“It cuts me to the heart to see that we must fight against our own brothers to free ourselves from the black hand that oppresses them, but we must be unwavering.”
“Me too,” Yousef agreed.
“Show me where you buried our comrade.”
They went down to the lake as Yousef explained how he carried the body there, how he washed it, how he covered it over and finally, how he gave it a genuine, fitting Muslim funeral to the best of his ability. This is what I like about this lad, thought Sheik Omar. Just then they came to the spot where a bulge of earth could be seen, clearly marking the gravesite.
“You made a beautiful grave. We all deserve a proper grave, and Nasser will most certainly have a proper place in heaven as well and in paradise, may Allah grant it, for he did his duty here on Earth as His faithful servant. And what words did you say after burying him?”
Yousef recounted the sacred words spoken at Nasser’s funeral, adding finally:
“…and at the end, I said to him: “I know that you will have a deserved place in paradise because your life has not been in vain.”
Sheik Omar reflected at length. This young man was not here to take part in the jihad only for the sake of an exciting holiday like many he had seen, nor even, like many others, seeking martyrdom for the sake of fulfilling some sacred obligation that would lead to paradise, though without ever managing to understand the true greatness of the cause and the goals for which they struggled. There were many who stayed for the summer months at the Jaji encampment, only to go back to where they came from afterwards, boasting of having been in the War in Afghanistan to fight alongside the muhajeddin. But no, this young man was different. Just like Sheik Omar, he sensed very sharply the real reason they were there, and his inner force was great. Plainly here was a diamond in the rough to be polished and put to use. A mighty force unto itself.
11
Despite the constant setbacks endured by the Afghan-Arab Legion in the mountains of Northeast Afghanistan, the group’s determination was unwavering. Giving up was never an option – even less so in the aftermath of any rout. A retreat under such inglorious circumstances entailed the most disgraceful humiliation. It was preferable to die, to face martyrdom. Thus scarcely a month had passed before a new battle plan was under way to lead a new action from the Lion’s Den, this time undertaken with a renewed belief in success, and with plans that had been better conceived, although for men such as Sheik Tameem (and others in that encampment), apparently, death as martyrs was genuinely seen as the greatest honor, and accordingly, after a certain point, delays in preparations for the attack began to goad his vastly brave and impetuous soul into impatience.
Meanwhile, after reflecting on the matter, and under the influence of Sheik Omar, Yousef gave his consent for everyone in the encampment to be told of his recent act of valor. It then became common knowledge among everyone that this young man had single-handedly killed an enemy soldier, the first slain by their group. One of the effects of this information was a general sensation that the enemy was not so mighty as he seemed after all, which filled the muhajeddin with strength and courage. Here was yet another proof that miracles really could happen in this battle of sacred dimensions. In the next confrontation these muhajeddin would not retreat so easily! Yousef also came to be held in high esteem, the fact that he had run off with Nasser to alert Bin Laden of Sheik Tameem’s attack being completely forgotten. If there had been currents of envy and hostility towards Yousef within the encampment, for the time being they ceased to be felt altogether, and were replaced by respect and admiration.
On May 22, 1987, there was another clash with the enemy, at a moment when Bin Laden, Sheik Azzam and also Sheik Omar were away in Peshawar. It was a clear day. The planning for the attack was entrusted to the Egyptian military commander whom Bin Laden held in high regard, and who split up the attack into groups, each with a designated leader, each with its own objective and precise line of action. However, and despite all these plans, right at the start of engagement with the enemy, it happened that one of the leaders was killed. Yousef was in the group closest to the enemy, whose leader was Said, another Saudi very loyal to Bin Laden and the cause that inspired them. Said had arrived at the encampment just a few months before Yousef and, like him, had abandoned his studies to go to Afghanistan. They were both very much alike in their idealism and practically unconditional respect for Bin Laden, and even in their manner of being keeping to themselves, which was the main reason that up to this point they knew so little of each other. They both cherished solitude, and both exhibited a sullen demeanor most of the time. In this group of nine soldiers going into combat on this day, four of them were wounded. Yousef was among those who escaped without injury.
