Another key indicator of bin Laden’s leadership stature is found in statements by his fighters. Passed by word of mouth, stories about bin Laden’s reliability and concern for his men help explain the intense loyalty he receives from al Qaeda’s rank and file. From the start of the Afghan jihad, for example, the “soft spoken” bin Laden focused on caring for wounded mujahedin and their families. Early in that war, Mary Anne Weaver wrote in the New Yorker, bin Laden visited the hospitals treating wounded insurgents and “went from bed to bed dispensing cashews and English chocolates and carefully noting each man’s name and address. Weeks later the man’s family would receive a generous check.” Then, when non-Afghan Muslim mujahedin could not return to their countries of origin after the Red Army’s defeat, bin Laden made arrangements—presumably through his family’s business networks—“to secure the arrival and entry of Afghan Arabs into European, Asian, and African countries and to arrange political asylum for some of them and residence for others after the Afghan war was over.”44
Captured Egyptian Islamic Jihad leader Ahmad Ibrahim al-Najjar also has recounted bin Laden’s actions after the EIJ’s November 1995 attack on Egypt’s embassy in Islamabad. “Usama Bin Ladin had offered to bring them [the surviving attackers] to Afghanistan, provide them with accommodations and secure their safety,” al-Najjar said.45 “Bin Laden [also] earmarked $100 per month to be paid to regular [EIJ] members as well as to each family of those detained in Egypt.”46 In testimony before an Egyptian court, Mohammad Atta, another EIJ fighter, explained that “Bin Ladin paid for his wife’s medical care in Saudi Arabia, and frequently covered medical bills of Islamic militants as an unidentified Saudi hospital.”47
Other media articles also show bin Laden caring for his own after successful U.S. counterterrorism operations. After al-Najjar was captured in Tirana, Albania, in late summer 1998, a senior Albanian intelligence officer told the media that two weeks later “a man came from Egypt, armed with five airline tickets, in order to take the Islamic activist’s wife and three children to Afghanistan.”48 Alleged Nairobi embassy bomber Mohammad Sadiq also has said “Usama takes care of his men like a father.”49 According to Sadiq, he “received prompt payments in U.S. dollars on all his foreign visits” for al Qaeda, and his “family in Nairobi had been receiving regular payments from an unidentified visitor.”50 As the above-mentioned Albanian intelligence official said, “Bin Ladin is not noted for leaving his followers in the lurch.”51
Western and Muslim commentators likewise see bin Laden as an emerging Islamic leader and hero, although there is no unanimity on what part of bin Laden’s stature results from his talents and how much stems from the fact that, as former Pakistani intelligence chief Lt. General Hamid Gul has said, he is “a darling throughout the Islamic movement because he has become a symbol of defiance.”52 The Economist’s editors claim that “his [bin Laden’s] words are striking a chord on the Saudi street” when he talks about U.S. support for Israel’s “expansionist policies” and the “deaths of thousands of Iraqi children” caused by U.S.-backed UN sanctions.53 Saudi dissident al-Faqih argued in mid-1998 that Washington is dangerously wrong to think bin Laden is simply a terrorist who does not speak for a sizable portion of Muslims when he attacks U.S. double standards.54 “The formation of the current U.S. Government and the domination of the Zionist lobby over it makes it impossible to expect any improvement in the behavior of the U.S. government,” al-Faqih wrote. “From the statements made by U.S. officials, one notes that there is no grasp of the issue; there is no sense that grave errors are being made and that the enmity of Muslims is being courted against the United States. There is deep dream about U.S. greatness, excluding any readiness to understand what is going on in the Islamic world.”55 Shaykh Omar Abd al-Rahman’s aid Ahmed Sattar sharpened al-Faqih’s point, insisting bin Laden is not America’s major enemy but rather one of that enemy’s leaders.
