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Abdullah Azzam, the main motivational force for the jihad (holy war) in Afghan.

Ironically, had America not portrayed bin Laden as such a serious threat to its interests he would not have attracted as many followers, such as those in Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Syria, Libya and Saudi Arabia.

One of the most dangerous trends for US interests is bin Laden's silent following in Islamic movements, such as the Muslim Brotherhood and the Jamaat-i-Islami. The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt in 1928 by a schoolteacher, Sheik Hassan al-Banna. Al-Banna preached a return to a more simple approach to life centered on Islamic values. Today, the Muslim Brotherhood has branches in more than 70 countries. They are permitted to operate under its name or under other names, depending on the environment in different countries.

The Brotherhood and many other Muslim organizations have renounced their revolutionary stance over the past few decades and adopted a democratic path to gain power. However, if the US does attack bin Laden, their positions could be reversed and a whole new wave of militancy be unleashed.

Talking to Asia Times Online on Wednesday Yahya Mujahid of the Lashkar-i-Taiba, a prominent militant group fighting in Kashmir and belong to the Saudi Wahabi school of thought, said that the party was dedicated to fighting againstIndian armed forces in Kashmir and it did not involve itself in any other issues. However, when asked what would happen if the US launched an attack on Afghanistan, he said. "then it will be a different issue".

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