BOOK
REVIEW Legend
of Arabia The Osama
bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of al Qaeda's
Leader by Peter Bergen
Reviewed by Sreeram Chaulia
Not
since the late Egyptian president Gamal Abdel
Nasser has an Arab political figure shaken the
world as Osama bin Laden has. Journalist Peter
Bergen's biography of the man who has fascinated
admirers and horrified adversaries elicits scores
of interviews of those who actually met and knew
him personally. One theme of this revealing book
is the ideological and military struggles bin
Laden waged against the Afghan commander Ahmad
Shah Masood. A second refrain is that bin Laden
certainly thinks strategically, but often acts on
impulse and commits blunders.
Born in 1957
into one of Saudi Arabia's richest and most
intensely
anti-Semitic business
families, Osama bin Laden attended Al Thagr School
in Jeddah. He was "extraordinarily courteous, a
bit
shyer than most other
students and not pushy in any way." (p 9) In 1970,
he accompanied his elder brother Salem to Sweden
and was observed flying
private jets, driving Rolls-Royces, and sporting
Christian Dior and Yves St Laurent shirts. As a
teenager, he was "the peaceful one, weighing his
words carefully before saying anything". He named
his horse Al-Balga, after the one used by the
Companions of the Prophet Mohammed. Friends found
him "very religious" and behaved "like there is a
Sheikh [priest] around in his presence". He fasted
on Mondays and Thursdays and endlessly dreamed of
reclaiming Palestine. "He was upset if something
is not done in an Islamic way. Don't wear short
sleeves, don't do this, don't do that."
Bin Laden grew up in a Muslim world
undergoing an Islamic resurgence - the
Sahwa. He studied Economics at King Abdul
Aziz University but never graduated. Practicing
straitlaced polygamy and shunning music and
television, he was conservatism personified. "He
would not shake hands with a woman, smoke, play
cards, put a picture on his wall or appreciate
art." His living quarters in the Al-Aziziyah
district of Jeddah were bare and humble. In the
family trade, he "used to work with his own hands,
go drive tractors, eat with workers and work from
dawn to sundown tirelessly in the field". An early
distrust of the Saudi royalty arose in him when it
employed force against Islamist militants who had
seized the Al-Haram mosque in Mecca in 1979.
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
transformed bin Laden's life. He joined a small
group of Arabs under sheikh Abdullah Azzam and
founded the Services Bureau in Pakistan, which
recruited mujahideen to fight the communists. His
maiden venture into Afghanistan was in 1984.
Accomplices noted how he avoided soft drinks and
"boycotted all American products because he
believed that without Americans, Israel cannot
exist". At that time, bin Laden was not a leading
figure in the jihad and never delivered speeches.
A still-minor personage, he was known only as a
financier with deep pockets.
By 1986, he
spent much time on the front line with General
Jalaluddin Haqqani in Khost. Gradually, he grew
more assertive and talkative, distancing himself
from Azzam and determined to form his own all-Arab
outfit to fight the Soviets. From 1987, he shed
the image of financier with deep pockets and
turned himself into a holy warrior. His 22-day
stand against the Russians at Jaji earned laurels
and demonstrated his fanatic zeal for martyrdom.
He inched closer to Egyptian jihadis such as Abu
Hafs, Abu Ubaidah and Ayman al-Zawahiri and gained
renown for his construction skills. "If there are
good caves, if there are good bunkers, so there
will be good jihad." In his own words, "these
trenches and tunnels are merely the facilities God
asked us to make. We depend completely on God in
all matters."
Though not charismatic, bin
Laden came across as dedicated and
self-sacrificing to an unparalleled degree. "He
did not love publicity and used to hide himself."
In the 1980s, he distanced himself from radical
Arab elements gunning for ruling regimes in the
Middle East. Prince Turki al-Faisal, head of Saudi
intelligence, met with him often.
