AT THE END of June 1997 Sudan’s spiritual leader, Hassan al-Turabi, convened a secret meeting of Sunni terrorist leaders at his home in al-Manshiyah, Khartoum. The participants included the leaders of Sudan’s intelligence and terrorism apparatus; Ayman al-Zawahiri, a close confidant of Osama bin Laden’s; two senior commanders of the Algerian “Afghans” (one from France, one from Bosnia/Italy); and commanders of jihad forces from several countries in the Horn of Africa and East Africa.
The participants at the meeting resolved to reverse the sorry state of the Islamist movement by launching an invigorated assault on the West and its allied regimes in the Muslim world. In his opening statement Turabi warned that the Islamist jihad had sunk to such a low due to “the disgraceful condition of the mujahideen because of their splintering, disputes, and inability to consider their risks.” If this process were not reversed, the Islamist trend would suffer setbacks it could not withstand. What really concerned Turabi was Sudan’s loss of leadership and prominence in Sunni Islamic terrorism as the increasingly dynamic alliance of Iran and bin Laden’s Afghanistan-based “Afghans” took over. Turabi considered this state of affairs detrimental to the very existence of Islamist Sudan.
The resolutions that came out of the meeting reflected Turabi’s anxieties and priorities, but within the context of the greater Islamist strategy formulated in Tehran. The participants agreed to rejuvenate the PAIC from its present state of “lethargy.” They decided to concentrate on practical and operational issues, convening a conference in secret once every three months. The participants would be drawn from the ranks of those wholly committed to “exporting the Islamic revolution” and “to Jihad.” Recognizing bin Laden’s growing posture and prominence, the meeting participants resolved to invigorate Khartoum’s relations with the Arab “Afghans” and “intensify contacts with them, so that they will join with their brothers in the Jihad in Khartoum, provided that the [Sudanese] government furnishes the required travel documents for their departure from their areas in complete secrecy.” All in attendance agreed with Turabi’s analysis of the growing threat to Islamist Sudan and the urgent need to address the challenge through jihadist operations—that is, international terrorism.
Initial implementation of the resolutions began almost immediately. By August significant preparations were already evident in the Islamist camps in Sudan when Osama bin Laden arrived for an inspection tour. After reviewing the operational plans, he committed his forces and assets currently in Afghanistan and Pakistan to the forthcoming terrorist offensive. A special camp for the Arab “Afghan” expert terrorists was built on bin Laden’s plantation in al-Damazin, Sudan. Abdul-Majid al-Zandani, who was then running operations into the Hijaz in western Saudi Arabia, also arrived from Yemen to confer with bin Laden and Turabi. The three leaders resolved to launch a “true war of Jihad” against Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia and also a war to protect Sudan against what they believed to be U.S.-inspired conspiracies and assaults now centered in East Africa. To better prepare for concurrent terrorist strikes at the heart of the West, several Arab “Bosnian” agents and terrorists were pulled out of their posts in Western Europe and brought to Khartoum for consultation, training, and preparation.
But the Islamists had other priorities that overshadowed Turabi’s anxieties about Sudan. In summer 1997 the Islamists had committed themselves to launching spectacular operations during the 1998 Soccer World Cup in France. Toward this end, in early September Zawahiri “vanished” for nearly a month in Western Europe. While there he traveled all over the continent, using at least six passports. His tour led to the reactivation of dormant terrorist networks and the restoration of contacts between Islamist networks and cells in Spain, Italy, France, and Belgium and the command center in London. In London, Zawahiri met at least three senior terrorist commanders: Adil Abdul-Majid (also known as Abdul-Bari), Yassir Tawfiq al-Sari (Abu-Ammar), and Mustafa Kamil (Abu-Hamzah). Zawahiri also went to Italy, where he dealt with the local chief of Iranian intelligence, Mahmud Nurani, a veteran of the Iranian terrorist system who had served in Beirut in the early and mid-1980s, operating under Ali Akbar Mohtashemi, a former HizbAllah supervisor. Nurani had been directly involved in establishing and running the HizbAllah. In Italy, Nurani is the chief supervisor of intelligence and terrorism operations for Italy and the Balkans, mainly Bosnia-Herzegovina and Albania-Kosovo.
In mid-September 1997 the highest echelons of the Iranian leadership met to discuss the new course of the anti-American struggle. The participants included both veteran and new officials, such as Iran’s spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Also present were newly elected president Mohammad Khatami, who has a reputation in the West as a relative moderate despite his commitment to Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism and acquiring weapons of mass destruction, and the previous president, Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, who is heavily involved in terrorist-related issues. This was the first major conference attended by Iran’s new minister of intelligence, the assertive and efficient Qorban Ali Dari Najafabadi. Other key participants in this conference were General Rahim Safavi, the commander in chief of the IRGC; General Mohsen Rezai, former commander in chief of IRGC, now responsible for reorganizing the Iranian security services and their networks; Intelligence Minister Qorban Ali Najaf-Abadi; former intelligence minister Ali Falahian (not confirmed); former intelligence minister Mohammad Mohammadi Rayshahri, who is at present Khamenei’s special adviser on intelligence affairs; Hossein Sheikh-ol-Islam, Iran’s former deputy foreign minister and once again director of the Office of Liberation Movements; Ali Akbar Mohtashemi; General Diya Sayfi, the commander of the IRGC forces in Lebanon; and members of the Supreme National Security Council and senior IRGC and intelligence officials.
In their meeting the Iranian leaders determined that if they were going to change the strategic map of the Middle East, they needed to capitalize on the despair and anger sweeping the Arab world over Israel and the United States. The conference decided to send “warlike and terrorist” messages that would shock the world. The conference approved with slight modifications “a confrontation plan prepared several months ago” and ordered the Supreme Council for National Security to press ahead with the implementation of “plans to export the [Islamic] Revolution by force” using Iranian-controlled terrorist forces—specifically networks of the HizbAllah and Arab “Afghans” already in the West. According to a high-level Iranian source, “There was unanimity among Iranian leaders that an important part of the Islamic Revolution’s assets and Iran’s power lay in Tehran’s ability to terrorize its enemies and in possessing the means to pose a threat to security and stability in the [Persian] Gulf, the Middle East, and the [entire] world.”
The conference’s formulation of guidelines for the terrorist campaign was not a manifestation of arbitrary zeal but a prudent conclusion that terrorism was the most expedient method for furthering Iran’s strategic objectives. The high-level Iranian source explained that Tehran resolved “to send the message to all concerned that Iran was capable of imposing its revolution and spreading terror to the territory of whoever calls into question its status as a key regional player.” With its economy in shambles and internal discontent and problems on the rise, Tehran acknowledged that “Iran’s prowess lies mainly in its capacity to mount terror and [its] possession of the means to pose a threat to the [Persian] Gulf and world stability and security.” Within this pragmatic definition of Iran’s national strategic objectives, it was the issue of ensuring Iran’s posture as a “key regional power” that put East Africa on the short list of terrorist objectives. Tehran determined that it was in Iran’s self-interest to address Sudan’s strategic aspirations. The coincidence of Sudan’s and Iran’s interests would contribute directly to the spectacular terrorist operations of August 1998—the bombing of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania.
On September 20–23, 1997, Iranian intelligence organized a major summit of terrorist leaders from all over the world under the cover of commemorating the anniversary of the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq War. Again the list of participants was impressive: Imad Mughaniyah and Abdul-Hadi Hammadi, both leaders of HizbAllah Special Operations; Ayman al-Zawahiri and another Egyptian “Afghan” commander who arrived from London; Ahmad Jibril, chief of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine—General Command (PFLP-GC); Osama Abu-Hamdan and Imad al-Alami of the HAMAS; Ramadan al-Shalah, chief of Palestinian Islamic Jihad; and three commanders representing branches of HizbAllah in the Persian Gulf States.
