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Arab Veterans of the Afghan War
Jane's Intelligence Review
April 1, 1995
SECTION: MIDDLE EAST; Vol. 7; No. 4; Pg. 175
LENGTH: 4107 words
HEADLINE: Arab Veterans of the Afghan War
BYLINE: James Bruce
BODY:
Across North Africa, into the Arabian Peninsula, and even beyond into
Asia, there is a new cutting edge to the Islamic revolution -
hundreds of battle-hardened Muslim zealots who were once trained,
armed and funded by Western agencies as well as some of the very Arab
states which they now threaten. They are veterans of the long war
fought by the mojahedin of Afghanistan against the regime in Kabul
from 1979 to 1991.
These 'Afghans', not all of whom saw combat, now include some 5000
Saudis, 3000 Yemenis, 2000 Egyptians, 2800 Algerians, 400 Tunisians,
370 Iraqis, 200 Libyans, and scores of Jordanians. They operate as
far afield as China, Kashmir, the Philippines and Tajikistan. Events
in Bosnia indicates that Europe is not precluded; the hijacking in
December 1994 of the Air France Airbus A-300 at Algiers airport
underlines the extent to which the Islamists are prepared to go to
internationalize their campaign.
It is likely that there would have been Islamic eruptions whether
there had been Arab veterans of the Afghan war or not. But what is
undeniable is that these combat-experienced zealots have given the
fundamentalists a powerful arm that they would not otherwise have
had.
Algeria
The main thrust of the Islamic revolution is currently in Algeria.
The bloody civil war that erupted there in January 1992 when the army
denied power to the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) is spearheaded by
the 'Afghans'. There are an estimated 1000-1500 of them and they form
the core of the hard-line fundamentalists.
The FIS has an armed wing, the Movement Islamic Army (MIA). The MIA
appears to be increasingly split, with hardliners seeking to join
forces with the radical Group Islamic Army (GIA) which has been
primarily responsible for the killing of scores of foreigners and
Algerian intellectuals in and around the capital. The MIA, on the
other hand, largely confines its attacks to military and government
targets. The western and eastern regions of Algeria are the domain of
the MIA, while the GIA is strongest around Algiers.
The GIA is dominated by the 'Afghans'. A key qualifications for any
leader is that he must take part in operations in the field; this has
drastically lowered the commander's life expectancy. One of the GIA's
early leaders was Tayeb al-Afghani, nom de guerre of an Afghan
veteran and a former smuggler. He became a symbol of the 'Afghans'
and fundamentalism in Algeria until he was captured after an attack
on a police station at al-Gummar in southeastern Algeria in November
1992. That triggered a wider war, pitting the fundamentalists against
the Algerian army. A subsequent leader was Sid Ahmed Mourad, alias
Jaafar el-Afghani, who had also fought in Afghanistan. However, he
was killed by security forces in March 1994 after succeeding Abdelhak
Layada; the latter was arrested in Morocco in June 1993 and
extradited to Algeria where he remains in detention.
Another commander was Sherif Gousmi, known as Abu Abdallah Ahmed, yet
again an Afghan veteran. He was killed by security forces in
September 1994, aged 26. Before taking over the GIA, he was believed
to have been the leader of the Kataeb al-Mout death squads; these
specialized in assassinations, including those of government
officials and several French citizens. Another GIA leader is Ahmed
Bounoua; he was expelled from France in August 1992 and is a member
of the movement's Overseas Executive Council.
Kamar Kharban, a former Algerian army officer who became a mojahedin
commander in Afghanistan, is a key FIS leader and regularly visits
Germany where the FIS has an infrastructure and gun-running network
in Aachen, Berlin, Hamburg and Munich. The chief FIS spokesman in
Europe is Rabah Kabir, who sought asylum there in 1992. Kabir and
Usama Madani, one of the sons of imprisoned FIS leader Abbas Madani,
were arrested in Germany in June 1993 following an attempt to
assassinate Algerian leader Houari Boumedienne in August 1992 in
Algiers. They were released in September 1993 even though Algeria has
issued international arrest warrants for them. Although German
authorities did not send Kabir and Madani back to Algeria, it has
been keeping them under surveillance since Germans in Algeria were
threatened.
Kabir was named president of the Islamic government-in-exile
proclaimed in September 1993, with Kharban as his deputy. Kharban was
expelled from France on 17 August 1992, apparently after issuing
death threats against Algeria's ruling council. The FIS claimed in
September 1994 that it had opened an information office in
Washington.