As it happened, on that very day, one of the participants in this military operation had a magnificent dream that would later appear in the account written for posterity by Sheik Abdullah Azzam in his book, The Lofty Mountain on the events of these days in Jaji. In spite of the natural blend of fiction and reality in the dream, as with all dreams, as well as the fact that this book was actually a work of fiction though based on real historic events, the dream is as singular as it is precious in the way it raises the veil on the subconscious of these muhajeddin, which is why it warrants close attention and inclusion in this narrative. Here follows a brief transcription of Abu Sahl Al-Misri’s actual dream, as written by Azzam himself in his book, The Lofty Mountain:
Abu Sahl Al-Misri, Ayman Sabri, was martyred later in the War. He was an example of reliance upon Allah, patience and truth. One day before his Martyrdom, he had a dream in which he saw himself in a huge crowd of people standing outside the gates of Paradise. There was an angel with a register in his hand who would announce the full name of an individual, then that individual would step forward towards the angel. The angel would give him a card and with that card, that individual would enter Paradise. Abu Sahl waited and waited and waited but his name was not called out. After that, he resolved to himself that he would step forward at the next name that the angel announced, even if it was someone else's name. Incidentally, the next name that the angel announced was Abu Sahl's name, so he rushed towards the angel, took his card and entered Paradise with it. Once he entered Paradise, he saw two brothers: one who had been martyred a year earlier and another one, Dr. Salih who was not martyred until two years after this dream. Abu Sahl was killed the next morning, may Allah have mercy on him.[3]
The fact is that, on this day of battle, the Soviets were the first to retreat, and Yousef, Said and the rest of their comrades could finally celebrate a victory. From that day forward, Yousef began to see in Said a trustworthy companion. He realized that they made a good team, and had much in common, sharing the same vision with respect to jihad, having both left their families behind, their dedication and commitment in each action on the ground, and their devotion to Bin Laden and the ideas of Sheik Azzam.
However, the celebration of the Soviet retreat did not last long, because their well-executed attack provoked a heavy counterattack by the enemy. Meanwhile, Bin Laden had returned to the encampment, as had Sheik Omar. The Arabs had to deal with a heavy Soviet counterattack, so some men took up positions in a privileged spot to observe enemy movements. The strategy was now to wait until the enemy came within range of a rain of mortar fire, in a blow that would be both accurate and deadly. Thus, when the first suspected movements of the enemy were sighted, the Arabs took their positions, ready to fire, and then at the right moment, at Bin Laden’s firm order via radio, the mortars opened fire rending the mountain air, and landed squarely on the Soviet tanks. The result was frightful. The tanks flew in the air like toys. The Arabs’ spirit soared. As collateral damage, the military commander of the government forces in the region was killed during the operation. The determined and tenacious Arabs savored the sweet taste of victory, as well as the awareness that they were finally truly at war. However, they knew that each successful attack would be followed by increasingly heavy
counterattacks unleashed by the Soviet bear, which they were beginning to provoke.
To better defend against the next impending attack, Bin Laden summoned eight men, including Yousef and Said, to accompany him to the nearest summit from which they could observe the enemy’s movements, and thus discern at once when he would be getting close. A nearby cave would offer them shelter. They went there to set up their forward guard post and it wasn’t long before the enemy came into their field of vision, consisting of a column of two hundred soldiers approaching, climbing the hill. Bin Laden then decided to take up positions at the very top of the hill, so he left the cave and took up a position with two men at the strategic point he had designated, three civilians without proper military training but full of faith. By radio, Bin Laden called for rockets and water. The others had stayed behind in the cave. The situation, however, was clearly not viable for the three men. They took up positions a few meters apart so that each of them could observe a different field of vision surrounding them, and they were here on sentry duty when at a certain point, the Egyptian military commander approached, accompanied by another Arab who had received the order for rockets and water. The commander stated that he had come up with another plan that involved having them and the others still in the cave attack on the left flank while another group would attack the Russians on the right flank.