Participants at the terrorist summit examined the Islamists’ ability to markedly escalate the struggle against the U.S.-led West. Several senior Iranian officials addressed the summit and ordered the terrorist leaders “to be ready to launch an unprecedented international terrorist campaign.” For example, Mohsen Rezai warned that the U.S.-led campaign to undermine Iran “would orphan the Mujahideen and destroy their dreams [for an Islamist Nation] unless we declare a Jihad everywhere.” According to Iranian and Arab sources, the summit adopted a contingency plan focusing on the United States, Israel, and Turkey. At the top of the terrorists’ tasks were “the launching of attacks against diplomatic missions and commercial legations and the assassination of representatives of the three countries.” (Among other reasons, Turkey became a target in 1997 when the democratically elected Islamist government was forced out by the military.) This Tehran conference, one of the most important terrorist summits in recent years, focused on the “immediacy” of “embarking on a worldwide and unprecedented campaign of terror.”
To meet the operational and organizational deficiencies identified by some of the attending terrorist commanders, Tehran arranged for advanced training in camps in Iran and the Bekáa. Key to the effort would be the specialized training sessions conducted under the command of Ahmad Abrari (from the IRGC’s central training unit) for HizbAllah and Arab “Afghans/Bosnians” from the West (mainly Europe) at al-Imam al-Muntazar Seminary, also in the Bekáa.
In late September 1997 the Iranian leadership met again to discuss the course of the forthcoming terrorism offensive in light of the resolutions and findings of the just concluded international terrorist summit. They also received an updated report on the status of Islamist terrorist networks in Western Europe and elsewhere.
In early October major preparations began in Afghanistan and Pakistan for an escalation of Islamist terrorism throughout the world. Several key events took place.
First, veteran, highly trained Arab “Afghans” were pulled out of Kashmir and other regional fronts and brought to training camps in Pakistan (mainly in the Lahore area, where the ISI prepares people for operations in the West) and Afghanistan (mainly the Khowst and Qandahar areas) for advanced training and preparation “to activate their operations against Arab and Islamic targets in the Middle East.” Meanwhile new cadres—Kashmiri (Indian and Pakistani), Afghan, Pakistani, Indian-Muslim, and Arab—were prepared to launch “a genuine Intifadah” throughout India. (The reason for the Islamist sponsoring states’ change of strategy in the armed struggle in Kashmir and India as a whole was Islamabad’s apprehension that its sponsorship of terrorism in Kashmir would be increasingly exposed. The proposed “Intifadah” would be made to look like an indigenous grassroots development.)
Second, Osama bin Laden held a war council in Qandahar with senior Islamist commanders from all over the world to discuss forthcoming operations to undermine the U.S. presence and influence in the Middle East. Ayman al-Zawahiri participated in this conference after traveling back clandestinely from Western Europe. Conference participants resolved to concentrate on hitting American objectives wherever they could be found. Emphasis would be put on striking objectives whose destruction would severely interfere with the U.S. ability to implement its policies and strategies. Recognizing the centrality of Egyptian “Afghans,” Zawahiri was put in charge of operations aimed at bringing down the Mubarak government.
Finally, Nurani was assigned responsibility for a group from the Middle East who would arrive clandestinely in Italy later in the winter of 1997–98 via the small Albanian port of Sendein, north of Durres, and/or Bosnia-Herzegovina. He would then bring them into Western Europe, using the Algerian and Tunisian “Afghan” networks in Milan, Bologna, and other Italian cities.
In late October 1997 the Iranian leaders held a final session to study the preparations for escalation throughout the international terrorist system. Representatives of between twenty and thirty terrorist organizations, fronts, and entities, predominantly Islamist but also non-Muslim, gathered in Tehran for a secret conference sponsored by the Intelligence Ministry. Among the participants were HAMAS, the Palestinian Jihad, al-Jamaah al-Islamiyah and related Egyptian organizations, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the Kurdistan Workers Party, the Algerian Armed Islamic Group, and Moroccan Islamists. Also present at the meeting were non-Islamic extremist organizations such as the Armenian Secret Army, the Greek 17 November Movement, and several representatives from Latin America.
A meeting for select Islamist leaders was held in Qum immediately after the Tehran conference concluded. In that meeting Iranian officials tried to estimate how well certain Muslim communities could withstand the retribution that would result from the anticipated wave of terrorism. The Tehran summit also decided to use non-Iranian Islamist organs as the mouthpieces for the new campaign to give it a pan-Islamic character.
Later that month the Vanguard of Conquest and the Jihad Group, both under the command of Ayman al-Zawahiri, issued a major communiqué that declared the forthcoming terroristic jihad. “The Islamic Jihad against America’s world dominance, the international influence of the Jews, and the U.S. occupation of Muslim lands will continue,” the communiqué declared. “The United States realizes that its real enemy, as it has declared many times, is Islamic extremism, by which it means the Islamic Jihad, the Jihad of the entire Muslim Nation against the world dominance of America, the international influence of the Jews, and the U.S. occupation of Muslim lands. The Islamic Jihad is against the theft of the Muslim Nation’s riches, this disgusting robbery, the like of which has not been witnessed in history.” To avert the promised wave of violence against the United States and its Middle East allies, the United States would have to leave the region and accept the establishment of Islamic governments. Otherwise the Islamists promised a relentless terrorism campaign against the United States. The communiqué concluded with a bold reaffirmation of the Islamist trend as the paramount enemy of the United States. “Yes, America’s enemy is Islamic extremism, meaning the Islamic Jihad against America’s preeminence … the Islamic Jihad which stands against Jewish expansion.”
These were not idle threats. On November 17, 1997, Zawahiri’s forces carried out an act of carnage in Luxor, Egypt, killing close to seventy West European tourists and wounding hundreds more. On December 6, 1997, a series of bombings and other terrorist strikes took place throughout India, presented as a commemoration of the anniversary of the December 1992 destruction of the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya by militant Hindu extremists. In Pakistan, Islamist leaders stressed that these events were the beginning of an “Intifadah.”
Tehran continued to actively prepare for the new campaign of spectacular terrorism. In the second half of November 1997 Khamenei convened a meeting with Safavi and Ahmad Vahidi, the former commander of al-Quds Forces, Iran’s primary terrorist forces, to discuss the establishment of a new elite terrorist force to carry out spectacular but deniable terrorist strikes against the United States and the West. The force was allocated special training facilities in Mashhad. The first combat team of sixty terrorists was recruited from both “clean” and “Afghan” Muslims in Chechnya, Holland, Belgium, Germany, and France. They were smuggled to Iran via Pakistan and Afghanistan and trained as five strike teams of twelve terrorists each. Tehran planned for the first missions to be carried out in Argentina and France. On December 2 Khamenei and the leadership received an updated report on the preparations for these operations and approved the implementation of certain specific operational plans, including the two operations against Argentina and France. The new terrorist force was formally named “The Heroes of the Islamic Jihad.” Tehran also ordered the launch of a doctrinal campaign to prepare and mobilize the Muslim Nation. The Argentinean operation was aborted soon afterward when the terrorist team proved unprepared for the operation. The French operation—striking at the Soccer World Championship—was aborted in 1998 when the support headquarters was discovered in Belgium.
