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Jihadis: Assassins by another
name
By K Gajendra Singh
In
1253, when the French ambassador William of Rubruck
arrived at the court of the great Mongol Khan in his
capital at Karakorum, he was struck by the elaborate
security precautions around the city. He was told that
it was because the Khan had heard that no less than 40
dagger-wielding Assassins, or Ismailis, who used
assassination, and the fear of it, as a political
weapon, had come from the Middle East to kill him. In
response, the Khan, or Ghengis, sent one of his brothers
with an army to the "land of Assassins" with orders to
kill them. Hulegu Khan destroyed the assassin bases in
Persia, and later the Mameluke Baybars from Egypt had
their bases in Syria wiped out.
The second
millennium Assassins could not inflict harm in
Karakorum, but their 3rd millennium descendents, led by
Mohammed Atta, stunned the United States-led West, the
current world hyperpower, by attacking the symbols of
its financial clout and military might, the World Trade
Towers in New York and sections of the Pentagon in
Washington, on September 11, 2001. For the first time in
its history, war has been brought right into the heart
of US territory, making it dar ul harab (the
house of war).
The stunning attacks have left
behind an abiding aura of terror, specially among New
Yorkers. Even a normal air accident now shatters jangled
nerves and morale. Like the great Khan of Karakorum, who
was feared and whose writ ran throughout the known world
then, "Emperor" US President George W Bush, as some US
writers now describe him, spontaneously called for a
"crusade" and "infinite justice", which expressed the
reality better than the substituted slogans, "war on
terrorism" and "enduring freedom" adopted to avoid
offending Muslims. Secretary of State Colin Powell had
promised a white paper proving al-Qaeda's involvement in
September 11. Whatever happened to that?
While
the Muslim masses all over the world have watched daily
brutalities inflicted on Palestinians and their
persecution since the occupation of their land, in
October, 2001, they saw a war unleashed on Afghanistan,
killing many thousands of innocent civilians. That war
is still continuing, but the mastermind of al-Qaeda,
Osama bin Laden, and his former hosts, the Taliban
leadership, have not been apprehended. Then came an
illegal and unjustified war against Iraq and its hapless
people. The weapons of mass destruction, the so called
causus belli have not been discovered and are no
longer even mentioned .
In fact, US Deputy
Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz, virtually even
said that the real reason for the attack was Iraqi oil.
His chief, Donald Rumsfeld, said that the US now looked
at the world from the prism of September 11, making it
look like a tribal vendetta. This further convinced the
Muslims ummah that there is a Western crusade, and many
have answered the calls for a jihad. After having been
dispersed from Afghanistan, the jihadis are now
collecting in Iraq to take on the US-led coalition
forces.
The people of the US and the United
Kingdom, whose governments are in the forefront of the
"war against terrorism", now look towards East with
panic, and at home with trepidation, as millions of
Muslims live in the US, the UK, France, Germany and
other European countries. Many Muslims have been the
victims of a backlash and highhandedness, especially in
the US. This could lead to further alienation, and new
crops of recruits for terrorism. In Iraq, thoughtless
disbanding of nearly half a million battle-hardened
armed and security forces now provide the backbone of
the resistance against the occupation forces.
September 11 and New Yorkers
According
to a recent New York Times report about the impact and
fears of September 11 among New Yorkers, "the simmering
disquiet persists, a lengthening shadow that won't
leave". It said that "most New Yorkers [ are] feeling no
safer, no more convinced that the terror won't come
back. The narrative of that day is older now, but the
city still feels its amplitude. It is as if the populace
has stalled in its march toward fully being itself
again."
A New York Times/CBS News poll of 976
adult New Yorkers, taken last week, underscored that
lasting damage has been inflicted on the city's psyche.
