KARACHI - Al-Qaeda is in the process of a
decisive ideological debate that could see the
highly secretive group restructured within a year,
with bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, and adopting a
more open, centralized, approach.
Two
issues lie at the heart of the matter. The first
is whether al-Qaeda achieves its aims by "fighting
against evil", or whether it "fights against evil
and its allies", according to contacts
familiar with the group who spoke to Asia Times
Online.
The second issue involves
al-Qaeda's lack of a physical base, a matter of
concern to Islamic scholars, following its retreat from
Afghanistan and subsequently
being forced out of hideouts along the
Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
Regarding the
discourse on al-Qaeda's enemy, on one side a major
portion of al-Qaeda wants to remain true to the
original goal of ousting foreign forces from the
Persian Gulf region and ending the occupation of
Muslim territories; on the other, a powerful group
led by Egyptian Abu Amro Abdul Hakeem, also known
as Sheikh Essa, who has strongly influenced
elements in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, believes
that the targets should be extended.
In
al-Qaeda jargon, there are dajal (anti-God)
forces, and there are allies of dajal. The US and
its European allies are dajal forces, and
remain the primary target of the majority in
al-Qaeda.
Sheikh Essa argues that the
Muslim leaderships in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Jordan,
Egypt and, not least, Pakistan should not be
considered pro-God forces, as they are now.
Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are central in
this debate. Sheikh Essa fervently believes that
the Pakistani military is as bad as that of the
US, and thus should be categorized as a dajal
force whose leader, President General Pervez
Musharraf, sides with the US with full conviction.
The October 8 earthquake in South Asia,
which has claimed tens of thousands of lives, most
of them in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, has
added incendiary clout to Sheikh Essa, whose
followers now claim that the disaster was God's
revenge against Pakistan, especially as it took
place exactly on the fourth anniversary of the
launch of US air sorties from Pakistani bases to
strike against Afghanistan, where al-Qaeda had a
strong presence.
The Sheikh Essa faction
has other reasons to hate the Pakistani
establishment as it is seen as having betrayed the
al-Qaeda cause by handing over hundreds of
al-Qaeda members, and even their children and
wives, to US authorities; this following
Pakistan's reversal of its support for the Taliban
and the Pakistani army being sent into the tribal
areas to root out foreign fighters and members of
the Afghan resistance.
Osama bin Laden has
always resisted taking the fight to Muslim
countries. According to scholars such as Saad
al-Faqih, who is considered very close to
al-Qaeda, bin Laden understands that a major blow
against Saudi Arabia would bring down the regime,
but the ensuing chaos and mayhem would be reason
for the US to justify sending its troops into the
holy land.
The senior al-Qaeda leadership
believes that only Musharraf is "pro-dajal", and
not the Pakistani Army; therefore for the time
being they want to leave Pakistan alone and keep
their focus on the US.
Asia Times Online
contacts close to al-Qaeda say that recently the
top leadership has become alarmed at the widening
split within the organization and has begun
consultations with all major Islamic jihadi groups
and scholars.
Pending the results of these
deliberations, expected by the end of this
northern winter, a definitive and final word on
the real course of the struggle will be reached,
after which major decisions are expected on the
shape and nature of al-Qaeda.
Back to
base Many among Islamic groups, scholars
and educated masses in the Islamic world are
sympathetic with al-Qaeda's struggle against US
imperialism, but they have serious reservations
over its shadowy nature and its methods of
operation, many of which, they believe, go against
the tenets of Islam.
From the days of the
Prophet Mohammed it has been established that
neither the message of Islam nor its struggle is a
secret. Therefore, Muslim scholars are agreed that
an Islamic state is a prerequisite before - and
from which - jihad can be waged.
This
places al-Qaeda in something of a spot, as
nowadays it has no "home base" from which to wage
jihad. In discussions in the past several months
with prominent scholars and a top leader of an
Islamic group (followed by Asia Times Online
contacts), al-Qaeda leaders argued that they were
fighting a defensive jihad as Afghanistan had been
attacked and occupied, followed by Iraq. Since
they don't have a piece of land in their
possession, al-Qaeda has had to conduct irregular
and guerrilla warfare.
However, the
contacts maintain that the al-Qaeda leadership is
optimistic that by the start of summer next year
they will be in control of significant "space" in
Iraq and in Afghanistan, which would legitimize
their jihad in the eyes of scholars.
This
would include appointing an ameer
(commander) whose name would be announced, and
al-Qaeda's irregular fighting would be organized
under one command. The existing setup of small,
virtually independent cells would be subsumed
under the single command, and no one would operate
on their own, as has been the trend since al-Qaeda
lost their base in Afghanistan following the
ouster of the Taliban in late 2001, and the
intense pressure of the US-led "war on terror",
which saw many communication and financial links
severed.
The cells would fall under single
commands in Iraq and Afghanistan, from where they
would be directed for external operations, such as
launching attacks on the US.
If al-Qaeda
prevails over its internal conflicts and adopts
the strategy as outlined above, it would be a
major turning point not only for the organization,
but for the whole of the Muslim world and beyond.
Dawa (Islamic message),
hijra (evolution from an enemy state into
an Islamic state) and jihad are the three stages
based on the life of the Prophet Mohammed to bring
about revolution in society.
In essence,
al-Qaeda, which means means "the base" in Arabic,
is in search of a physical base, like the
mujahideen had during the Soviet resistance period
in Afghanistan in the 1980s, when they grabbed all
rural Afghanistan, or like the one al-Qaeda had
two years ago when it moved into the Shawal and
Shakai areas near South and North Waziristan on
the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, before being
driven out by combined US and Pakistan efforts.
Once new bases are found - al-Qaeda
confidently believes this will be done in Iraq and
Afghanistan - the process of dawa,
hijra and jihad will begin, and many
presently peripheral Islamic groups across the
world will pour into these two countries for a
reinvigorated campaign against US forces.
Syed Saleem Shahzad, Bureau
Chief, Pakistan Asia Times Online. He can be
reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact us for information
on sales, syndication and republishing
.)