Islamist leaders stressed that the events unfolding in fall 1997 were only the beginning of a major clash with the West. In early December Zawahiri’s Jihad group determined that a fateful confrontation between the United States and militant Islam, in which the Jihad intended to “offer martyrs,” was both inevitable and imminent. “A conflict between the Muslim Nation and the United States is unavoidable; in fact we have no other option but to confront atheism and its ringleader, the United States, which is confronting us everywhere. With God’s help, we know the United States well,” the Jihad bulletin noted; “we also know its weaknesses.” The bulletin stressed that “the most vulnerable spot of the United States and Israel is to send them the bodies of their sons.” Therefore, the Jihad declared, “we should throw in their faces the flesh of their sons, minced and grilled. The United States must pay the price; it must pay dearly.” Zawahiri’s Jihad had no doubt about the ultimate objective of the forthcoming confrontation: “The Americans themselves admitted half of the truth when they said that the United States’ first enemy is Islamic extremism, but they hid the other half, namely that the United States’ destruction will … be at the hands of Muslims.”
AT THE TIME that the terrorist warnings of late 1997 were being issued, Zawahiri, bin Laden, and the highest echelons of the leadership of Islamist international terrorism were preoccupied with one of the most significant yet least understood or known dramas of Islamist terrorism: an apparent secret deal between the Islamist terrorists and the Clinton administration that drove Egypt into de facto cooperation with the Islamist terrorism-sponsoring states against the United States.
This incident determined Egypt’s position vis-à-vis U.S. policies in the Middle East and also the reaction of both major and minor players in the Middle East to the U.S. handling of the Iraqi crisis of February 1998, when the Clinton administration attempted to build support for the use of force against Iraq in response to Baghdad’s refusal to cooperate with U.N. monitors. The larger regional dynamics more often than not determined each actor’s attitude toward the crisis in Iraq and the Clinton administration in particular. Mubarak’s Egypt effectively prevented Arab support for the use of force against Iraq.
Cairo’s position throughout the crisis of early 1998 was shaped by Mubarak’s reevaluation of the role and posture of the United States in the region and the Muslim world as a whole rather than merely by his reaction to the unfolding crisis with Iraq. Changes in the regional strategic relationship of forces that are still unfolding all resulted directly from what is known as “the Abu-Umar al-Amriki incident,” which took place in late fall 1997.
If very senior Islamist terrorist leaders are to be believed, the Clinton administration was willing to tolerate the overthrow of the Mubarak government in Egypt and the establishment of an Islamist state in its stead as an acceptable price for reducing the terrorist threat to U.S. forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina. This trade-off was raised in discussions between Egyptian terrorist leader Ayman al-Zawahiri and an Arab American known to have been an emissary of the CIA and the U.S. government as a whole. Egypt’s president, Hosni Mubarak, is convinced that the information about this meeting is accurate and has taken major steps to address the challenge.
In the first half of November 1997 Ayman al-Zawahiri met a man called Abu-Umar al-Amriki (al-Amriki means “the American”) at a camp near Peshawar, on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. High-level Islamist leaders insist that in this meeting Abu-Umar al-Amriki made al-Zawahiri an offer: The United States would not interfere with or intervene to prevent the Islamists’ rise to power in Egypt if the Islamist mujahideen currently in Bosnia-Herzegovina would refrain from attacking the U.S. forces there. Moreover, Abu-Umar al-Amriki promised a donation of $50 million (from unidentified sources) to Islamist charities in Egypt and elsewhere.
This was not the first meeting between Abu-Umar al-Amriki and Zawahiri. Back in the 1980s Abu-Umar al-Amriki openly acted as an emissary for the CIA with various Arab Islamist militant and terrorist movements—including the groups affiliated with Azzam, bin Laden, and Zawahiri—then operating under the wings of the Afghan jihad. In some of their meetings in the mid-1980s, Zawahiri and Abu-Umar al-Amriki discussed the long-term fate of Egypt and Zawahiri’s own role in an Islamist Egypt. In the late 1980s, in one of his meetings with Zawahiri, Abu-Umar al-Amriki suggested that Zawahiri would need “$50 million to rule Egypt.” At the time Zawahiri interpreted this assertion as a hint that Washington would tolerate his rise to power if he could raise this money.
The mention of the magic figure, $50 million, by Abu-Umar al-Amriki in the November 1997 meeting was interpreted by Zawahiri and the entire Islamist leadership, including Osama bin Laden, as a reaffirmation of the discussions with the CIA in the late 1980s about Washington’s willingness to tolerate an Islamist Egypt. In October 1997 the war council chaired by bin Laden had put Zawahiri in charge of the Islamist operations aimed at bringing down the Mubarak government. In November 1997 the Islamist leaders were convinced that Abu-Umar al-Amriki was speaking for the CIA—that is, the uppermost echelons of the Clinton administration.
Arab Islamist observers stress that the horrendous terrorist strike in Luxor on November 17, 1997, was actually a test of the credibility of Abu-Umar al-Amriki. The senseless slaughter of tourists was more than an affront to Mubarak’s Egypt. The outright attack on Westerners, who might have been American tourists, was designed to gauge how Washington would react. The virtually deafening silence of the Clinton administration had to reassure Zawahiri and bin Laden that Abu-Umar al-Amriki had spoken with its backing, and a rejuvenated call to arms followed. On the eve of the strike in East Africa, the Islamists’ belief in the validity of their “deal” with Washington would lead to a major, continuing crisis.
In fall 1997 the United States had reason to worry about Zawahiri’s plans and intentions. While the Clinton administration was strenuously attempting to convince Congress and the American people of the need to keep U.S. forces in Bosnia beyond the June 1998 deadline—despite a promise explicitly made to Congress—the U.S.-sponsored government in Sarajevo was actively preparing for a military confrontation to regain control over the Republika Srpska (the Serb-controlled parts of Bosnia) by force, using weapons and training provided by the United States under the “Train and Equip” program. One of the scenarios Sarajevo contemplated in fall 1997 was the use of Islamist terrorism against the Americans to expedite the withdrawal of the U.S. forces if the Clinton administration refused to support the Bosnian Muslim military surge. The most effective and lethal Islamist terrorists in Bosnia were under Zawahiri’s command.
By mid-December 1997 Cairo had learned about the Abu-Umar al-Amriki episode. Egyptian officials confirmed that they had known about him and his role as an emissary for the CIA since the 1980s. As far as President Hosni Mubarak and his immediate advisers were concerned, the evidence they had was reliable enough to act on, and a sense of urgency dominated official Cairo. Cairo knew that the Egyptian Islamists and their key sponsors, Iran and Sudan, were convinced that only massive U.S. support for President Mubarak had prevented the Islamists from establishing an Islamist state in Egypt. Official Cairo also knew that even the appearance of a withdrawal of U.S. support from Mubarak was sure to embolden the Egyptian Islamists and their sponsoring states to markedly escalate their armed struggle, and Cairo was already having troubles withstanding Islamist terrorism and subversion.
In early December 1997, days after reports of the meeting between Zawahiri and Abu-Umar al-Amriki surfaced, Egypt’s government-owned newspaper al-Jumburiyah published a story that began as follows: “A security source has revealed fresh information on the way foreign parties exploit terrorist elements. The information indicates the existence of mutual benefits between terrorist elements inside and outside Egypt in destabilizing the country and crippling its economy. The source said that an official of one Western security organ had a meeting with Ayman al-Zawahiri, leader of the al-Jihad Organization, at a camp in Peshawar on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan.” The story then went on to recount the meetings held between Zawahiri and Abu-Umar al-Amriki, “who acted as a go-between for the CIA” back in the 1980s, during the war in Afghanistan. The story served as notice to those who knew more that official Cairo also now knew more about the subject, in particular the most recent developments.
