It is important to understand the mind and the motives of the terrorist. Traditional warfare will never
defeat them. Afghanistan has never been defeated. It is important to realize that the people would
never submit to an American coalition. Reform must come from within the country. Only then might
the Taliban be defeated. JMOP- Mephisto
I believe this article is important because we can begin to understand how they think- Mephisto
'If they declare war on us, so what?'
The friend and mentor of Osama bin Laden tells The Globe's GEOFFREY
YORK that the 'paranoid' Americans can only lose by bombing Afghanistan,
which is just a heap of rubble and mud houses. 'The people there cannot lose
any more than they already have. Anti-American feeling will rise so high that it
won't be safe for Americans to be here'
By GEOFFREY YORK
From The Globe and Mail (Toronto, Ontario, Canada)
Saturday, September 15, 2001 – Print
Edition, Page F3
AKORA KHATTAK, PAKISTAN --
Maulana Sami-ul-Haq has trained more Taliban leaders than any other man
on Earth. He is a long-time friend of the accused terrorist Osama bin Laden,
the most wanted fugitive on the planet. But he also wants you to know that
he has a jolly sense of humour.
He is a man who enjoys a chuckle at the expense of his Western visitors. He
gets a laugh from their startled reaction when he calls out the name of
Osama, one of his eight sons from his two wives. "They get frightened," he
says slyly.
Even though the bearded mullah is merely calling for a glass of tea from his
15-year-old son, he enjoys seeing how the Westerners always look around
nervously, as if expecting the accused Saudi terrorist to cross the threshold
at any moment. "They are so scared of Osama bin Laden," he says, finding
amusement in the thought.
They might also be frightened of the mullah himself, since he has endorsed
bin Laden's 1998 fatwa (religious ruling) that calls on Muslims to kill
Americans at every opportunity. Yet he seems an oddly gentle and friendly
soul, scoffing at their nervousness. "America is much too frightened of
Osama bin Laden," he says.
"It is exaggerating the threat from him. Even on New Year's Eve, there was
supposedly a threat from him. They put guards everywhere and they
couldn't even celebrate New Year's Eve. What can you say about that kind
of paranoia?"
He acknowledges, however, that many of his followers were ecstatic at the
terrorist attacks in New York and Washington this week. "Muslims are
suffering from American policies, and that's why they were so happy," he
says.
Ominously, he predicts that the expected American military retaliation will
provoke a massive international war. "Their bombing will just ignite a fire.
The Americans had such trouble extinguishing even a small fire at the
Pentagon. This will be a much bigger fire, and they will never extinguish it."
Maulana (the title means "our master") Sami-ul-Haq is the chancellor of the
most influential Muslim religious seminary in Pakistan. Some have called it
the jihad factory -- a breeding ground of the holy warriors who spew hatred
at America from terrorist training camps in Afghanistan.
His madrassa,Darul Uloom Haqqania, has produced eight Taliban cabinet
ministers and thousands of other soldiers and officials of the Taliban, the
Islamic purists who control 95 per cent of Afghanistan's territory.
Inside its walls, about 3,000 young men and boys are learning a stern, harsh
brand of Islam. It is an ideology that promotes violent hatred of America.
The madrassa is a palatial compound on the bustling Grand Trunk Road of
northwestern Pakistan, not far from the Khyber Pass. Its network is vast,
and its ambitions are global. It attracts applications from 10,000 boys and
young men every year. As well as educating the Taliban, the madrassa is
training thousands of students from Central Asian republics such as
Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, from Turkey, from China, from the Russian
separatist region of Chechnya, and of course from Pakistan itself. If its
influence continues to spread, the madrassa -- and thousands of similar
madrassas in Pakistan and Afghanistan -- could promote uprisings and
takeovers by Islamic militants in a broad arc of territory across the world.
The students are desperately poor, often from Afghan refugee families. By
attending the madrassa, they get free meals, free lodging and free
textbooks. But in exchange they give up almost any thought of secular life.
Non-Islamic subjects are rarely taught. Television and radio are
discouraged. Boys as young as 8 spend the entire day memorizing the
Koran, in Arabic, even though most do not understand the Arabic language.
(Most speak Pashto, the local language of northern Pakistan and much of
Afghanistan.) In this climate of total control, an ideology of
anti-Americanism is easy to inculcate into young impressionable minds.
A visit to the madrassa this week found the 63-year-old chancellor
receiving a delegation of Egyptian scholars. He sat on a carpet, surrounded
by his followers, chatting amiably with the Egyptian visitors. Later, he moved
to his office, where his aides gave tea and pastry to the Western journalists
who wanted his opinion on the terrorist attacks in the United States.