Bin
Laden's alliance with Afghan hardliner Gulbuddin
Hekmatyar was engineered by the far more
politically experienced Zawahiri. Egyptian
ultra-jihadists may have been behind Azzam's
assassination, which paved the way for bin Laden
to align against Masood. Whenever Masood's heroics
were lauded, bin Laden would cringe, "I don't need
you to exaggerate about him."
Al-Qaeda was
created in 1988 and developed into a secretive,
disciplined, global organization dominated by bin
Laden. The inspiration for this new entity came
from the example of Abu Bakr, the Companion of the
Prophet, whose army defeated the greatest powers
of the world. From the earliest days, bin Laden
had an interest in recruiting Americans into the
terrorist cause. Wadi el-Haj, a Lebanese-American,
became his personal secretary in the mid-'90s.
Al-Qaeda's aim was "to uphold Islam and defend
Muslims in any part of the world". Entrants had to
be young, zealous, obedient and "with a weak
character [and] obey instructions without
question".
In 1989, bin Laden appeared to
journalists as "a rather spoiled brat, playing at
jihad" and thoroughly enjoying himself in battle
situations. In 1991, he spent more than US$1.5
million to try to conquer Kabul, a project that
collapsed disastrously. Interestingly, he
predicted Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait
months before it happened. "He doesn't believe
Saddam is a Muslim, never liked him nor trusted
him." The House of Saud's decision to rely on
non-Muslims (US forces) to defend the holy land of
Arabia and the retention of these troops after the
Gulf War angered bin Laden no end. He arrived at a
strategy of attacking the US presence in Saudi
Arabia as a way to weaken the legitimacy of the
kingdom's corrupt religious establishment. Thus
emerged the idea of smashing the "head of the
snake rather than its many tails".
Al-Qaeda's first terrorist operation was
in 1991, when it tried to assassinate the secular
Afghan king, Zahir Shah, in Rome to preempt his
chances of being reinstated in Kabul. Bin Laden
instructed the man for the mission, "If a child
was present during the assassination attempt, you
could not attack. I would rather have the king
return and have a civil war than to kill a child."
He also geared the organization for a jihad
against the "infidel" socialist government of
South Yemen.
In 1992, as the Afghan jihad
wound up, bin Laden shifted his base to Sudan and
began a convenient symbiosis with its ruling
National Islamic Front. His friendship with NIF
ideologue Hassan al Turabi was strong. He invested
in Sudanese irrigation, agriculture, commerce,
roads and bridges, but maintained that "our agenda
is bigger than business". An aircraft was
purchased from the United States to transport
Stinger missiles from Peshawar to Khartoum. In
Sudan, bin Laden prayed five times a day, always
slept on the ground, ate simple food including
leftovers from guests, and was "a good Muslim, 100
percent". Ironically, in late 1994, a band of
takfiri Islamists - members of a movement
militantly intolerant of "infidels" - tried to
kill him for not being sufficiently Muslim.
Bin Laden expected US soldiers to come to
Somalia and was ready to spring a surprise on them
a month before their arrival. He dispatched his
military chief, Abu Hafs, to meet the warlord
Mohamed Farah Aideed and reached a cooperation
agreement that spelled doom for the US. Al-Qaeda
agents reached Nairobi in early 1995 to take
photographs and surveillance of the US Embassy.
British, French and Israeli targets were also
selected in Kenya and Djibouti as targets of
retaliation against US involvement in Somalia. In
Sudan, bin Laden met with Imad Mughniyeh of
Hezbollah and concluded an explosives-supply
agreement. Elsewhere, Ramzi Yousef, an al-Qaeda
trainee, masterminded the 1993 World Trade Center
bombing in New York. Plots to assassinate US
president Bill Clinton and pope John Paul II and
the Manila air conspiracy were also unveiled,
betraying the widening ambit of al-Qaeda's jihadi
vision.