"Two-thirds of the people questioned said they were very
concerned about another attack in New York. They might
be thinking and talking less often about the terrorist
attack, but the subtext of discomfort is every bit as
intense. In measure after measure, the sampling found
New Yorkers trapped in the same state of queasy normalcy
that they found themselves in the more immediate
aftermath. Some avoid the subway, stay away from
skyscrapers, sleep fitfully, find new solace in
religion," the poll commented. Nearly a third of those
questioned said that their lives had not returned to
normal, as they continue to wrestle with the imprint of
that day.
To a question about the changes
wrought by the terror attack and its permanent effect on
New York, "Roughly 60 percent felt there would be an
enduring impact, and just as many felt it would be
negative as felt it would be positive." There remains
little confidence in the security measures meant to
protect the city's infrastructure. And most New Yorkers
feel that the city is unprepared for a biological or
chemical attack that might contaminate the air or the
water. Two years after September 11, New Yorkers feel
the city remains as vulnerable as ever, the poll
concluded.
Drill in London
On
September 7, British authorities with ministers present
carried out in London's financial district the most
elaborate and high profile anti-terrorist drill that
Britain has ever seen. Designed to be as realistic as
possible, it was presumed that terrorists had struck at
the Bank Underground station with a substance similar to
the poisonous gas Sarin. The drill was intended to test
how the emergency services worked together and the
effectiveness of new equipment purchased in the
aftermath of September 11.
Ken Knight, London
fire commissioner, was reported as saying, "It is
arduous work, so the maximum we would expect crews to be
able to work in the suits is 20 minutes. This was a
significant exercise, but it is only in the next few
days, when we debrief, that we will find out how it
really went."
While its success and immediate
repercussions are not clear, the last such drill in
February had deterred foreign tourists from visiting the
capital and damaged London's economy. But the government
ministers and London's mayor felt that the exercise was
essential. It is hoped that the efficiency of the
emergency services would be better than UK's train
services. How the British people look at it is another
matter. The majority were opposed to the invasion of
Iraq, and Prime Minister Tony Blair's popularity has
slumped.
Cry wolf, wolf
In February,
an exercise in London and US cities almost looked like a
parody of the fable "wolf , wolf", which was organized
to influence the UN Security Council vote on the report
of chief weapons inspector Hans Blix. (Later he
commented that the US had already decided and planned to
make war on Iraq.) Passengers reaching London's Heathrow
airport were surprised when they found it surrounded by
tanks and armored cars full of troops. Orange alerts,
the second highest, were enforced in the US and UK, with
helicopters and planes covering the airspace of the two
countries.
An editorial in the Arab News on
February 14 commented on this as follows, "Has UK Prime
Minister Tony Blair taken leave of his senses? The sight
of tanks and armored patrol vehicles patrolling London's
Heathrow airport suggests so. Does Blair envisage an
al-Qaeda Panzer division? Washington appears equally
paranoid. Batteries of anti-aircraft missiles have been
set up around the city with fighter planes patrolling
overhead, while Americans have been warned to stock up
on water blankets and food."
The US
administration has adroitly exploited the fear of
terrorism to shut out the Democrat opposition under the
garb of patriotism and the flag, and to invade Iraq,
with full support from the committed corporate US media,
cheer-led by channels like Fox, MSNBC, CNN and others,
and most of the print media too. That the media were
successful is shown by the fact that polls show that a
majority of Americans believe that the Iraqis were
behind September 11. Never mind that of the terrorists
of that day, 14 of the 19 were Saudis, the others
Egyptians.
Still, many million US citizens
protested against war plans on Iraq early this year, and
some even went to Afghanistan to commiserate with
Afghans.
Neglected homeland
security
Six months after it was established, the
US Department of Homeland Security remains short of
funds, disorganized with turf battles and unsteady
support from the White House, and it has made only
halting progress to protect the nation from terrorism,
according to independent experts and even administration
officials. It was created in March by merging 22 federal
agencies and their 170,000 employees, which the Bush
administration had initially resisted.
