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2 Bin Laden talks of victory, not
defeat By Michael Scheuer
Nearly a month since Osama bin Laden
published his message to "our people in Iraq", it
is worth taking a look at what bin Laden really
said versus what the media, Western leaders and
some prematurely mirthful pundits claim he said.
In the most obvious sense, bin Laden's
October 23 statement is a post-Iraq war statement
and a further development of Ayman al-Zawahiri's
2005 message to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the now dead
leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq.
From al-Qaeda's perspective, the war is over and
Islam has won; Washington's announcement last week
that it intends to begin the withdrawal of 3,000
troops, as well as the US Congress' recess without
renewing war funding, will bolster this
perception. Bin Laden's message is, however, a
warning to all Iraqi mujahideen - Sunni and
Shi'ite - that the hardest task is yet to come:
namely, the creation of an Islamist state in Iraq.
Bin Laden's October 23 message builds on
the July 2005 letter from Zawahiri to Zarqawi. At
that time, Zawahiri told Zarqawi that the
mujahideen had beaten the US-led coalition and
urged him to prepare for US withdrawal, which
might, he added, be "precipitous". Bin Laden's
October message mirrors Zawahiri's in concluding
that the US coalition has been beaten, and in
stating that the only unknown is the precise
moment of its withdrawal.
There is nothing
in bin Laden's statement that criticizes the
mujahideen for not fighting well - indeed, he
refers to "magnificent victories" that make
Americans "prisoners of their bases and the Green
Zone" - much less anything that suggests they are
losing. "The world has stood stunned, amazed,
delighted and wonder-struck" over the Iraqi
mujahideen's effectiveness and perseverance, the
al-Qaeda chief said.
Watching America the tyrannical:
watching its legions breaking apart under your
strikes, its brigades being wiped out in front
of your raids and its battalions being
obliterated by the pounding of your squadrons
... O people of Iraq ... O eminent ones of the
Turks, Kurds and Arabs: the affair of unbelief
[the US occupation] has been shaken and
confused, and the time of his fleeing is nigh,
so increase his confusion and disarray, and
strike some more at his neck and hit it with a
bone-cutting sword. The bearer of the banner of
the cross has increased his soldiers and claimed
that he will defeat the soldiers of faith, so be
resolute - may Allah be merciful to you - and
remember Him much, for he is watching you ...
You have done well by carrying out one of the
greatest of duties which few carry out:
repelling the attacking enemy.
Bin
Laden's words are a bit more hyperbolic than
usual, but they match the presiding sense of what
he described as the "amazement" that exists among
both the mujahideen and Muslims generally over the
fact that US-led forces have been beaten so easily
in Iraq, and that they are withdrawing with what
Islamists surely view as minor losses for a
superpower with a population of more than 300
million.
And we may already be seeing the
insurgents spreading the "confusion" bin Laden
called for among US-led forces, whose leaders are
perhaps too eager to see victory in statistics
that show a slowing of insurgent attacks. Always
students of Sun-Tzu, Mao Zedong and the great
Afghan commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, the Iraqi
insurgents and their al-Qaeda and other foreign
allies are simply not taking on US "surge" forces
toe-to-toe - knowing they would be crushed - and
are making fewer but more targeted attacks, moving
to other areas of Iraq or simply lying low to
fight another day [1].
As important - and
this was the Massoud model during the Soviet
army's retreat - the Iraqi mujahideen have heard
US politicians promise withdrawal, and they know
US voters favor withdrawal. In this case, they see
little sense in aggressively attacking a
retreating foe, risking humiliating him, and
thereby causing him to reconsider his decision to
leave in favor of staying to fight.
After
praising the insurgents' victory, bin Laden
delivers the crux of his message and puts it
frankly:
But some of you have been tardy in
performing another duty which is also among the
greatest of duties: combining your ranks to make
them one rank as loved by Allah, who said,
"Truly Allah loves those who fight in His cause
in ranks, as if they were a solid cemented
structure."
Bin Laden here is
reaffirming al-Qaeda's consistent post-2003
position on Iraq: (a) the US-led coalition will be
evicted because the Iraqi mujahideen will prolong
the war and kill unacceptable numbers of US
military personnel, thereby causing political
discord in America; and (b), in Zawahiri's words
to Zarqawi, it will be a harder struggle for the
insurgents "to fill the void stemming from the
departure of the Americans, immediately upon their
exit and before un-Islamic forces attempt to fill
the void ..."
Bin Laden, like Zawahiri
before him, warns the Iraqi mujahideen that the
Islamist movement has a wretched record in
consolidating victory over infidel forces, and
warns them that they must be fully alert to "the
full magnitude of the [infidel] conspiracies being
hatched against you".
Even before US
forces withdraw, bin Laden explains, "infidelity
on all its levels - international, regional and
local - is combining to prevent the establishment
of the state of Islam", as they effectively did
after the Red Army left Afghanistan, once the
Taliban took power there, and after Hasan Turabi
stated his intention to make Sudan an Islamic
state. As always, however, bin Laden does not
blame these Islamist failures on the infidels;
rather, he damns the Islamists for not recognizing
that only mujahideen unity can prevent the wasting
of military victory. Bin Laden reminds the Iraqi
insurgents:
And the Messenger of Allah (peace
and blessings of Allah be upon him) said:
"Observe the group and avoid factionalism, for
Satan is with the loner and farther away from
the pair. Whoever wants the comfort of the
Garden must stay with the group ... Sticks
refuse to break when banded together. But if
they come apart they break one by one."
My brothers, the amirs of the mujahid
groups [in Iraq]: the Muslims are waiting for
you to gather under one banner to enforce truth.
And when you carry out this act of obedience [to
God], the ummah will enjoy the birth year
of the group. And how it longs for this year,
and perhaps it will come soon at your hands. So
seek - may Allah have mercy on you - to carry
out this great lost obligation.
Bin
Laden goes on to urge "sincere people of knowledge
and
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