Inside the anti-US
resistance By Syed Saleem
Shahzad
Osama Bin Laden is ill and
invisible, but five years after September 11,
2001, his al-Qaeda movement has become the fulcrum
of a global, Islamic resistance against the United
States.
Asia Times Online has learned from
an operative close to the al-Qaeda leadership that
bin Laden languishes on a dialysis machine, in
rapidly declining health.
"Sheikh [Osama]
was in a poor condition when my father last
visited," said the operative, who uses the name
"Abdullah". Abdullah's father, known as Sheikh
Ibrahim, is number two after Tahir Yuldeshev in
the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IUM), a
group closely allied with
al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and operating in
Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Pakistan.
Sheikh Ibrahim's meeting with bin Laden
took place "a few weeks ago", Abdullah told Asia
Times Online in an interview at the end of June in
a northern Pakistani city. Abdullah had traveled
there from North Waziristan, a Pakistani tribal
agency on the Afghanistan border, to meet this
correspondent.
"He [bin Laden] asked all
of us to pray for his health. For the past many
months he has been on dialysis and just cannot
move. My father never told me where he was when he
met Osama ... but he was worried about his
fast-waning health."
Nevertheless, said
Abdullah, the al-Qaeda leadership remains in
Afghanistan and still serves as the nucleus of the
movement.
"Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri [bin
Laden's number two] is very active in Afghanistan
and controlling affairs. Most of the Arab fighters
left Afghanistan after the US invasion of Iraq and
many went there to fight. But the main leadership
of al-Qaeda continued to stay in Afghanistan,"
Abdullah said.
Abdullah is a tall,
strongly built 23-year-old. He lived through some
very hard times after the US invasion of
Afghanistan and the Taliban's subsequent retreat.
His family moved to Pakistan's southern city of
Karachi, and later went abroad. In 2003, when the
Taliban regrouped in South Waziristan, his family
returned to Karachi.
Abdullah has been in
a position to observe the rise and fall of the
Taliban over the past eight years, due to his
father's senior position in the IMU as well as his
own involvement with the movement.
"Until
the end of 2003 Karachi was the focal point of all
al-Qaeda, Taliban and other people who fled from
Afghanistan. But constant intelligence operations
forced us to leave Karachi and by the end of 2003
we reached South Waziristan, where my father
joined hands with Sheikh Essa [an Egyptian] and
Tahir Yuldeshev," Abdullah said.
He
confirmed Asia Times Online reports that bin Laden
had been short of funds, hampering al-Qaeda
operations. Still, Abdullah maintained that the
al-Qaeda leadership would remain in Afghanistan
despite all difficulties, because of the country's
identification with Bilad-i-Khurasan - a land,
Muslims believe, where Muslim armies will finally
regroup and go to liberate the "land of Abraham"
from the Anti-God (Dajal).
"I have
heard this notion since the days when Abu Hafs
[the al-Qaeda number three who was killed in a US
strike on Kabul in 2001] was alive. He often
repeated that," Abdullah said.
Abdullah
also revealed that international players are
aligning themselves with al-Qaeda and the Taliban
in a global Islamic alliance to fight the US.
"The money is now with Tahir Yuldeshev,
who organizes Uzbek youths in South Waziristan.
Where the money comes from is a mystery, but a few
years ago I personally witnessed two sources of
his funding, one from Turkey and the other from
Saudi Arabia. Both were private people. I was with
Tahir and I personally saw him receiving money in
Madina," Abdullah said.
"Many months ago,
I learned about a delegation of Muslim youths from
Russia who met with Mullah Omar [the Taliban
leader] and offered to arrange a supply of
Russian-made missiles and sophisticated weapons,
for cash. Mullah Omar refused the deal.
"However, recently another development
happened which once again reminded us that
international forces are aiming at us.
"The development occur in the wake of
differences between the Uzbeks. A group of Uzbeks,
to which I belong, defied Tahir Yuldeshev because
of his dictatorial behavior. We left South
Waziristan and went to the North Waziristan town
of Mir Ali. His dictatorial behavior aside, there
were many other rumors in circulation about him.
All put a question mark on Tahir's integrity."
(At this time, Yuldeshev was settled in
South Waziristan and allied himself with local
commander Abdullah Mehsud. Yuldeshev was not
active on any front.)
"There were a lot of
things published in the Russian press about
Tahir's connection with Americans. We were not
sure about that, but the way Tahir made himself
aloof from al-Qaeda and the Taliban created
doubts," Abdullah said.
Yuldeshev then
"circulated a message through a CD, strictly for
his Uzbek circle, in which he stated that a smear
campaign was being run against him by Russia.
Tahir said that Russians contacted him, and after
he approved they came to see him in South
Waziristan and offered him a deal to finance him
and provide arms and ammunition to fight against
the Americans in Afghanistan, on condition that he
gave up his struggle in Uzbekistan.
"Tahir
said on the CD that he refused the offer outright,
after which a campaign was run to malign him and
portray him as having CIA [the US's Central
Intelligence Agency] connections."
Nevertheless, as Asia Times Online has
reported, recently a greater alliance hasbeen
formed throughout North and South Waziristan.
Yuldeshev has changed his reclusive behaviour and
joined hands with Haji Omar, Biatullah Mehsud and
other Taliban commanders in a new drive against
the American-led forces in Afghanistan.
(Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
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