The
understaffing results from several factors, not the
least being that many potential recruits for top jobs
decline because they consider homeland security a
government backwater. One ranking department official
said that in part because of staffing shortages, "It's
impossible for this department to do anything but manage
by the in-box ... there's not a lot of brainpower
asking, 'What's our agenda? What are the threats of the
21st century?'."
"Not only do we do our day jobs
of guarding the borders, securing the ports and scanning
passengers entering the airports, we also are
reorganizing the entire department," said department
spokesman Gordon Johndroe, adding that "the department's
roles and missions are still being defined. We're
learning what works."
Despite a budget of over
US$36 billion, money is scarce and a constant
preoccupation for department managers. Federal budget
experts drastically underestimated the costs, which
Congress and the White House have generally refused to
increase. The result is a cascading budget crises. At
the same time, tens of billions of dollars have gone in
tax reductions, mostly benefiting the rich.
Assassins old and new
Although
Europeans heard of the Assassins of the early second
millennia through the Crusaders and other travelers,
they could put together the story until the 19th
century. Not many Crusaders were victims, the first
being Conrad, king of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem,
but it made a profound impression.
Marco Polo,
who passed through Persia in 1273, described the
fortress in the valley of Alamut near the Caspian, the
headquarters of the sect. Enclosed between two
mountains, it was like a paradise, with gardens full of
beautiful flowers and fruit trees, running streams of
water, honey and wine. Beautiful women sang and danced
to please the guests. When the sheikh wanted an opponent
to be assassinated, one of the disciples under training
was commissioned and given hashish. He was then given a
glimpse of the paradise around him, and told that he
would return to it if alive, otherwise he would enter
the "real" paradise directly.
The motivation of
the Assassins was religious fervor and obedience to the
sheikh. They learnt many languages, the art of fighting,
posed as seers and waited years, even decades, for the
opportunity to knife their target and then die happily.
The word Assassin perhaps originates from its abusive
use in Syria (their latter stronghold ), where they were
considered wild and fanatic, like drug addicts.
The Assassins' targets were their tormenters,
the Sunni Arab caliphs and Seljuk Sultans and their
officials. Some caliphs, many generals and senior
officials, like Nizam ul mulk, were assassinated. Many
lived in terror of the Assassins, and even paid them
tributes.
The Nizari sect of the Assassins was
established towards the end of the 11th century by
Hassan al-Sabbah around Alamut after the end of Shia
Fatimid caliph rule in Egypt. They claimed descent from
Fatima and Imam Ali. The Shah of Iran later gave the
title of the Agha Khan to their chief. After an
unsuccessful rebellion, they left Persia in 1860 for
Afghanistan, and then took refuge in India. The British
allowed the Agha Khan to settle in Bombay (now Mumbai).
When he sought obedience from all of Bombay's Khojas (a
Gujarati-speaking Muslim community), some opposed it.
The case went to the Bombay High Court, whose chief
justice, Sir Joseph Arnould, on November 12, 1866 ruled
that Bombay's Khojas were part of the larger Khoja
community of India. Their religion was of the Ismaili
wing of Shi'ite Islam and their ancestors were Hindus
who had been converted by a Persian missionary four
centuries earlier. Of course, now the Agha Khans live in
Europe, are successful businessmen, breed race horses
and vacation on the rivieras.
"We are rolling
back the terrorist threat to civilization, not on the
fringes of its influence, but at the heart of its
power," George W Bush said on September 8. Whatever the
US and its allies might do, Islamic fundamentalism is
now the life and death challenge of the 21st century.
Third millennia Assassins relying on traditional
individual and cell-based terrorism will continue, and
as before, terror has helped in creating a new mood of
suspicion, of polarization, and of a search for enemies
- and that indeed is one of its purposes. In this way,
it has inevitably enhanced the vulnerability of the
world to new economic shocks.
