To secure al Qaeda’s Somali base, bin Laden’s fighters focused on backing Farah Aideed’s son Husyan and supporting al-Ittehad-i-Islami (AII), or the Islamic Unity Party.40 The political chaos and physical devastation left in Somalia after the civil war and UN intervention made the groups eager for bin Laden’s financial and military support as they compete for supremacy in Somalia.41 Over the past several years, bin Laden’s Somalia-based force reportedly has risen to between four hundred and two thousand fighters, and there are reports of senior bin Laden lieutenants—most frequently the IG’s Mustafa Hamza—visiting the country to survey al Qaeda’s progress in Africa and the needs of its Somali allies.42 In May 1999, Al-Sharq Al-Awsat said al Qaeda was setting up a camp near the coastal town of Raas Kamboni and was installing sophisticated communications there.43 In addition, bin Laden’s fighters reportedly have built “structures and training camps in the region of Gedo, near the border between Somalia and Ethiopia,” and possibly are trying to acquire and mine some of the abundant and mostly unexploited uranium deposits in northern Somalia.44 Al Qaeda also appears to use Somalia as a base for dealing with the Eritrean Islamic Jihad, taking advantage of the unstable politics yielded by the 1998–1999 Great Lakes war to contact Islamists in central Africa, and supplying weapons to al Qaeda operatives in Kenya.45
In Somalia, al Qaeda now has close ties to the AII guerrilla organization and to an Islamist grouping called the United Front for the Liberation of Western Somalia (UF), consisting of the AII, the Western Somali Liberation Front, and the Somali Peoples’ Liberation Front.46 Al Qaeda provides unspecified support to the AII and in return trains some of its fighters in UF camps, which the West watches far less closely than those in Sudan, Yemen, and Afghanistan.47 Formation of the UF began in late 1996 after the Ethiopian army made cross-border “preemptive strikes” on AII bases in Somalia. According to Al-Awsat, the August 1996 Ethiopian raids on the AII “almost broke its back”; the Ethiopians also claimed to have “apprehended … a number of ‘Afghan Arabs’ who were financed by Osama bin Laden” and who were serving with the AII. After this setback, the AII joined the two above-mentioned groups to form the UF, which was created “with the recommendation of Osama bin Laden,” who also “facilitated the arrival of a group of his followers in southern Somalia and financed their purchase of sophisticated weapons” to assist the UF’s organizational efforts. Bin Laden’s aid, according to Al-Awsat, has been effective to the point where “the Islamic groups … have indeed regained their strength.”48 Bin Laden’s support for the Somali Islamists has ensured three things: Al Qaeda has a force in being and a base for staging attacks in Africa; bin Laden has a potential personal safe haven there; and he has earned the enmity of the Eritrean and Ethiopian governments. Ethiopia, in particular, is bin Laden’s foe, because al Qaeda has “carried out operations in Ethiopia, especially in its capital Addis Ababa.”49
Al Qaeda Expansion in the Philippines
The Philippines has received steady attention from bin Laden since 1996, at least, in part, because the insurgency there is the only Muslim one that is directly fighting the ascendancy of what al Qaeda would classify as a crusading Catholic power. His forces have had a presence there since the late 1980s, largely through the charitable, business, and subversive activities of his brother-in-law, Mohammed Jamal Khalifah.50 The Philippine media say bin Laden visited the islands several times, acquired investments there, and still “owns three businesses in the country.”51 Manila authorities have long been aware of bin Laden’s activities in their country, recognizing that it has become “a refuge for Afghan Arabs who fled Afghanistan.”52 Even before bin Laden left Sudan, for example, the Filipinos accused him of “supporting the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG)” through Khalifah’s Manila-based business and charitable activities.53 In 1995, moreover, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported that Khalifah had been serving as ASG “operations officer” since 1992. Subsequently, the myriad terrorist planning activities of Ramzi Yousef and Wali Khan in Manila have been linked to bin Laden and Khalifah.54 Most recently, one of the convicted attackers of the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, Muhammed Sadiq, told Pakistani interrogators there is a “significant presence of Osama’s followers in the Philippines … and that he [Sadiq] had been sent to the Philippines to ‘oversee’ some work.”55
Since late 1998, the pace of al Qaeda-related activities in the Philippines has picked up. In September 1998, for example, Khalifah sent a close associate and fellow Saudi businessman named Hussain Mustafa to assess the needs and provide support to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) at the group’s Abu Bakr camp, then its main military base in Mindanao. Quoting unnamed Philippine military sources, the Manila Times said Mustafa delivered funds to the MILF that have been “used to set up an international satellite communications system” in the Abu Bakr camp, and to “set up the MILF web page in [sic] the Internet.”56 It is unclear how much of the communications equipment survived the 1999–2001 battles around the Abu Bakr camp, but the Internet site is still operating.