The American government has one enemy … the Islamic movement all over the world, whether it’s armed struggle or peaceful…. Now, the people, especially in the Arab and Islamic world, look at you [the United States] the same way that they looked at the British and French occupation forces in the mid-30s and 40s. You are an empire that will do anything to oppress people outside the United States…. [Attacks like those in East Africa] are not going to end. Until you take a hard and good look at your policies in the Islamic world and the Muslim world. As long as you are supporting dictators like Mubarak….56
The romance surrounding bin Laden’s words and deeds also have enhanced his international stature—as Hamid Gul said, bin Laden is now the “quintessence of defiance” to the United States.57 “The Americans can block all roads,” bin Laden said in 1998 when asked if he feared capture by U.S. forces, “but they cannot stop the ways of Allah. We are in the ninth year of our struggle and I am still alive.”58 Other media stories have added to the romance of such statements. “Planning strategy in damp caves infested with scorpion and rats,” the Associated Press reported in August 1998, “bin Ladin maintained a disciplined lifestyle, waking up before dawn for prayers, then eating a simple breakfast of cheese and bread. Now he has emerged from the obscurity of caves to dominate the front pages….”59 Early in 1999, Newsweek piped in along the same line. “In the Islamic world,” said the weekly, “hiding … in some remote mountain fastness, Usama Bin Ladin has been transformed … into a ‘legend and a myth’.”60 The Economist worried that “Mr. Bin Ladin … commands an increasing fascination for ordinary Arabs,”61 and prominent Palestinian journalist Sa’id Aburish told Frontline, “I think to some people he is already a folk hero…. I think you have a fellow there in Afghanistan sort of hiding away from the only superpower in the world. He has become somewhat of a Robin Hood … sort of a romantic revolutionary in the middle of nowhere. What do you have to do to avoid capture by the United States or be killed by the United States. You have to have something special to do that.”62
Even media coverage of bin Laden’s reputed poor health strengthens his image as a patient and stoic individual, implacably defiant in the face of adversity. Issam Darraz, in his study of bin Laden in the Afghan jihad, wrote that bin Laden fought the infidels although he “suffered from extremely low blood pressure which, at times, debilitated him, compelled him to lie on the floor for long hours, and once required him to receive “medical solutions” while under Soviet artillery fire.63 In May 1998, Islamabad’s News described bin Laden’s arrival at Khowst in similar heroic terms. “[H]e was tall, frail and walked with the help of a stick,” the paper told its readers, “The rigorous lifestyle and punishing discipline that the billionaire Saudi has imposed on himself has already taken its toll but he remains defiant as ever.”64
After the East Africa bombings, Karachi-based Newsline noted that “although he walked slowly with the help of a stick, as if suffering from back pain … bin Ladin nonetheless cut a distinctive figure.”65 From London, The Times and Al-Quds Al-Arabi painted a portrait of a sickly but supremely confident man, carrying on in spite of pain. “He suffers from back pain and walks with a stick,” The Times noted. “He is skinny; a long black beard flows from his sunken cheeks and he is unprepossessing, except when he talks of his ‘holy mission’ in a passionate flow of Arabic…. He spoke softly, he seemed shy.” Al-Quds Al-Arabi’s Abd-al-Bari Atwan reported that bin Laden “is tall, slightly built but not weak…. He is very modest, nice to be with, his voice is low but can be heard. He smiles all the time. His smile reflects reassurance and reduces the distance between him and his guests….” Even infidel journalists have made the same points. “Bin Ladin never raises his voice,” ABC’s John Miller said in 1999, “and to listen to his untranslated answers, one could imagine that he was talking about something that did not concern him much.”66
Pertinent experience, substantive expertise, and personal charisma feed into a leader’s development; charisma alone is often enough to create a celebrity. Participating in a momentous event can also push an individual towar
d leadership. In bin Laden’s life, there have been several such events: the Afghan jihad and the first Gulf War, for example. Bin Laden’s performance in each was an important contributor to his development as a leader. His stature also has been enhanced by matching words and deeds; as the Washington Post reminded its readers after the 1998 East Africa attacks, “we [Americans] fail to grasp that such atrocities appear heroic to hundreds of millions of people who resent or hate or fear us.”