The Egyptian media immediately began preparing the public for a drastic change in policy vis-à-vis the United States, Israel, and Sudan—the latter being the primary sponsor of Islamist terrorism against Egypt and the safe haven from which terrorists strike out into Egypt. For years Sudan’s spiritual leader, Hassan al-Turabi, had been Mubarak’s archnemesis.
Early in January 1998 the Egyptian media started to report CIA plots against Egypt. The opposition paper al-Shab, which is well connected to and identifies with the nationalist sector within the defense establishment, published a long survey of an American-Israeli conspiracy run by the CIA. The paper observed that the new U.S. ambassador to Egypt, who was Jewish, “has come to Cairo to implement U.S. plans hostile to Egypt. Meanwhile, President Bill Clinton’s administration has started to carry out an organized plan to besiege Egypt on all fronts that can threaten Egypt’s national security.” The paper provided a long list of anti-Egyptian, as well as anti-Sudanese, political and military activities it attributed to a joint CIA-Mossad (Israel’s foreign intelligence agency) conspiracy against Cairo. One item mentioned was the CIA’s central role in the conspiracy to deprive Egypt of its rights to Umm-Rashrash, the southern part of Israel’s Negev desert and Eilat, its port city on the Red Sea coast. This has been Egypt’s official reason for a future war with Israel since August 1997 despite the existing peace treaty.
In another article al-Shab established the logic for the sudden improvement of relations between Cairo and Turabi’s Sudan. The paper noted that Egyptian intelligence had recently acquired critical information shedding new light on crises that determined Cairo’s relations with Khartoum. Cairo now knew of the “involvement of the CIA and the Mossad in planning the assassination attempt on President Mubarak in Addis Ababa” in 1995, not only in order to kill the president but also “to pin the accusation against Sudan, in an attempt to spark an immediate war between the two countries.” Egyptian intelligence was also “examining the link between this attempt [on Mubarak] and the recent massacre in Luxor.” The CIA and Mossad, Egyptian intelligence had discovered, “have succeeded in indirectly recruiting some Arab ‘Afghans’ and provided the financial and military backing needed for Mubarak’s assassination attempt and the Luxor massacre.” The terrorist commander of both the 1995 attempt on Mubarak’s life and the 1997 carnage in Luxor was Turabi’s protege, Ayman al-Zawahiri—a point not lost on Mubarak’s Cairo. Cairo realized that Zawahiri’s efforts at overthrowing Mubarak were sponsored by Sudan and therefore Turabi. The key to collapsing the Islamist armed movement in Egypt would be for Cairo to befriend Sudan—then Turabi would stop funding Zawahiri.
Al-Shab explained that taken together, the evidence of the ongoing CIA-Mossad conspiracies against Egypt and their past duplicity in trying to implicate brotherly Sudan in their own crimes against Mubarak now warranted a profound reexamination of Egypt’s strategic priorities. “The evidence made available to the Egyptian [intelligence] agencies [has] resulted in a strategic change in Egypt’s stance vis-à-vis Sudan,” al-Shab reported. The new policy had already caused “President Mubarak’s announcement that Sudan does not sponsor terrorism and Dr. Hassan al-Turabi’s statement that he [had] nothing to do with the attempt to assassinate Mubarak,” al-Shab explained. “In both cases, the conspiracy sought to divide the Arab and Islamic ranks. The high-level Egyptian-Sudanese contacts show that both sides are serious about exposing the role of the CIA and the Mossad in conspiring against Egypt and Sudan and containing the consequences caused by this conspiracy over the past years.”
This was a dramatic, swift reorientation in the strategic outlook of a major regional power—and it went virtually unnoticed in Washington, now solely preoccupied with the elusive Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. By late January 1998 the Abu-Umar al-Amriki episode had already had a devastating impact on Mubarak’s Cairo because it confirmed what President Mubarak wanted to believe—that the United States would betray Egypt if it could get what it wanted from the Islamists in the Balkans. Mubarak resolved to mend his ties with Tehran, the key to which was joining the drive to undermine the U.S. presence and influence in the Middle East, including the reversal of the Peace Process and the beginning of preparations for a possible military confrontation with Israel.
By early 1996 Mubarak had decided that the United States could not determine the shape of the Middle East. By mid-1996 the Egyptian armed forces had begun active preparations for a possible war with Israel. Mubarak raised the issue of Umm-Rashrash in spring 1997 as a casus belli for Egypt in a closed forum of his high command. In the summer, during Mubarak’s brief, dramatic visit to Damascus, Egypt joined a regional military alliance led by Iran and comprising Syria, Iraq, and the PLO. A few days later Cairo leaked the Umm-Rashrash issue, using a Saudi venue associated with the Sultan faction in Riyadh—that is, Washington’s closest ally within the House of al-Saud. The Egyptian leak was a clear message to both the Clinton administration and the Saudi royal family.
Previously Mubarak’s plans to switch Egypt’s strategic alliances had been lacking a reason for the Islamists to cease their terrorism and subversion, a source of strong pressure on Mubarak, and also a formal excuse that would enable Cairo to break its close relations with Washington. Now the Abu-Umar al-Amriki episode, which President Mubarak believed to be true, resolved both issues. Cairo now had “proof” of a U.S.-inspired conspiracy against President Mubarak, a legitimate excuse for a crisis in bilateral relations and a motive for revisiting Egypt’s relations with Sudan in order to nip in the bud any design Turabi might have for empowering his protégé Zawahiri in Cairo. This episode reaffirmed Mubarak’s growing conviction that Egypt’s future lay with joining the Iranian-led strategic alliance and participating in any ensuing conflict with Israel. This decision would not only ensure that Egypt would continue to have a prominent role in the Arab and Muslim world but would also secure Mubarak’s own survival at the helm.
The specter of a wave of Islamist terrorism led by bin Laden, Zawahiri, and their supporters against the United States and its allies, the realignment of forces in the Middle East to the detriment of U.S. strategic interests, and the growing likelihood of major crises and war in this region all emerged as the price Washington paid for its effort to prevent the violent collapse of the Dayton Accords in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
In summer 1998 leaders as diverse as bin Laden, Mubarak, al-Baz, Turabi, and Zawahiri remained convinced that Abu-Umar al-Amriki spoke for the CIA and the Clinton administration. All acted accordingly. At the climax of the crisis management for “the Abu-Umar al-Amriki incident” the United States came calling in the Iraqi crisis and expected Cairo to concentrate on meeting the Baghdad challenge. But Mubarak was more interested in dealing with Turabi and Zawahiri in the context of a challenge to his own vital interests—a challenge he was convinced had been instigated by Washington.
By early 1998, just as the crisis in Iraq was heating up, Cairo had given up on meaningful cooperation with the United States and was reaching out to the Islamists. Egypt emerged as a militant leader of the Arab world and a dominant actor in regional strategic dynamics. Tehran’s effort to solidify the emerging regional military alliance with Egypt had been relentless, as the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) summit in Tehran in late 1997 had shown. During the summit the Iranian hosts went out of their way to demonstrate their friendship with and respect for the Egyptian delegation. Tehran accorded Egypt the honor of an Arab leader—a sharp deviation from Tehran’s past hostility over Egypt’s close relations with the United States, its peace with Israel, and the sanctuary President Sadat gave the Shah of Iran after his overthrow in the Islamic Revolution. The “Abu-Umar al-Amriki incident” constituted the last straw for Mubarak, who rushed to mend fences with Sudan’s Turabi and, through him, Tehran. For Turabi and Tehran these signs of improved relations between Egypt and Sudan would serve as a major factor in the decision to launch the attack on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
STARTING IN EARLY 1998, other major maneuvers were taking place throughout the Islamist Middle East, all aimed at strengthening the coalition against Israel and the United States. The turning point occurred in early February 1998 with the formalization of the strategic cooperation between Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Egypt. Although strategic coordination and de facto cooperation had existed among these countries for a long time, the Iraqi crisis of early 1998 provided a legitimate reason to raise the level of these relations.