The Russians, meanwhile, came boldly into view, moving forward threateningly. As previously with the accurate mortars that had struck the regional enemy commander, the tactic now, along the same lines, was to wait for the Russians to get close enough until they were precisely in the desired position and then, with everything going according to plan, to open fire and trust that victory was certain. However, suddenly some reinforcements approached the summit where Bin Laden was, and in that instant the Russians detected the suspicious movements. Surprised, they pulled back. What happened next was devastating. A shattering rain of Soviet artillery fire shook the ground, tearing it up in successive roars. The Arabs hung on as best they could, confining themselves to prayer and whatever cover nature afforded them. The bombardment seemed to go on forever. When the Russians finally believed the area was safe, which is to say, totally blown apart, they resumed their ascent of the slope, but since the intrepid Arabs were still there, the inevitable confrontation took place.
The Russians were powerful, but the Arabs were determined. Yousef, Said and their comrades defended themselves and fought ferociously for their lives in the midst of unending answering fire and savagely violent man-to-man clashes. A number of Arabs experienced the longed-for martyrdom. As for the existence of the gates of paradise, as in Abu Sahl Al-Misri’s beautiful dream, only they could tell us if they exist, supposing they might return to Earth to tell us. Perhaps some dream of this kind went through their minds in the fleeting moments prior to death, pierced by bullets, by blades or any other killing thing, moments in which, as they say, time stretches out at the gates of death, becoming shapeless as it reaches towards eternity. Since space and time are intimately linked as two Cartesian dimensions, perhaps space also begins to become distorted at these times. Perhaps it is all as beautiful as the most beautiful hallucinations. Perhaps even the blood spilled, or the flight of the bullets slicing the air, change their colors and trajectories, transforming something so vile and appalling into something merely silly or psychedelic, like one last divine message to a man at the point of death, to tell him that war is the most ridiculous folly on the face of the Earth.
With the end of the firefight, the surviving Arabs pulled back and regrouped with the others at the rear. Yousef came upon Sheik Omar, who seemed to him more exhausted and worried than ever.
In the weeks that followed, the Russians seemed to have only one purpose: not to allow a single stone at the Lion’s Den to remain on top of another. Mortar fire and napalm rained endlessly from the skies. It was the season of Ramadan. Sheik Tameem prayed and longed for martyrdom more than ever, even going so far as to leave the shelter of the cave and shout to the skies for it. The area surrounding the Lion’s Den was entirely engulfed by blazing tongues of fire and dominated by the spectacle of destruction. There was no way to resist the enemy. The only weapons available (constantly underestimated over the course of history by men) were patience and faith. The power of the enemy was supreme and beyond dispute. In the midst of this tempest, the time came for big decisions, and then, the big decision arrived and was not only to abandon the Lion’s Den, but also to help the Russians in their labors and destroy it completely, inside as well, so that the enemy would never find anything other than a vestige of total destruction when they reached the base that was so precious, that had taken so much time and effort to build; it was the famous scorched earth policy that the Russians imposed on Napoleon and Hitler. This was the decision taken by the Arab group, to destroy what remained and abandon everything. Sheik Tameem was against it. He didn’t want to abandon the base. He preferred martyrdom and death to the disgrace of retreat but, in resignation, he ended up going along with the others. And so it was that the Arabs applied a scorched earth policy to their own cherished base and fled to the nearest rebel encampment.