The GIA has a propaganda infrastructure in Poland where its
newsletter, Jihad News, is published. At one time, it was edited by
Abdallah Anas, son-in-law of Abdallah Azzam, a Palestinian scholar
and member of the Muslim Brotherhood who, with Saudi help, was a
seminal organizer for the recruitment of Arab volunteers to fight in
Afghanistan. Many were from the USA, a link which would be
influential in the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. He was
killed in a mysterious car-bomb in Peshawar in November 1989 and is
widely revered among the 'Afghan International'.
Other splinter groups are emerging in Algeria, most of them
hard-line, anti-Western radicals. One such group is the Organization
of Free Islamic Youth, blamed for the murder of Islamic moderates who
advocated dialogue between the FIS and the government; another is the
Movement of the Islamic State.
Egypt
Egypt, too, is locked in a war with Islamic fundamentalists who
include several hundred 'Afghan' guerrillas. The main group is led by
Mohammed Shawky al-Islambouli - brother of the fundamentalist army
lieutenant, Khalid al-Islambouli, who led the group that assassinated
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in October 1981 - and Ayman Zawahiry.
Al-Islambouli was sentenced to death in absentia by an Egyptian court
in December 1992 for plotting to overthrow the Mubarak government and
assassinate Egyptian leaders. He has a base in Jalalabad, capital of
Nangarhar province in eastern Afghanistan, and Hekmayat's power base.
Jamaat al-Islamiya still has some 200 men there today. In 1990,
al-Islambouli was host in Pakistan to Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman who is
now on trial in the USA for alleged involvement in the World Trade
Center bombing and other attacks. Both Abdel-Rahman's sons fought in
Afghanistan.
Mahmoud Abouhalima, an Egyptian Afghan veteran, allegedly planned the
World Trade Center attack and trained others to carry it out. Another
'Afghan', Ahmad Ajaj, entered the USA on a false Pakistani passport,
carrying bomb-making manuals and other material for the bombers. A
third man, Sudanese Siddig Ibrahim Siddiq Ali, was with Abouhalima in
Afghanistan in 1988-90. An Egyptian scholar who knew them there said
they were 'very good commanders who fought in various provinces'. US
authorities believe there may be as many as 200 Arab 'Afghans' in the
New York-New Jersey area alone. They are all viewed as potential
terrorists in the aftermath of the bombing of the World Trade Center.
Another key fugitive is Ibrahim el-Mekkawi, a prominent
fundamentalist who fled Egypt after Sadat's assassination.
Authorities in Cairo claim he is directing the Islamic campaign in
Egypt from Pakistan. A former army colonel, he travels between
Peshawar and Afghanistan where he maintains training camps and other
bases. One of his lieutenants is Mahmoud el-Sabbawy; he lost his
right leg fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. In a recent interview
in Pakistan, el-Mekkawi said that 'it would be easy to overthrow the
government' in Cairo. 'But what comes next is more complicated'
because the fundamentalists are aware that they still do not have
enough support among the Egyptian officer corps to control the
country after a coup. One of his men, a Palestinian known by his nom
de guerre of Abu Boaz, said it may take another decade for the
fundamentalists to topple Arab governments. But he remains
optimistic, because 'the young generation in the Islamic world is
coming out of its stupor'.
Authorities in Cairo claim that wealthy Gulf Arabs provide funding
for militant Islamic zealots spearheaded by the 'Afghans' in Egypt
and other Arab states, while Iran guides and directs their
activities. Saudi Arabia and its allies deny they are involved in any
way. There is no evidence that Tehran is directly involved in these
campaigns, but they do coincide with the Islamic republic's policy of
undermining secular Arab governments. The fundamentalist regime held
a major conference of Islamic groups in Iran in February 1993,
allocated funds and discussed strategic aims. The Iranians, who
funded Shiite mojahedin factions in Afghanistan, are also deeply
involved in Islamic Sudan which the governments of Algeria, Egypt and
Tunisia accuse of training and aiding fundamentalists. Soon after the
Tehran conference, Algeria and Egypt were hit by waves of
assassinations and kidnappings reminiscent of the operations
conducted by Tehran-backed Shiites in Lebanon between 1983 and the
end of the civil war there in 1990.
Cairo security authorities claim there is a link between the Gulf
financiers and Iran's intelligence services. Among the financiers is
Osama bin Laden and his brother Khaled, whose family made a vast
fortune in Saudi Arabia in the construction industry over the last
two decades. He is a key figure behind the 'Afghan International'.
Bin Laden founded the Islamic Salvation Foundation in Saudi Arabia
through which he financed initially the Afghan mojahedin, later
extending that to radical Islamic groups around the Arab world.
The Saudis denied that bin Laden and others were involved.
Nonetheless, in April 1994, the Saudis revoked bin Laden's
nationality - an extremely rare occurrence - and his family,
originally from the south Yemen province of Hadhramaut and one of the
richest in Saudi Arabia, publicly disowned him. Bin Laden is now
based in Sudan, under the protection of the Islamic government there
and its spiritual leader, Hassan al-Tourabi. He has recently opened
an office in London and, despite the Saudi government's actions,
still has access to large amounts of money held in foreign banks.