Ironically, however, the event that greatly accelerated the growth of bin Laden’s stature was the 20 August 1998 U.S. cruise-missile raids on Sudan and Afghanistan. The East Africa bombings strengthened bin Laden’s reputation for honesty—attack promised, attack delivered—but the failure of U.S. retaliation made him the hero of Islam. As the Economist’s editors wrote, bin Laden “has survived—by the grace of God, as he put it—a devastating attack on his Afghan base by the world’s only superpower. Just as Iraq’s Saddam Hussein has been able to pop-up from the rubble of cruise missile attacks with his regime intact, Mr. bin Laden’s survival enhances his stature. Almost overnight, everyone in the region wants to know who he is and what he stands for.” The U.S. attack also silenced Muslim leaders generally supportive of U.S. antiterrorism policies. While bin Laden “may appear a sinister fanatic to the West,” Cambridge University’s Akbar S. Ahmed argued the missile strikes hurt America among pro-Western Muslim elites. The strikes raised support for bin Laden in the Muslim world’s Islamist-dominated “favalas, bazaars, and villages,” he wrote, making it politically unwise for Muslim elites to condemn bin Laden. Muslim leaders favoring dialogue with the West and religious tolerance “suddenly [were] under pressure to keep quiet and lie low.”67
U.S. retaliation also validated bin Laden as the foremost champion of the Islamic struggle against what has been variously termed American: oppression, racism, hatred of Islam, double standards, barbarity, crusading, and support for the Zionist entity. “Bin Ladin survived. And in the teeming cities of the Islamic world, among the hundreds of thousands of young men, disaffected equally by the godless, arrogant nations of the West and their own weak, corrupt states, his legend grew,” explained U.K.-based Islamist Omar Bakri Muhammed to Newsweek.68 “Americans cannot imagine how much strength Americans have injected into Bin Ladin’s position,” Sa’d al-Faqih told Frontline, “[a]nd then Clinton standing in a press conference and talking about Bin Ladin as a superpower against America…. That’s the best gift [that] can be given to Bin Ladin. Or from Bill Clinton to Bin Ladin.”69 To the recipients of his organization’s newsletter, al-Faqih went into greater detail on this point.
the [U.S. air] strike would fulfill two objectives dear to both Bin Ladin and the Jihad groups. The first objective is that the strike would show them as a real and great opponent of the United States. This was realized by the fact that Bin Ladin was named by the U.S. president, the defense minister [sic], and other officials. The second objective would be the mobilization of Islamic public opinion at large, and Arab public opinion in particular, against the United States…. The recent [U.S.] strike was nothing but a response to a trap set by Bin Ladin and his group. The way the strike was presented by U.S. officials and its justification before the information media greatly served Bin Ladin and the Jihad groups, because it showed Bin Ladin as a genuine, strong, and credible opponent of the United States.70
Bin Laden’s steady, defiant reaction to the U.S. strikes also enhanced his stature. Less than an hour after cruise missiles hit Khowst, an al Qaeda spokesman told Al-Quds Al-Arabi that bin Laden was safe and that “the battle had not yet started. The response will be with actions not words.”71 The Wall Street Journal worried that the U.S. raid might not be a deterrent because “Mr. Bin Ladin and his Afghan followers … grew up on a constant diet of Soviet mines, bombs, and missiles.”72 A month later, bin Laden verified the Journal’s surmise by telling Abd-al-Bari Atwan that he “was safe and well, and also that he will answer Mr. Clinton with deeds and action.”73 Calm, dignified, and threatening, bin Laden told the Islamic world al Qaeda was not deterred, would attack at a time and place of its choosing, and would not engage in a tit-for-tat response. Muslims knew bin Laden was at the helm, Sa’d al-Faqih said, “and he’s the man that can meet the expectations of many Muslims for a man who can irritate and drive America crazy. That is—the only man who did it was bin Ladin. And he forced Clinton to stand up and mention his name three times.” In this context, one can imagine the boost bin Laden’s stature received in February 2001 when Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet said al Qaeda was America’s “most immediate and serious transnational threat.”74
A final way to assess bin Laden’s growing stature and grassroots popularity is to look at how Muslim governments and the media they control responded after the East Africa episode. For the most part, the response of these entities has been a nearly complete silence. “Although few Saudis and other Gulf Arabs supported the bombing of American embassies in East Africa,” the Economist wrote, “most were appalled by America’s reaction.”75 After the U.S. raids, the New York Times focused on the “backdrop of near silence from so many Arab governments, including most of those that … [endorsed] the joint declaration [at Sharm al-Sheikh, Egypt, in 1996] in which all vowed to work together in battling terrorism around the world.”76 The Muslim regimes apparently decided that bin Laden’s support on the “street” was too great to condemn “the great Mujahid of Islam.” On Frontline, Ahmed Sattar said the U.S. missile raid posed a huge problem for America’s friends in the Muslim world. “Last year,” Sattar mused, “if you asked the average man on the street in downtown Cairo … who is the son of [Muhammed] Bin Ladin, he would not have been known. Now, ask a five or six year old, who’s Usama Bin ladin, they’ll tell you exactly who is Usama Bin Ladin. He is our hero. This is how he is going to put it to you.”77 As always, Al-Quds Al-Arabi put the bottom line most cogently the day after the U.S. raids.