Birds were chirping outside his window, and the sound of the mid-afternoon
call to prayers drifted hauntingly into the room from the madrassa's
blue-tiled mosque nearby. A green Islamic flag stood on the table in front of
him, and a map of Afghanistan was on the wall. A security guard, armed
with an automatic rifle, was stationed in an office nearby.
It doesn't take much prompting to get Sami-ul-Haq to explain what he sees
as the rational basis for the anti-American hatred that fuels the Islamic
extremists. When he hears the first question on the terrorist attacks, he
immediately begins a long speech about the Jews who, he says, are pushing
the American government into an anti-Muslim war.
"Jews and Christians are fighting against Muslims, but it is the Jews who
have the most antagonistic policy toward Muslims," he says. "The Jews have
so much control over the United States, and their people are in so many
positions, that they have a stranglehold over America and Europe too. The
U.S. election was an example of how the Jews can manipulate everything in
the United States. If anyone goes against them, they create a conspiracy to
stop it."
American leaders have proclaimed that the terrorist attacks are the
beginning of the first war of the 21st century. But from Sami-ul-Haq's
perspective, the war has been raging for a long time, and it was the United
States that launched the war against the Muslim world. This, he says, is the
source of the venom and hatred that motivates many of his followers.
"We are already in a state of war. Without declaring war, the Americans are
undermining our sovereignty. You can see Afghan refugees in Pakistan who
are suffering from American policies. The American policy is to establish its
superiority all over the world and make itself the only superpower. They
want to seize all economic, political and military control. If they declare war
on us, so what? Pakistan is already so dependent on them that we have to
ask the World Bank for permission when we set the price of potatos."
The war, he makes clear, is a global one. He recites a long list of Muslim
grievances around the world: Iraqi and Afghan children dying of hunger
because of U.S.-led sanctions; Palestinians dying in air strikes by
U.S.-backed Israeli forces; American troops stationed on the sacred Islamic
holy land of Saudi Arabia. Even non-Muslim countries such as China and
Japan are growing resentful of the U.S. military presence on their soil and in
their airspace, he says.
"They are all the victims and targets of U.S. economic policy. The
Americans want to impose a new world order. Muslims are the only power
opposing that. Muslims cannot accept any world domination. Islam is
growing everywhere, it has become very strong in Europe and it is spreading
very fast in the United States. That's why the Americans are doing
everything possible to stop it. But whenever anyone opposes the United
States, they are called terrorists."
As he speaks, he adjusts his grey-and-white turban and gestures with his
spectacles, sometimes interrupting the interview to speak into a red plastic
1970s-style telephone.
He sticks to the official Taliban line: The terrorism attacks had nothing to do
with Osama bin Laden, all terrorism should be condemned and the United
States should investigate properly and find clear proof of who is guilty
before it takes any action. He even hints that American terrorists may have
been responsible, since the hijackers could not have flown over the
Pentagon "unless they had an insider with them."
Like many in this region, he notes that Osama bin Laden himself was
supported by the United States when he was fighting against the Soviet army
in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
"Osama was a hero to them. America was very happy with him, because he
spent millions of dollars on the war against the Soviets. But then the
Americans took control of everything in Saudi Arabia -- its resources and
oil -- and stationed their military there. It was almost the same as the Soviet
occupation of Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden fought the Soviets and now, in
the same way, he is fighting the Americans."
Bin Laden, he says, is moving around between caves and mud houses in
Afghanistan, with his movements watched and restricted by the Taliban.
"He doesn't have the capacity to do this. He doesn't even have telephones.
But America needs an evil figure. They want to keep him alive, to use the
myth of him to keep control of Saudi Arabia and other countries. They are
blaming Muslims to justify an attack on Afghanistan and Pakistan."
Sami-ul-Haq is not just a religious leader. He also heads a pro-Taliban
faction of a radical Islamic party, the Jamiat-Ulema-Islami. He is a former
Pakistani senator. And he is president of the Afghanistan Defence Council, a
coalition that includes secular groups as well as religious organizations. (He
has called a meeting of the coalition for Monday to discuss how to respond
if the United States launches military strikes on Afghanistan.)
"Afghanistan is a heap of rubble and mud houses," he says. "There is nothing
there, only hunger. The Taliban are facing deep troubles. Why would they
attack America? If the United States bombs Afghanistan, the people there
cannot lose any more than they already have. It is the Americans who will
lose. Anti-American feeling will rise so high that it won't be safe for
Americans to be here."
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