Also in 1998, the Manila media reported that the Philippine military was monitoring a new group called the “Salafiyah Fighters.” According to the report, the military believed the group was founded by Khalifah, was staffed by Muslim fighters from the ASG, and was training Malaysians in its camps.57 Then, in February 1999 Agence France-Presse reported that bin Laden was funding the delivery of “3,000 high-powered weapons” to the Moros. “The shipment to the MILF,” the AFP correspondent said, “is believed to have been procured using money provided by Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden, who Manila has said was sending aid to accredited Islamic relief operations in the Philippines.”58
The use of Islamic nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) for cover also suggests Khalifah’s involvement. Interestingly, Jane’s Intelligence Review noted in May 1998 that the MILF was short of weapons despite the ease with which ordnance can be smuggled into Mindanao. Jane’s conjectured that the MILF might not have enough funds to purchase weapons, and it may well be that bin Laden has now rectified that problem. In March 2000, for example, the Philippine defense secretary told the media that the MILF had expanded its arsenal of firearms from three thousand in 1997 to more than eleven thousand currently. These press stories cut close to the bone, and MILF leader Hashim Salamat—who was schooled at Al-Ahzar in Cairo and trained in Afghan camps tied to bin Laden59—felt compelled to respond to the allegations.
At the MILF leader’s press conference, the Philippine Star said, Salamat confirmed his group “received funds from bin Laden, but eventually decided that they could carry on their crusade without the aid.” The Star said Salamat described bin Laden’s aid as benign and, while not saying how much bin Laden money he was given, explained “[that] the funds were spent on building mosques, health centers, and schools in poor Muslim areas of Mindanao, and denied that any of the aid went to the purchase of firearms and ammunition.” Salamat, of course, failed to say that bin Laden money spent on social welfare and religious activities freed other funds for MILF military activities.60
As in Somalia, bin Laden’s involvement in Mindanao is meant to assist local Islamists and to afford al Qaeda a contingency safe haven. In a pinch, the island would be attractive to bin Laden as a large, geographically isolated, and easily defended stronghold. In addition, the Arab Afghans have a decade-old presence there, the island’s Moro Islamist insurgent groups are strong and growing, and businesses and NGOs with ties to bin Laden and Khalifah are present in several locations in the Philippines. Mindanao’s vast and porous coastline and its proximity to Indonesia and Malaysia, moreover, would ensure al Qaeda ease of access and egress, resupply, and contact with other Islamist fighters and supporters in the Far East.