12
The Afghan rebel commander, Abdul Rasul Sayyaf (a warlord and also President of the Islamic Union, one of seven parties formed among the muhajeddin and the one most aligned with Saudi interests at that time) ordered Bin Laden and his followers to return immediately to the Lion’s Den. This position was of capital importance after all, and could not be delivered just like that into the hands of the enemy without more of a fight. Sayyaf ordered twenty of his men to accompany the twenty-five Afghan-Arab survivors returning to the base that was now totally destroyed. Although it was most comforting to know that their action had been of such significance, making it possible to keep open a vital supply route for the muhajeddin, it was terrible to learn now that they would have to return to the miserable ruins of the base. Even the kitchen and infirmary had been savagely destroyed by the rebels themselves. To make things worse, exhaustion bore down heavily on all of them. Because of all this, the martyrdom that now lay ahead was of a different magnitude than that discussed previously, for it was a martyrdom of exhaustion and the physical limits of the body, demanding sacrifice, endurance and trial upon trial.
Even so, the Afghan-Arabs went back to the Lion’s Den, which now seemed more like a nest of rats or vultures. Sheik Omar had an air of extreme fragility and fatigue. Yousef was among those who best bore up under the circumstances, and he sought to help him in any way he could, but it now was his duty to get ready for combat like everyone else. Exhausted and ill, Bin Laden handed over command to the Egyptian military commander whom he entrusted with the mission of taking a small group of men to the left flank where the Russian troops were expected to advance. Thus, Bin Laden went to the stipulated place in the mountains, to keep an eye out for the enemy and ascertain his next offensive movements. As soon as he got there, he immediately spotted the Soviets advancing threateningly a mere few dozen meters away. At this point, Bin Laden was ill. He was subject to frequent low blood pressure and now, like the others, he also had to undergo hunger, fatigue, bodily pain and the powerful emotions of war. For several hours he had found it very hard to walk so much as a single meter.
What came next has been written down. Apparently, on spotting the Russians, Bin Laden tried to give an order but, because he was so hoarse, no one could understand him. In order for them to hear him, he decided to climb a tree – an act of extreme recklessness, and probably only possible under conditions of great mental stress. The Russians spotted him and, in one of those extremely improbable events that reality sometimes bestows upon men, a grenade was launched, flew through the air and the projectile’s parabolic trajectory passed extremely close to Bin Laden, who was stuck up in the tree, and exploded right next to him.[4] The merciless Russian fire immediately intensified. Bin Laden fainted. His strength as well as his duties for that day had come to an end. Perhaps he was so calm, so mu
ch in harmony with himself in the midst of the fury of battle that he fell asleep – that’s what one of the versions passed on to posterity.
At the right moment, providentially, the group of the Egyptian military commander emerged where Sheik Omar Rasoul Sharif was also on hand, and intense fighting began. The Sheik was wounded and had to be borne away on Yousef’s shoulders.
According to the history of encounter, there were some thirty five casualties among the Soviets, both soldiers and officers. The remainder of the enemy withdrew. This was the culmination of three intense weeks of battle, and the result was seen as a glorious victory for Bin Laden and his Afghan-Arabs. It would not be long now before the Soviets withdrew completely from Afghanistan and, although this was not in any way due to these three harrowing weeks of war, it built up the ego, the determination and the sacred vision that would become associated with this group of Arabs. Twenty years would go by until the enemy would no longer be the Russian army and become instead the U.S. army fighting under the aegis of the “war on terror,” one of those jaded phrases to which journalism has accustomed us. Something like a cookie, a snack or a tidbit (or else like a dog biscuit that also makes loud crunching sounds) as a pattern of verbal sounds essentially conceived to catch people’s attention, with the effect of distorting and causing people to forget the essence of what is actually going on. The idea is to cause shock, to send just a general message along the lines of, ‘what’s going on here is nothing more than a struggle against terrorists, good against evil, we’re good, they’re evil, but at the same time, it should be as superficial as possible. Something with which certain politicians can entertain themselves in meaningless televised debates, like sand flung in our eyes to avoid giving us the full meal of information, commonly considered very boring and hardly enticing by current standards of media interest.
The Miracle of Yousef: Historical and political thriller Page 9