Back in mid-January, with the crisis with Iraq mounting, Tehran sent clandestine messages to all its neighbors, urging closer cooperation and coordination. Baghdad reacted quickly, proposing the formation of a common front against the American buildup. Baghdad also offered various concessions to entice Tehran, promising to cut support for the Iraq-based Iranian opposition group the Mujahideen ul-Khalq and expressing willingness to reexamine Iran’s demand for some $100 billion in compensation for the Iran-Iraq War.
The initial overtures were followed by a visit to Tehran by Muhammad Said al-Sahhaf, Iraq’s foreign minister and Saddam Hussein’s secret emissary. Baghdad was ready to commit itself formally to the new relationship with Tehran, and Sahhaf and Kamal Kharrazi, the Iranian foreign minister, signed a memorandum of understanding toward this end. Ultimately Sahhaf convinced the Iranians that Baghdad was serious about the new relationship. Both countries then established the mechanism for a direct channel of communication between the chiefs of the Iraqi and Iranian intelligence services. Iran’s highest leaders, Khatami and Khamenei, approved these measures.
Soon afterward senior intelligence and security officials from Iraq and Iran began meeting secretly to discuss the practical aspects of their new alliance against the American military presence. In early February, Saddam Hussein dispatched his son Qusay, who is in charge of the Iraqi intelligence system, to represent him at a major clandestine meeting with senior Iranian officials. On February 5 Qusay Hussein and Rafia Daham al-Takriti, the chief of Iraqi general intelligence, arrived in al-Shalamja on the Iraqi side of the Iran-Iraq border. There they met the Iranian intelligence minister, Qorban Ali Dari Najafabadi, and senior Iranian officials. The two delegations reached agreement on several key issues, including the joint sponsorship of international terrorism all over the world, and the Iranian and Iraqi intelligence delegations surveyed areas where they could quickly begin joint operations. Because of their recent successful cooperation in Sudan and Somalia, the two intelligence services decided to give priority to Sudanese-related operations in the near future. Both countries also agreed through their senior intelligence officials that they would escalate any American attack on Iraq into a regional war against Israel, making it impossible for any Arab or Muslim country to cooperate with the United States against Iraq.
EGYPT COULD NOT ESCAPE the widespread grassroots opposition to U.S. threats to Iraq. Cairo was rocked by demonstrations of widespread popular support for Iraq—demonstrations orchestrated by the Islamists. For example, on February 13 about 7,000 people, not just students, gathered at al-Azhar University, the bastion of militant Islam, to demand that Muslims enact jihad against the United States because of its threats to Iraq. The protest erupted in the aftermath of the afternoon prayers led by the Grand Imam of al-Azhar, Sheikh Muhammad Sayid al-Tantawi, a supporter of Mubarak’s who stressed the need for unified Arab support of Iraq. “The Arab world must be united in response to American aggression against the people of Iraq. The Islamic world is one body and if a part of that body suffers, the whole body is affected,” he told the crowd. The crowd yelled in response, “There is no God but Allah, and Clinton is the enemy of Allah!”
On February 17 Adil Hussein, an activist in the nationalist Labor party whose support Mubarak had sought in restoring ties with Turabi’s Khartoum, delivered a fiery anti-American speech to a huge crowd. He led the crowd in cheers of “God is great, oh America.… God is great, oh enemy of God!” In his speech Hussein called the Americans “cowards” for “striking with missiles and planes.” He vowed that the avenging jihad would reach America. “But no matter how high they fly in the air, we will bring them down to earth with Jihad. We will teach them that the Arab and Islamic Nation will not submit to their will. Can you imagine a whole nation on which these dogs have imposed starvation? They kill children, [they kill] the sick, and there is no food.” The crowd erupted with calls for jihad and revenge.
The Islamists took advantage of this excitement and militancy. Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri’s Islamic Jihad group issued its own bulletin, “A Word of Truth,” for the Friday prayers of February 20. The Islamic Jihad praised the anti-U.S. activities at the al-Azhar Mosque as “the bastion of popular Islamic resistance in Egypt.” The bulletin urged the al-Azhar ulema to “strongly confront the humiliations that its men and leaders are subjected to in the media organs which like to portray them as buffoons.” Going beyond the current crisis, Islamic Jihad also demanded that the ulema insist on “the return of the Senior Ulema Council, respect for al-Azhar’s views on court rulings, its right to ban publications detrimental to Islam, its financial and administrative independence from the government, and the lifting of the legal ban preventing the mosques’ imams from criticizing government laws and decisions.” The Islamic Jihad bulletin sought to capitalize on the Islamist activism demonstrated at the mosque to further the call for an Islamist government in Egypt.
This bulletin from al-Azhar University carried tremendous weight. Located in Cairo, the university is considered the most important and prestigious institute of higher learning in the Muslim world. Although its faculty leans toward Islamist and Muslim Brotherhood theological interpretations of Islam, al-Azhar does not confront the government in Cairo or challenge Egypt’s policies. Thus the adoption of an anti-U.S. political line that Islamic Jihad could and did endorse would not have taken place without the advance approval of the Mubarak government. Still dependent on generous foreign aid from the United States, the Mubarak government increasingly uses such authoritative venues as al-Azhar University as organs for the dissemination of policies it cannot afford to express directly.
Baghdad was confident about the reluctance of both Arab governments and Arab people on the street to support the United States in the mounting crisis. “If America attacks, the doomsday will take place,” the government-controlled newspaper al-Jumhuriya predicted on February 14, 1998.
IN EARLY FEBRUARY a new Islamist international front emerged. In Western Europe especially, Arab/Muslim émigré communities reacted to the building pressure on Iraq and to the propaganda presenting the crisis as a U.S.-led Western attack on a Muslim state that dared to stand up to Western pressure by moving from passive and legal protest to radical activism. Several local Islamist leaders launched preparations for subversive activities in support of Iraq and militant Islamist causes as a whole. For example, in Germany the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office launched an investigation of Metin Kaplan, the Cologne chief of the Association of Islamic Societies and Communities (ICCB), on suspicion of “forming a terrorist association.”
As the radicalization and disquiet of the émigré communities was intensifying, the international Islamist leadership sought to legitimize the call for jihad. Of great significance was the formulation of the initial fatwa for a jihad issued in the name of the London-based al-Muhajiroun, one of the organizations supporting bin Laden and orchestrated by the Islamist headquarters in Britain. This fatwa was issued at the instigation of Khartoum and Tehran. It was intended to test the reaction in the West, as well as build overall support, without committing the sponsoring states directly in case European security forces moved swiftly against the organizations involved. The choice of London was not accidental. Back in the mid-1990s, bin Laden had been instrumental in organizing the myriad of Islamist institutions in London, and Zawahiri coordinated Islamist activities while in England back in September 1997. Now these plans were being implemented.