Pakistan
In recent months, Pakistan has been hunting down Arab 'Afghans' at
the request of Cairo and Algiers. It signed an extradition agreement
with Egypt in March 1994 to return wanted 'Afghans', among the 1200
believed still in Pakistan. Islamabad's efforts have stemmed largely
from its desire to avoid being branded by the US State Department as
a country that sponsors terrorism, which automatically disqualifies
it from US economic aid. It has sought to close organizations
supposedly helping refugees but which are suspected fronts for
Islamic radicals.
Senior Pakistani officials argue that the long trail of arms and
ideologically motivated Islamic activists cannot be eliminated
easily. It is indeed a daunting task, and there has been considerable
opposition inside Pakistan itself, including high-ranking military
officers such as Lieutenant General Javed Nasir, who headed the
Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence Agency (ISI) during the Afghan
war and co-ordinated with Western agencies, the Saudis and others the
establishment of mojahedin forces as a bulwark against Soviet
expansionism.
The Pakistanis, anxious to be seen as not supporting terrorism as the
extremist tide spread, scored a major coup in February 1995 by
arresting Ramzi Ashmed Yousef, an Iraqi-born 'Afghan' and alleged
mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing. They handed him over to
the US authorities who flew him back to New York to stand trial.
Western intelligence authorities believe that Yousef was also
involved in an attempt to blow up the Israeli embassy in Bangkok with
a car bomb in March 1994 and a plot to assassinate Pope John Paul II
in the Philippines in January. There are suspicions that the primary
target in the Philippines may have been to plant a bomb aboard a US
airliner.
In May 1994, Pakistani authorities began deporting wanted Egyptians.
The first was 26-year-old Ali Eid, suspected of belonging to an
outlawed Islamic group, the Vanguards of Conquest, a revival of the
Jihad movement that was responsible for Sadat's assassination. The
government claimed Eid left Egypt in 1990 for military training in
Peshawar. The Egyptians have hanged scores of convicted militants,
including members of the Vanguard, who were blamed for the attempted
assassinations of Interior Minister Hassan el-Alfy in August 1993 and
Prime Minister Atef Sedki in November 1993. Hassan el-Alfy claimed
that the extremists who ambushed Sedki's limousine in Cairo with a
remote-controlled bomb were 'highly trained in Afghanistan in the use
of explosive materials'.
During the Afghan war, the Egyptian Jamaat al-Islamiya detachment was
particularly respected for its military skills and reckless courage.
With a strength of around 300 men at its peak, this contingent, which
included Abdel-Rahman's two sons, fought mainly in Nangarhar province
in eastern Pakistan, controlled largely by Hezb-i-Islami. Here, large
numbers of the foreign volunteers were deployed. Several hundred are
still believed to be in eastern Afghanistan under the protection of
Hekmayat, the fundamentalist guerrilla leader who is now the
country's prime minister.
The 'Afghans' expelled from Pakistan under pressure from Algeria,
Egypt, Tunisia and the USA are often fugitives in their homelands. So
many go to Iran, from where they are able to get to Sudan or northern
Iraq. Here, Kurdish Islamic groups accommodate them until they are
filtered out to other countries in the Arab world.
Yemen
Many go to Yemen where the fundamentalist al-Islah, or Islamic Reform
Party, provides shelter. The party, deeply rooted in the powerful
Hashed tribal confederation in northern Yemen and headed by the
firebrand Sheikh Abdul Mejid Az-Zindani, encourages them to settle in
Yemen where there has been an upsurge in Islamic action in recent
months. Much of it has been directed at the Yemen Socialist Party
(YSP) which is now largely discredited because of the secessionist
efforts of its former leaders during the civil war in mid-1994. Many
'Afghans' fought on the side of the Islamic-backed San'a government
during that conflict against what they considered the Godless
Marxists of the YSP.
Yemen was a key source of manpower for the 'Afghans'. From 1984 until
the end of the decade, Az-Zindani sent between 5000 and 7000 Arabs,
including Yemenis, to Afghanistan and Pakistan via Saudi Arabia for
military training and religious teaching under his guidance. When the
Yemenis returned home after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan,
they made no secret of their new sense of mission to eradicate from
the former South Yemen all remnants of the one-time Marxist regime.
The San'a government has started to crack down on local 'Afghans'
even though they supported President Ali Saleh during the recent
civil war. The hard-line 'Afghans' recently attacked shrines of the
mystical Sufi sect which Yemen's Zaidi Muslims consider heretics. A
group of members of the Yemen Islamic Jihad organization, including
several 'Afghans', were imprisoned in Aden in early 1994 for bombing
two hotels there in December 1992. The group has been funded in the
past by bin Laden.