These U.S. strikes will not get rid of Usama Bin Ladin or the Afghan Arabs fighting under his banner who were rejected by their own countries and by the United States itself after they fought the Soviet forces together. Instead, it will reaffirm these peoples’ excuse, justify their hostility toward the United States in the eyes of millions of Arab and Islamic youths, and will embarrass the moderate Arab and Islamic regimes which have forged alliances with successive U.S. governments and fought terrorism with them.78
Overall, the years between 1996 and 2001 saw the rise and solidification of bin Laden’s status as an Islamic leader and hero. The years ahead, moreover, hold ample room for more growth not only on the basis of what he says and does—and anti-Crusader attacks of greater lethality are certain—but because the international political environment could not be better prepared for the advent of a charismatic, talented, and militarily proficient Muslim leader. Nor could the Islamic world be in more of a need for a credible and heroic leader, and on this score, the amount of grist for bin Laden’s mill is almost unlimited, given the maintenance of civilian-killing sanctions on Iraq; the ongoing confrontation between Iraq and Anglo-U.S. air power; the manifest bankruptcy of the Middle East peace process; the start of the second Intifadah; the murderous Russian attacks on Chechen civilians; the continued basing of U.S. forces on the Arabian Peninsula; the destabilizing impact of the ongoing jihads in Kashmir, Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Horn of Africa, and the Balkans; the Taliban’s struggle for primacy in Afghanistan; the U.S.-Russia-sponsored UN sanctions on the Taliban for hosting bin Laden; and America’s unstinting and unquestioning support for Israel.
For many Americans, what have been described above as opportunities for bin Laden will seem counterintuitive. The United States, after all, is supporting a Palestinian state, trying to defeat the tyrannical Saddam, and protecting the Prophet’s homeland. In this vein, Bernard Lewis has written that “the statement [bin Laden’s 1998 fatwa]—is a magnificent piece of eloquent, at times even poetic prose [that] reveals a version of history that most Westerner
s will find unfamiliar. Bin Ladin’s grievances are not quite many would expect.”79 Lewis notes that America’s “crimes”—occupying Saudi Arabia, unwavering support for Israel, and killing Iraqi civilians—amount, for bin Laden, “to a clear declaration of war by the Americans against God, the Prophet, and Muslims.”80 Professor Manstorp also noted the salience in the Muslim world of these and other issues specified by bin Laden as examples of the Crusaders’ attacks on Islam. “The content of Bin Ladin’s fatwa,” Ranstorp wrote, “is neither revolutionary nor unique, as it encapsulates broad sentiments in the Islamic world, especially that of Islam being on the defensive against foreign forces and modernization…. [A]lthough the ‘Bin Ladin phenomenon’ can be seen as a novelty when viewed in isolation, it nonetheless arguably represents the unfolding ethnopolitical and religious forces in the greater Middle East.”
If Lewis and Ranstorp are correct—and they surely are—it is more than likely that Osama bin Laden’s growth as a major leader in the Islamic world has just begun, as has that world’s approval for his military approach to dealing with the West. On this line, Dr. Iffat S. Malik has noted the irony of a situation in which “there are indications that just as bin Ladin has become the ‘public face’ of Islamic militancy for the West, so too has he for the Muslim world. The West could be inadvertently converting what was a genuinely diverse, fragmented phenomenon into—under Bin Ladin’s leadership—the green monolith it claims it is.”81
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