At the beginning of the second week of February 1998, al-Muhajiroun issued a major fatwa declaring war on the United States and the United Kingdom. “The Fatwa is Jihad against the U.S. and British governments, armies, interests, airports, and institutions, and it has been given by the most prominent scholars of Islam today because of the U.S. and British aggression against Muslims and the Muslim land of Iraq.” After enumerating their grievances against London and Washington, the signatories stressed that “the only Islamic Fatwa against this explicit aggression is Jihad. Therefore the message for the U.S. and the British or any non-Muslim country is to stay away from Iraq, Palestine, Pakistan, Arabia, etc., or face a full-scale war of Jihad which will be the responsibility and the duty of every Muslim around the world to participate in.” The signers then called upon “the Muslims around the world, including the Muslims in the U.S.A. and in Britain, to confront by all means whether verbally, financially, politically or militarily the U.S. and British Aggression and to do their Islamic duty in relieving the Iraqi people from the unjust sanctions.” The fatwa was signed by a large number of Muslim leaders—both expatriate and British—as well as the leaders of British Muslim organizations and groups in the name of these entities.
The next milestone occurred a few days later, in the aftermath of an accidental plane crash that killed Sudanese vice president al-Zubayr Muhammad Salih and many other high officials. Osama bin Laden used the occasion to send a letter to Turabi, urging him to authorize the launching of a genuine terrorist campaign along the principles agreed on at Turabi’s own urging in the summer of 1997. “This tragedy [the crash] has come at a time when the international Christian crusade is rushing madly against our country Sudan and against the heart of the Islamic world,” bin Laden wrote. He stressed further that the international Christian crusade’s fleets were “plowing the seas of Islam. They are besieging and blockading the peoples of the region as a whole with total disregard for pledges and charters, and are violating the sacred sites and draining all the wealth, while the al-Aqsa Mosque remains the prisoner of this Christian-Jewish alliance.” (By “Christian-Jewish,” bin Laden means the West in all its political, religious, ethical, and cultural aspects.) This correspondence served as the cover for the initial consultations with Turabi and Bashir on practical steps to revive terrorism.
As a result the Islamist terrorist leadership—specifically Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri—received the green light to proceed with the declaration of jihad and to unleash a wave of terrorism in and against the West. It was time for Tehran to step in.
At first Tehran addressed a major operational consideration: the lingering schism between the theological leaders of various Egyptian Islamist groups that needed to work closely together. Tehran summoned the key Egyptian commanders it was working with, in particular Kamal Ujayzah, Zawahiri’s Tehran-based aide, and a special emissary of Rifai Ahmad Taha, chief of the Islamic Group. The Egyptians met with senior officials of Iranian intelligence, who notified them that a very lavish and comprehensive support package was ready for them once they improved their operational cooperation. The Iranians stressed that it was both counterproductive and dangerous not to have a tight, smoothly operating terrorist system in as challenging a theater as Egypt. The representatives of the Egyptian organizations concurred with the analysis and promised to embark on a gradual merger of their forces. They conditioned the next steps on theological blessings by their respective spiritual leaders. The Iranians were satisfied with the arrangements and released funds to the Egyptians. They also increased the slots allocated to Egyptian terrorists in key schools.
To make sure that this agreement was implemented, bin Laden held additional meetings with Taha and Zawahiri to discuss better cooperation. Both leaders endorsed the agreement reached in Tehran and agreed to surmount the disagreements between their organizations. Bin Laden stressed that unity was imperative so that all could focus on joint efforts to launch spectacular attacks on U.S. and Israeli targets. Zawahiri and Taha agreed to form a functional united group, although the organizations would retain their independent political-theological leaderships and organizational formats. Initially their military actions would be independent though firmly coordinated through bin Laden and a joint supreme front’s high command then being formulated, of which both Zawahiri and Taha are members. These specific arrangements would apply only to their operations inside Egypt. For the international operations both Zawahiri and Taha had long committed to operating within the ranks of the Tehran-dominated networks.
In early 1998 bin Laden and his closest aides also held several meetings with senior terrorist commanders operating overseas. One of those present was Ahmad Ibrahim al-Najjar, a senior Islamic Jihad leader in Albania. (Soon after his return to Albania from Pakistan, Najjar was captured with the help of the CIA and is now in jail in Egypt.) In their meeting bin Laden urged “guerrilla warfare against Israeli and American interests not only in Arab and Muslim countries but everywhere in the world,” Najjar recounted. “Bin Laden believed that the Jewish lobby pulled the ropes of politics in the United States and was behind the weakening of Muslim people and governments and that this hegemony should be broken,” Najjar explained. Therefore, bin Laden argued, the Islamic Jihad, like all other Islamist terrorist organizations, must “turn its guns” on Israel and the United States instead of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, or other Arab countries. Without the eviction of the United States from the Middle East and the destruction of Israel, it would be virtually impossible for the Islamist forces to defeat the “puppet regimes” bolstered by the United States. As proof Bin Laden pointed to the sorry state of the jihad throughout the Middle East despite the heavy casualties suffered by Islamists. A unified Islamist front, bin Laden repeatedly insisted, would be able to take on the United States and Israel effectively. Najjar and the other commanders enthusiastically endorsed bin Laden’s plan.
On February 15, 1998, General Safavi and a delegation of senior Iranian officials met with bin Laden, Zawahiri, and several key Islamist terrorist leaders. The Iranians presented their long-term plans for terrorist operations and outlined the roles of the Islamist terrorists in this master plan. To present a deniable cover for Iran, the meeting decided on the establishment of a new Sunni umbrella organization, later to be named the World Islamic Front for Jihad against Jews and Crusaders. The meeting participants decided on modalities for training and supporting the strike units through the IRGC. Both delegations also agreed on joining forces to increase support for the armed rebellion in Kosovo and to reinforce the Islamists’ forward base in Zenica, Bosnia-Herzegovina. The delegations agreed that the Muslim-inhabited areas of the Balkans should become the main base for spreading Islamist terrorism and subversion into Europe. The participating Arab Islamist leaders were very satisfied with the meeting, fully convinced that Tehran recognized their importance as theological luminaries and not just as operatives. Both bin Laden and Zawahiri were reassured of Tehran’s great respect toward and confidence in them.
February 20 saw the beginning of a new theological process: the legitimization and authorization of an all-out terrorist jihad against the West, and not just as a reaction to the ongoing crisis in Iraq. In London the Azzam Organization, the mother organization of “Afghan” and “Bosnian” mujahideen as well as Islamist terrorists within the émigré communities in the West, issued the text of a dua (a prayer-sermon instructing the believer how to answer the call of Islam) to be read in mosques worldwide during the key Friday prayer. This dua codified the role of the anti-American jihad over Iraq in the context of the escalating worldwide jihad. The Azzam Organization reminded the listeners and readers that Prophet Muhammad decreed that “indeed Dua is the weapon of the Believer.”
Azzam’s dua stressed the gravity of the current situation. “At this time, whilst the Muslim Ummah [nation] is engulfed in another wave of oppression, many Muslims are crying, shouting and issuing empty declarations.” According to the Sharia, Muslims could do three things—participate in the jihad, contribute in support of the jihad, or identify with and pray for the success of the jihad. All three deeds were important, for their implementation would bring the entire community together, unified in the pursuit of a sacred cause. “Allah knows best in what category Dua comes, but that is something that every Muslim can and should do. In short, we ask all the Muslims everywhere in the world, all the Mujahideen, all the righteous scholars in the prisons, all the oppressed Muslims, all weak and poor Muslims, to join us and make Dua to Allah against the invading forces.”