Arrests of firebrand Saudi clerics
Salman al-Awdah and Safar al-Hawali enraged bin
Laden in 1994, and he swore to avenge them. "Some
speak through discussion, but I do it well with
the rifle." Despite his mother's pleas, he said,
"Sorry, I'm not going to announce a ceasefire with
the Saudi royal family, the enemies of Islam."
When Riyadh froze his assets, al-Qaeda was plunged
into a financial crisis. Sudanese hosting fatigue
due to Saudi, Egyptian and US pressure led bin
Laden to relocate to Afghanistan, where he was
welcomed by the Hizb-i-Islami.
By July
1996, bin Laden befriended the Taliban, and he
reached the apogee of his power in the following
years. Palestine was the central issue in his
first declaration of war on the US. "I feel still
the pain of the loss of al-Quds [Jerusalem] in my
internal organs. That loss is like a burning fire
in my intestines." In Jalalabad and Kandahar, bin
Laden lived such a harsh life that one of his sons
decided to go back to Saudi Arabia. He disallowed
his fighters from partaking of such luxuries as
cold water and would eat raw pomegranates with
bread three times a day. An attentive listener, he
worked hard on theology by reading textbooks on
the Koran to gain authority to issue
fatwas. "He interprets current affairs
according to religion." Despite being a hunted
man, he sometimes played soccer and volleyball in
the camps. When he produced a sunflower in
Jalalabad's rugged terrain, he boasted, "I
defeated the Americans even in agriculture."
Rather than like a fire-breathing
terrorist, bin Laden carried himself in a low-key
way like a devout monk. "You would have thought he
was talking about the weather, but his remarks
were full of rage and fury against the US." From
Afghanistan, his fame spread far and wide, as
hitting US targets became al-Qaeda's trademark. He
would reiterate, "We are working for a big
operation; namely, dragging the US into a
confrontation with the entire Islamic world." Bin
Laden redirected Zawahiri away from the Egyptian
"near enemy" to the US "far enemy". The
incarceration of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, the
Egyptian blind mullah, in the United States was a
hot-button issue for al-Qaeda. Rahman's
fatwa to attack the US economy, civilians
and aviation were the religious motivations for
planning the scheme carried out on September 11,
2001.
From 1998 to 2000, moderate sections
within the Taliban unsuccessfully appealed to bin
Laden to refrain from provocative interviews and
actions. He distributed money and cars to some
Taliban leaders to buy their acquiescence. His
ability to persuade Haqqani to join the Taliban
also counted greatly with Mullah Omar, who found a
suicidal religious chemistry with bin Laden.
The choice of bombing the US embassies in
Kenya and Tanzania in 1999 was made on the grounds
that "we have to have many attacks outside the US
to make way for our ability to strike within the
US". After these two shocking blows, bin Laden's
profile rose to "top wanted man in the world" and
a symbol of Islamist violence. Saudi intelligence
mounted assassination attempts on him, and Clinton
ordered cruise-missile strikes. In 2000, al-Qaeda
stepped up the ante by bombing the USS Cole in
Yemen "to tell the US that we can deal it a blow
whenever and wherever we want, on the land, in the
sea or in the air".
Bin Laden took to
reciting anti-American poems at weddings that
eulogized slain martyrs. He personally met cadres
seeking dangerous missions and gave his approval,
while leaving the operational planning to
lieutenants. One man tasked with bombing a North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) base in
Belgium heard from bin Laden "that I could
consider him as my father. This is the reason I'm
very fond of him." Regional rivalries among
al-Qaeda members worried bin Laden and he deputed
aides to work on them constantly. Around the
planet, "a strong, almost mystical desire among
jihadis to travel to meet him" emerged.
The Tunisian assassin of Masood swore
personal loyalty to bin Laden and took his orders.
The "Sheikh" wanted Masood dead before September
11, 2001, "because he harmed Allah and his sons".
Ramzi bin al-Shibh personally apprised bin Laden
of the timing of the September 11 attacks five
days before they happened. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,
the operational head of the attacks, "found in bin
Laden some sort of a mentor, a religious
umbrella". For bin Laden, "the Pentagon was a
Jewish target". Abdul Aziz Omari, one of the
hijackers, asked in his videotaped will: "May God
add these deeds to Sheikh bin Laden's balance of
good deeds."