Al Qaeda and the State Sponsors
There is no persuasive reporting or analysis showing that bin Laden and al Qaeda are dependent on any state for essential material or logistic support, although the ease with which al Qaeda operatives have moved internationally suggests some regimes
have turned a blind eye to transiting fighters as a quid pro quo for not having attacks occur on their territory. That said, bin Laden has had to deal with several states designated by the United States as “state sponsors” of terrorism, or at least has had to recognize they share a hatred for the United States and Israel. Of the three state sponsors al Qaeda must factor into its planning and intentions—Sudan, Iran, and Iraq—ties to Sudan are the most developed, public, and understandable. Bin Laden left Sudan on good terms with NIF leader al-Turabi—although al-Turabi’s political star has since declined—and media reports indicate several of his businesses continue operating profitably there; that al Qaeda, EIJ, and IG fighters still live in or transit Sudan; and that bin Laden remains a partner in the NIF’s Al-Shimal Bank.61
While not holding identical views on applying Islam, al-Turabi and bin Laden share the identical anti-U.S. animosities; al-Turabi’s 1995 warning to the Islamic world that the Crusades are not over and “the enemy is America … if we are challenged militarily, we will have to fight back” could as easily have come from bin Laden.62 In a February 1998 letter to Sudanese president Umar Hassan Bashir—who was rumored to have forced bin Laden out of Sudan—bin Laden reaffirmed his support for him against “the international Christian crusade [which] is rushing madly against our country Sudan and against the heart of the Islamic world.”63
Bin Laden has genuinely supported the NIF’s efforts to expand the sway of Islam in the Horn of Africa, but his remarks in recent years also seem—like some he has made supporting the Taliban—to be meant to associate Sudan with al Qaeda and its goals. In September 1998, for example, bin Laden told a conference of religious scholars in Pakistan that the August 1998 U.S. cruise missile strikes were not aimed at him. “After all,” bin Laden asked the scholars, “why did the United States carry out attacks on Afghanistan and Sudan? This is because the youths of these two countries are determined to implement Islam in their countries, and this is why the United States is against them.”64 Bin Laden later again said the U.S. attack on Sudan was not aimed at him. “The United States bombed it [the el-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum] without the slightest proof,” bin Laden explained, “because [President] Clinton wanted to hide his misdemeanors and resorted to massacring Muslims because in his eyes their blood is cheap.” Finally, bin Laden has vehemently denounced Western support for the anti-NIF military operations of John Garang’s primarily Christian guerrillas. In justifying the August 1998 East Africa bombings, for example, bin Laden said the United States was using its Nairobi embassy as a base to create “the gangs of [the] criminal Garang, in order to divide Sudan, to separate its south from its north, to block the efforts to implement God’s law, and to kill and starve thousands of Muslim women, children, and old men. The [Garang-led] mutiny in Sudan has almost allowed the Westerners to control Sudan so that their forces are less than 280 kilometers from Mecca.”65
Regarding Iraq, bin Laden, as noted, was in contact with Baghdad’s intelligence service since at least 1994. (See p. 134.) He reportedly cooperated with it in the area of chemical-biological-radiological-nuclear (CBRN) weapons and may have trained some fighters in Iraq at camps run by Saddam’s anti-Iran force, the Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK). The first group of bin Laden’s fighters is reported to have been sent to the MEK camps in June 1998; MEK cadre also were then providing technical and military training for Taliban forces and running the Taliban’s anti-Iran propaganda. I, however, have found no record of bin Laden publicly saying anything that could be construed as supportive of Saddam before he returned to Afghanistan. Bin Laden had several anti-Saddam Iraqi Kurds fighting with his unit in the Afghan jihad—Abu Hajir, for example—and he clearly opposed Saddam in 1990–1991 and was ready to fight Iraq’s forces.66
That said, since 1996 bin Laden has made public statements that benefit Saddam, focusing on what he describes as the U.S. intention to break the country’s power and divide “Iraq into three” by maintaining UN sanctions.67 “Is there any terrorism uglier or more brutal,” bin Laden asked in May 1998, “than the killing by the United States of hundreds of thousands of women, children, and elderly people by sentencing them to death by starvation in Iraq?”68 “When 60 Jews are killed inside Palestine,” he told journalist Robert Fisk, “all the world gathers within 7 days [at Sharm al-Shaykh, Egypt] to criticize this action, while the death of 600,000 Iraqi children did not receive the same reaction. Killing those Iraqi children is a crusade against Islam. We, as Muslims, do not like the Iraqi regime, but we think the Iraqi people and their children are our brothers and we care about their future.”69 Bin Laden later asked ABC’s John Miller “Is any shame left in America?” and add that “by the testimony of relief workers in Iraq, the American-led sanctions, [have] resulted in the death of more than one million Iraqi children.”70