The first part of the Azzam dua was a lengthy, detailed list of calamities that could befall the U.S.-led aerial forces in the Persian Gulf, such as air crews missing their targets on bombing runs, technical malfunctions, and special forces becoming subject to fright. Well versed in high-tech and modern warfare, the authors of this dua made sure that the believer repeated a long, precise, detailed list of the calamities to befall the Western forces arrayed against Iraq.
Then came a long list of missions and tasks to be performed by mujahideen in the context of the current crisis. This important decree tied up all the challenges and theaters of jihad into a single global struggle against a common enemy:
O ALLAH! Inspire Muslims in important, strategic and influential positions around the world to use their skills, whether it be computer knowledge or financial ability, to RETALIATE against the enemy in every part of the World!
O ALLAH! KUFR IS ONE NATION, so even though the MUJAHIDEEN may not be able to retaliate in Iraq, allow your MUJAHIDEEN fighters in the other parts of the World to retaliate against the KAFIR NATION!
O ALLAH! Cause this retaliation to come in the form of attacks by HAMAS on Israel!
O ALLAH! Cause this retaliation to come in the form of attacks by Ibn-al-Khattab and the Foreign Mujahideen in CHECHNYA against the Russians!
O ALLAH! Cause this retaliation to come in the form of attacks by Osama bin Laden and other brave fighters from the Arabian Gulf on the FOREIGN FORCES in the GULF COUNTRIES!
O ALLAH! Cause this retaliation to come in the form of intensified attacks on the Hindu forces in KASHMIR!
O ALLAH! Cause this retaliation to come in the form of intensified attacks on ISRAEL from Mujahideen across the borders of Jordan and Lebanon!
O ALLAH! Cause the RIGHTEOUS SCHOLARS IN THE ARABIAN GULF to rebel against the foreign policies of their Governments and speak out for the TRUTH!
O ALLAH! Cause the authorities of Muslim countries to turn a BLIND EYE on retaliatory attacks by Mujahideen on Foreign Forces on their soils!
O ALLAH! CAUSE SO MUCH DAMAGE AND DESTRUCTION AND CONFUSION TO THE INVADING FORCES THAT THEY LEARN A LESSON WHICH WILL GO DOWN IN HISTORY AND CAUSE THEM LOSSES WHICH WILL MAKE THEIR GULF WAR LOSSES LOOK LIKE NOTHING!
Given the control and influence exercised by the Azzam Organization over the myriad of mujahideen in the West, in particular “Afghans” and “Bosnians,” their call for a comprehensive jihad constituted a major development.
A series of fatwas followed, by the leaders of the key groups and organizations that would actually implement this call to arms and uncompromising jihad. These fatwas outlined the objectives and analysis of militant Islamism in conjunction and accordance with the centers of Islamist leadership in Khartoum, Tehran, Islamabad, and London. The key fatwa was primarily the work of Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Rifai Ahmad Taha (Abu-Yassir) and so was a major achievement in furthering Islamist militant unity despite the ideological differences and doctrinal disagreements between Zawahiri and Taha. The call for violence followed the dua’s announcement that a single world of Kufr threatened the entire Muslim world and Islamist revivalism as a whole. Now viable, legitimate targets for the Islamists’ jihad could be found anywhere on earth.
The first Islamist fatwa in this series was also issued on February 20 and set the tone and direction for the call to jihad. Professor Bernard Lewis, a leading scholar on Islam, called this fatwa “a magnificent piece of eloquent, at times even poetic, Arabic prose.” In essence the fatwa announced the establishment of a “world front for Jihad against Jews and Crusaders”—now known as the World Islamic Front—and declared its commitment to “kill the Americans, civilians and military” in retaliation for any U.S. attack on Iraq or any other demonstration of hostility anywhere else in the Muslim world. The term Crusaders was used to stress the continuity of threats posed by foreign forces present in the Middle East, such as the U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia, and as a reminder of the ultimate victory of the Muslim forces over the original Crusaders. The fatwa decreed that the U.S. threat was profound and all-encompassing because “U.S. aggression is affecting Muslim civilians, not just the military.” The key signers were Sheikh Osama bin Muhammad bin Laden; Ayman al-Zawahiri; Rifai Ahmad Taha (Abu-Yassir); Sheikh Mir Hamzah, secretary of the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Pakistan; Fazlul Rahman Khalil, leader of the Ansar Movement in Pakistan; and Sheikh Abdul Salam Muhammad, emir of the Jihad Movement in Bangladesh.
The establishment of the World Islamic Front was a major achievement for the Islamist terrorist groups sponsored by Iran, Sudan, and Pakistan. In jointly signing the fatwa, high-level Islamist sources stressed, these leaders “put their differences aside and agreed to unify the aim for which they are working” and were “in the process of drawing up mechanisms for implementing what was stated in the statement.” The prominence given to Pakistani and Bangladeshi Islamist leaders was “aimed at expanding the area containing U.S. targets against which operations can be carried out and at splitting the efforts of security services in more than one state.” This distinction was intended to reinforce the declaration of a comprehensive worldwide jihad in the dua of the Azzam Organization.
According to the authors of this fatwa, the world situation in early 1998 was uniquely grave because it brought to the fore a three-element U.S.-led conspiracy against both Muslims and Islam. The three elements were (1) the U.S. occupation of the Arabian Peninsula, its economic exploitation, and its use as a springboard for aggression against sisterly Iraq; (2) the continued slaughter of the Muslims of Iraq by the “the Crusader-Zionist alliance”; and (3) the furthering of the interests of “the Jews’ petty state” in conspiring “to destroy Iraq, the strongest neighboring Arab state, and their endeavor to fragment all the states of the region such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Sudan into paper statelets and through their disunion and weakness to guarantee Israel’s survival and the continuation of the brutal crusade occupation of the [Arabian] Peninsula.”
The authors decreed: “All these crimes and sins committed by the Americans are a clear declaration of war on Allah, his Messenger, and Muslims. And ulema have throughout Islamic history unanimously agreed that the Jihad is an individual duty if the enemy destroys the Muslim countries.… On that basis, and in compliance with God’s order, we issue the following Fatwa to all Muslims”:
The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies—civilians and military—is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque [in Jerusalem] and the Holy Mosque [in Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim.… We—with God’s help—call on every Muslim who believes in God and wishes to be rewarded to comply with God’s order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it. We also call on Muslim ulema, leaders, youths, and soldiers to launch the raid on Satan’s U.S. troops and the devil’s supporters allying with them, and to displace those who are behind them so that they may learn a lesson.
Also of great importance was a concurrent fatwa issued by the Tehran-sponsored “Partisans of the Sharia.” This document provided the legal and theological justification for Islamist support for Saddam Hussein even though he was not an Islamist leader and has a record of fighting both Iran and Iraqi Islamists. The document, undersigned by Abu-Hamzah al-Masri, who is closely allied to Turabi and Zawahiri, addressed the Islamists’ enduring hostility toward Saddam Hussein and set clear priorities for the Islamist struggle under the current circumstances. Escalating the jihad against the United States was of such importance as to justify cooperation with Iraq.