September 11 was a tiding to
bin Laden that for the first time in the modern
age, "the balance of terror has been closed
between Muslims and Americans". He watched Cable
News Network and the British Broadcasting Corp to
gauge the aftermath of the attacks, violating the
Taliban's television ban. "I am fighting a big
war, and I have to monitor the activities of my
enemy through these TV channels." He named his
newest daughter Safia, who would "kill enemies of
Islam like Safia of the Prophet's time".
As the US overthrew the Taliban, bin Laden
moved from Kandahar to Jalalabad and then
disappeared into the Tora Bora Mountains on the
Pakistani border. Though pushed against the wall,
he gloated from his hideout that "American ground
forces did not dare to go into our posts. What
sign is more than that of their cowardice?" On the
run, bin Laden adopted the brief of an "elder
statesman of jihad", gaining in forcefulness and
self-confidence with every new audio- and
videotape release. In 2002, he set the grammar of
jihad with the comment: "As you assassinate, so
will you be, and as you bomb, so will you likewise
be." To people around him, he represented "the
pioneers of early Islamic history - the Prophet's
companions".
Bin Laden considered the
acquisition of nuclear and chemical weapons "a
religious duty". He endorsed al-Qaeda missions to
secure enriched uranium since 1993 and banked on
"our Pakistani friends" to gain know-how about
weapons of mass destruction. Al-Qaeda conducted
experiments on dogs with chemical weapons, since
"using them will give the mujahideen credibility,
prestige and psychological influence". Bergen
discounts bin Laden's and Zawahiri's bravado about
already having a nuclear deterrent in place, but
feels it is certainly possible that al-Qaeda can
launch a radiological ("dirty bomb") attack.
The US occupation of Iraq energized
al-Qaeda and jihad-minded Muslims. In 2004, bin
Laden announced a reward of "ten kilos of gold to
anyone who kills" US dignitaries in Iraq. Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi, the insurgent commander in Iraq
killed this week in a US air strike, publicly
declared allegiance to bin Laden despite his
ideological differences with the "Sheikh".
Zawahiri asked Zarqawi to halt attacks on Shi'ites
since "this won't be acceptable to the Muslim
populace, however much you have tried to explain
it". Al-Qaeda's main contribution to the anti-US
resistance in Iraq is infiltration of Saudi
jihadis in large numbers.
Today, "Bin
Ladenism" - fervent opposition to Western foreign
policies in the Middle East and the desire for
rule by sharia, or Islamic law - is a potent set
of ideas that will survive bin Laden's death or
capture. Yet bin Laden's grander design of
inciting a clash of civilizations has not fully
fructified. Bergen's conclusion is that "he was a
man whose violent tactics became his only
strategy".
Self-abnegating prince,
cold-hearted zealot, obstinate and fearless
warrior, master manipulator of media, survivor -
these are the snapshots running through Bergen's
candid biography of the living legend who
continues to inflame the world.
The
Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of al
Qaeda's Leader by Peter Bergen. Free Press,
New York, 2006. ISBN: 0-7432-7891-7. Price: US$26,
444 pages.
(Copyright 2006 Asia Times
Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us
about sales, syndication and republishing
.)
was observed flying
private jets, driving Rolls-Royces, and sporting
Christian Dior and Yves St Laurent shirts. As a
teenager, he was "the peaceful one, weighing his
words carefully before saying anything". He named
his horse Al-Balga, after the one used by the
Companions of the Prophet Mohammed. Friends found
him "very religious" and behaved "like there is a
Sheikh [priest] around in his presence". He fasted
on Mondays and Thursdays and endlessly dreamed of
reclaiming Palestine. "He was upset if something
is not done in an Islamic way. Don't wear short
sleeves, don't do this, don't do that."