As for Iran, there is little evidence there has been cooperation between bin Laden and the clerics in Tehran, or with the latter’s Lebanese Hizballah allies. That al Qaeda has a presence in Lebanon is almost certain; Al-Watan Al-Arabi, the U.S. Department of Justice, and other media sources have reported that “Arab Afghans” trained and funded by bin Laden are prominent in the Sunni guerrilla forces, which have attacked Christian churches in Lebanon, the Lebanese army in the country’s north, and the Russian embassy in Beirut. “Many do not know,” al-Muhajuroun leader Umar Bakri told the media, “that it was Osama bin Laden who supported the Muslims in Lebanon’s latest events that were detonated by an armed Islamic movement in the mountain[s].”71
In addition, the contiguity of Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan suggests bin Laden’s fighters have transited Iran on the way to or from Kandahar, Quetta, and Karachi. Aside from these rather elementary conclusions, there are reports that al Qaeda, EIJ, and IG fighters train in Hizballah’s Al-Biqa Valley camps; that bin Laden, Iran, and Hizballah cooperated to attack U.S. forces in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, in 1996; that Iran and Hizballah are cooperating with bin Laden, Sudan, and Iraq to acquire CBRN weapons; and the not-infrequent claims by media and academic experts that there “must” be close ties between bin Laden and Tehran.72
In the realm of ruminations, Al-Watan Al-Arabi interviewed a terrorism expert in spring 1997. The expert discussed the growth of bin Laden’s organization and other armed Islamist groups. In bin Laden’s case, the expert said, “the establishment of an active international army requires a country’s support. Such a huge organization needs an intelligence service.” Not considering that bin Laden saw this need and formed his own intelligence service, the expert asserts, “Iran is the only country that can sponsor an international Islamic extremist movement, because it has intelligence, logistical, and training facilities. It is practically the main country that supports Islamic extremist organizations in the world.”73
To be fair, Iran, Hizballah, and bin Laden are past masters at operating over the horizon. The truth is that there is not much in the public domain that sheds light on the extent, nature, and substance of this trilateral relationship—if it exists. Given bin Laden’s rigid Sunni faith, and after reviewing his utterances, there is no reason to think he has any affection or respect for the Shia, be they Iranian, Lebanese, Afghan, or other. Tehran must have noted bin Laden’s silence during the 1998–2001 period, when his Taliban hosts merrily slaughtered Afghan Shias—and a few Iranian diplomats—after their forces took Shia areas in central and northern Afghanistan. Frontline’s unattributed biography of bin Laden has said “the trust between the two [bin Laden and Iran] is minimal but both have avoided criticizing each other publicly,” and that judgment seems right.74 Indeed, bin Laden has identified Hizballah’s 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut as a major U.S. defeat, one that proved that America’s best forces “can run in less than 24 hours.” The defeat of the Marines, bin Laden said, signaled “the decline of the American government and the weakness of the American soldier who is ready to wage cold wars and unprepared to fight long wars.”75
On the Shia side of the ledger, it is hard to
see a benefit Iran and Hizballah would derive from formal military cooperation with al Qaeda that they would not gain from standing on the sidelines and watching bin Laden damage, bedevil, and embarrass the United States and its allies. Iran and Hizballah suffer from a perennial, intractable, and potentially fatal problem—each has a fixed address. While cruise missiles are nearly useless against al Qaeda’s dispersed forces, they are a strong deterrent against nation-states and terrorist groups whose infrastructure is concentrated in a single state. If Iran or Hizballah attack the United States, the U.S. military knows where they live and can, with impunity, destroy their government ministries, political headquarters, military bases, ports and airports, electrical grids, training facilities, petroleum facilities, and other vital assets.
Bin Laden, however, has no fixed address. When American military might comes calling the odds are bin Laden, like Muhammad Ali, will float like a Muslim butterfly and live to sting another day like the Prophet’s bee. All this is to say that it is counterintuitive for Hizballah and Iran—and Sudan and Iraq, for that matter—to deliberately put their heads on the chopping block with al Qaeda when they derive the same benefit by doing nothing. Al Qaeda already has killed Americans, embarrassed Washington by forcing U.S. leaders into a war of words with a Saudi they cannot find, increased anti-Americanism among Muslims, caused the United States to spend $1.4 billion for security upgrades for its embassies and double its counterterrorism budget in five years, and put U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia into isolated desert cantonments at a prolonged and enervating state of alert. All this is in the interest of Hizballah and Iran and, to date, they have benefited at no cost to themselves.
Through Our Enemies' Eyes Page 29