A damaged and
battered UN
Three devastating bomb attacks in
Iraq in August have set the course that Iraq might now
take, but not according to the vision of those with
little sense of history or those who do not oppose
occupation after "Operation Iraqi Freedom".
The
August 9 attack on the embassy of Jordan in Baghdad
warned neighbors and other nations friendly to occupying
powers to keep off Iraq.
The massive August 29
bombing near the sacred Imam Ali Shrine in Najaf -
whether by Sunnis or ex-Ba'athists with or without the
support of foreign jihadi groups is not yet clear - sent
a clear message: Those such as Shi'ite leader Grand
Ayatollah Mohammed Baqr al-Hakim, who died with scores
others in the attack, who cooperate with the US-led
authority in the country, are in grave danger.
And the classic funeral protests that have
followed al-Hakim's death should alert the US. Shi'ite
funeral ceremonies were used to neutralize and then
overthrow the Shah of Iran in the Islamic Revolution of
1979.
However, it was the August 18 attack on
the United Nations compound in the capital that sent the
strongest message of them all, highlighting how the
world body has suffered by losing its legitimacy in Arab
and Muslim eyes with its differential implementation of
resolutions on Palestine and Iraq.
The attack,
which took the life of Sergio Vieira de Mello, the
Brazilian UN Special Representative to Iraq, has sent a
warning to countries that might be tempted to help
stabilize the US-led occupation, even with a UN mandate.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who tends to be
cautious in his assessments, like the Oracle of Delphi,
has been more explicit and said a few days ago, "The
United Nations finds itself, at present, at a critical
juncture." In the longer term, Annan said, "Unless the
security council regains the confidence of states and
world public opinion, individual states will
increasingly resort exclusively to their own national
perceptions of emerging threats and their own judgment
on how best to address them."
He added, "We
continue to lack the political will, as well as a vision
of our responsibility in the face of massive violations
of human rights and humanitarian catastrophes occasioned
by conflict." A UN source said, "He can no longer
pretend it is business as usual."
Post
September 11
In September, 2002, the US announced
a new National Security Strategy, asserting that it will
maintain global hegemony permanently and any challenge
will be blocked by force. The strategy declared that the
US, alone, had the right to carry out "preventive war" -
preventive, not preemptive - using military force to
eliminate a perceived threat, even if invented or
imagined.
Even now there is no credible evidence
for the alleged link between Saddam and his known bitter
enemy, Osama bin Laden. The invasion of Iraq has
certainly increased recruitment to al-Qaeda-like
outfits, and the threat of terror to the world and in
Iraq, as US forces are finding out. Meanwhile, bin Laden
remains at large and the Iraqi weapons of mass
destruction are still missing.
"According to the
official version of history, CIA [Central Bureau of
Investigation] aid to the Mujahideen began during 1980 -
after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan on December
24, 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now,
is completely otherwise. Indeed, it was July 3, 1979
that President [Jimmy] Carter signed the first directive
for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime
in Kabul - to induce a Soviet military intervention." Z
Brzezinski, national security adviser to president
Carter, in Le Nouvel Observateur, Paris, January 15-21,
1998.
Ironically, it s now the US that is bogged
down in Afghanistan, as well as in Iraq, and there is no
end in sight, as Bush has acknowledged. "There's no
telling how many wars it will take to secure freedom in
the homeland," the president announced last year.
Recently, Ami Ayalon, former head of the Shabak,
Israel's general security service, observed that "those
who want victory" against terror without addressing
underlying grievances "want an unending war. The world
has good reason to watch what is happening in Washington
with fear and trepidation."
K Gajendra
Singh, Indian ambassador (retired), served as
ambassador to Turkey from August 1992 to April 1996.
Prior to that, he served terms as ambassador to Jordan,
Romania and Senegal. He is currently chairman of the
Foundation for Indo-Turkic Studies. Email Gajendrak@hotmail.com.
(Copyright
2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved.
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