The statement from Partisans of the Sharia left no doubt about the hostility toward Saddam Hussein’s Baghdad, which was described as “apostates from Islam’s laws and rules.” In principle, the Islamists noted, present-day Iraqi officials were “atheists and apostates who must be fought … and should be fought by the police and the army if they defend the regimes or if they prepare for such action; their wealth should become spoils, and they should be driven away and their wounded finished off.” The fatwa stated that the Partisans of the Sharia still adhered to its original conviction that “championing this [Iraqi] people against Saddam and his government, against the Jews and Christians, and against all those who avail themselves of this Muslim people’s blood, money, or honor by fear or by words or deed, is the duty that all Muslims must perform with their swords, money, words, and hearts; and from each according to his means.” The prevailing circumstances in the Middle East, however, made it necessary for the Islamists to concentrate their jihad against the true enemy of and predominant threat to Islam. The Partisans of the Sharia emphasized that “the Jews and the Christians have no business there [in Iraq and Arabia] and have no legitimate, recognized mandate. Their presence poses a threat and their blood can be shed with impunity. In short, every Muslim must try in earnest to drive them away in humiliation.” The Muslims should do so even if in the process they gave aid and comfort to Saddam Hussein.
On February 23 al-Zawahiri’s Jihad Group issued the first of several clarification communiques designed to better define the essence of the anti-U.S. jihad just declared. The Islamic Jihad vowed “to teach the Americans a lesson” and blamed President Clinton for “the aggression against the nation of Islam.” The Iraqi people “for whom Clinton is shedding crocodile tears are the same people, hundreds of thousands of whom, the U.S. President intends to burn to punish Saddam Hussein, as he claims. Clinton has warned against the threat of chemical and biological weapons in Iraq at a time when he is stockpiling them in Israel to strike against the Muslims, establish the Greater Israel, and destroy the al-Aqsa Mosque to build Solomon’s temple on its ruins. O Muslims, rise against the United States throughout the world and teach them lessons wherever you find them.”
Two days later AbdAllah Mansur, secretary general of the Egyptian Jihad Group—Armed Vanguards of Conquest, issued a statement titled “A Step Forward and in the Right Direction” that urged the just established World Islamic Front for Jihad against Jews and Crusaders to expand its membership to include the other activist Islamist trends and formulate new strategies suitable for the forthcoming stages of the global jihad. “The time has come for us to move from hasty thinking based on [emotional] reactions and fighting non-enemies, and hence exhausting almost all our energies, to strategic thinking that takes account of rules of defense and the ability to adapt and develop, because without that, the outcome is a total freeze,” Mansur wrote. In essence, Mansur urged diverting the main efforts of the Egyptian jihad away from confronting the Mubarak government to striking at the United States and Israel.
The statement of the Jihad Group—Armed Vanguards of Conquest also stressed that in order to carry out the proposed, most necessary jihad it was imperative to “form a higher committee that represents all colors of the fundamentalist movement wishing to join such an alliance in the Arab and Islamic Worlds, in addition to drawing up mechanisms for implementing and focusing on these aims while earnestly working to eliminate all psychological barriers among the various Jihad forces and tendencies in order to close ranks against falsehood and its party.” The statement warned that given the magnitude of the challenges, “addressing problems without finding suitable solutions is liable to lead eventually to bad results.”
In this context the Jihad Group—Armed Vanguards of Conquest praised the establishment of the World Islamic Front for Jihad against Jews and Crusaders as a major step in the right direction. Mansur enthusiastically endorsed the fatwa’s stipulation that “killing the Americans and their allies is an individual duty for every Muslim.” He also endorsed the inclusion of the Islamic Group, the Jihad Group, and the Armed Islamic Group in the new front even though there had been ideological and theological frictions between these groups in the past over the conduct of the Islamist jihad in Egypt.
On March 3 the Egyptian-based leadership of Zawahiri’s Jihad Group reiterated its commitment to the armed jihad in the context of the new international alliance. The Jihad Group was convinced that “there is no point in partial solutions” for the challenges facing the Muslim world and that “Jihad is the only way” to achieve these total solutions. The mere issue of a statement titled “No Solution Except through Jihad” by the Media Office of the Jihad Group in Egypt served as a tacit reminder to the Mubarak government that debilitating, violent Islamist terrorism could be revived if Egypt joined the U.S.-led camp. Over the next few days, before the Friday prayers of March 6, high-level Egyptian Islamists received messages from Zawahiri’s inner circle that the Jihad Group, as a leading component of the World Islamic Front, “will begin open activity soon.” The messages also reasserted the validity of the recently issued fatwa with emphasis on the stated requirement that members of Islamist groups “kill Americans and steal their possessions anywhere.”
With these clarifications by Zawahiri and his lieutenants, the exploitation of the Iraqi crisis to enhance Islamist militancy and radicalism—even though Saddam Hussein himself is neither liked nor trusted by the Islamist leaders—came full circle. Islamist leaders used the building, traumatic conflict with the West to revive the widespread, popular fear of the extent of Western influence over the Muslim world and fuel an Islamist surge. The Islamists proved very effective in capitalizing on the media blitz in the West about Iraq’s sins and Saddam Hussein’s fate—a discussion interpreted in the Arab world, as well as among the Muslim emigre community and intellectual elite in the West, as a demonstration of Western hostility toward Islam. By early March 1998 Saddam Hussein as an individual and his ideology were no longer of importance to most Muslims. All that counted was their impression of a massive, U.S.-dominated high-technology military force arrayed to bomb and devastate innocent Muslim civilians already emaciated by the U.S.-imposed sanctions. The immense, long-lasting impact of the crisis in Iraq on the revival of international terrorism at the heart of the West was irreversible.
Most telling was the reaction of the Arab establishment to these developments. In Iraq, in the aftermath of the emergence of a U.N.-endorsed agreement, even official Cairo expected the United States to instigate another provocation to ignite the region. A March 1 editorial in the official al-Ahram by Abduh Mubashir titled “Iraq and the Siege of Fire” elucidated the Mubarak government’s worldview. Abduh Mubashir described a history of U.S. hostile intervention in the Middle East since the 1970s that was designed to stifle Arab awakening and serve the West and Israel’s self-interest. The current crisis with Iraq was only the latest but by no means the last stage in this process. Abduh Mubashir stressed that more crises with Iraq were sure to come whether Saddam complied with the United Nations or not because it was in the interest of the United States to hit Iraq and strike at all Arabs. “This squeezing, particularly if viewed as part of the siege of fire that surrounds the Arab world, leads us to expect a further hardline attitude from the United States and the United Nations.… There is a likelihood that U.S. planners might drive President Saddam to provoke a crisis, either through an action on his part or as a reaction to something else. This is not a difficult thing for those people who have long known how to lay traps for political regimes. In order to maintain the ability to direct a military strike, senior U.S. officials have announced that the military force massed in the region will stay in place,” al-Ahram stated.
With Egypt, one of the most pro-U.S. and secular governments in the Middle East, openly endorsing the Islamist position that the United States was bent on punishing the Arab world for being Muslim and that there could be no compromise between the United States and the Muslim world, the surge of Islamist militancy and terrorism could not be stopped. With popular support building, the World Islamic Front for Jihad against Jews and Crusaders would have to strike out if only to preserve its legitimacy in the Muslim world.
In March 1998 the main question was, Where and when would the Islamist terrorists strike at a U.S. objective? By then two major trends were evolving. First, the overall development of the global Islamist international terrorist capabilities was being consolidated. The World Islamic Front for Jihad against Jews and Crusaders now provided the theological and supreme command framework on which the new operational networks of expert terrorists could be organized and ordered to strike out. This effort would start in April 1998, and it is still unfolding, setting the stage for an era of international terrorism with unprecedented lethality. Second, committed and determined to strike out as soon as it was prudent, the Islamists simultaneously expedited their preparations for a low-risk spectacular operation. East Africa emerged as the most suitable theater. The twin car bombs that shook Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam proved the Islamists’ analysis of risk to be correct.