Until Pakistan started getting tough with the foreign 'Afghans',
Az-Zindani frequently visited Peshawar. So did Rashid el-Gannouchi,
exiled leader of Tunisia's outlawed Nahda fundamentalist party. He
was sentenced to life imprisonment in Tunisia for plotting to
overthrow and assassinate President Zine al-Abedine ben Ali. Based in
London, he travels on a Sudanese diplomatic passport and frequently
visits Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Other Middle Eastern States
Another important 'Afghan' is Mohammed Nazzal, a computer expert who
studied in Pakistan and is now a leader of Hamas, the Palestinian
fundamentalist faction. Nazzal is based in Amman. Here, the 'Afghans'
are largely clandestine and have links with Hamas and Islamic
Jihad-Palestine. They formed the Jaish Mohammed, or Mohammed's Army,
in 1991 and planned to launch a campaign of terrorist bombings and
assassinations aimed at toppling the Hashemite throne, including
kidnapping one of King Hussain's younger sons, Prince Abdullah.
Several were imprisoned after a series of bombings, and 11 were
sentenced to death on 21 December 1994. Three others were convicted
in absentia, including bin Laden's son-in-law, Mohammed Khalifa.
Sudan, a cradle of fundamentalism, now has an Islamic alliance with
Iran and, according to Western and Arab intelligence sources,
harbours large numbers of Muslim extremists from all around the
Middle East, including hundreds of 'Afghans' who have not yet been
able to return to their home countries.
In Eritrea, probably the only country in the Horn of Africa not
embroiled in conflict, President Isayas Afewerki alleged in early
1994 that armed Islamic militants based in Sudan were seeking to
destabilize his fledgling state. After 20 were reportedly killed in a
border gun battle, he claimed that many were Arab 'Afghans' from
Algeria, Morocco, Pakistan and Tunisia.
Bosnia
Arab 'Afghans' are in Bosnia helping fellow Muslims fight the
Christian Serbs. Between 200 and 300 of these veterans, including
non-Arab Muslims, are based in Zenica where they are widely feared.
The number of non-Bosnian Muslims in the military is estimated at
between 500 and 1000 from a dozen countries in the Middle East. From
all accounts, they have fought with some distinction. Some 300
'Afghans', organized into a unit known as 'the Guerrillas', operate
with the Bosnian 3rd Corps in Zenica. Algerian FIS leader Kamar
Kharban, a veteran of the Afghan war, has visited Bosnia several
times over the last two years.
The 'Afghans' and other Muslim volunteers have also been a source of
friction with the Bosnians who are largely secular Muslims. The
outsiders' religious zeal and arrogant commitment to their holy war
has angered their hosts. However, many of the volunteers represent
wealthy Islamic organizations or countries whose support the
beleaguered Bosnians count on.
'Afghans' are believed to have been behind the murder of British aid
worker Paul Goodall on 27 January 1994 near Zenica. Three Muslim
volunteers, all Arabs carrying fake Pakistani passports, were later
shot dead by Bosnian military police at a roadblock near Sarajevo.
Three others were arrested by police for questioning in the murder.
The Al-Kifah, or 'Struggle', Refugee Center in New York, which used
to recruit and raise funds for mojahedin going to Afghanistan, last
year announced it was switching its operations to Bosnia. It was
established in the mid-1980s by Egyptian Mustafa Rahman as a joint
venture with Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, spiritual leader of Jamaat
al-Islamiya.
Afghans have also been identified fighting alongside their Muslim
brothers in the breakaway republic of Chechnia against the Russians.
The Chechen capital, Groznyy, became a key transit point for Arab
veterans of the Afghan war after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The Russians could well now become targets for the 'Afghans'.
Asia
Some Arab 'Afghans' have even been reported in the Muslim provinces
of western China. One of Sheikh Abdel-Rahman's sons has been reported
to be leading Arab 'Afghans' with Islamic guerrillas in Tajikistan
fighting their old enemies, the Russians, who are propping up the
former communist regime there.
Other Arab veterans are in the Philippines with the extremist Muslim
Abu Sayyaf faction - named after an Afghan mojahedin hero - waging a
war of terror on the Manila government in the struggle for Muslim
self-rule in the Mindanao region. The Abu Sayyaf faction is a
hard-line splinter group of the main Muslim movement, the Moro
National Liberation Front, and launched its own campaign when Moro
began peace negotiations with Manila in 1992.
The Abu Sayyaf group was responsible for a string of bombings,
assassinations and kidnappings of priests, businessmen and doctors
between September 1992 and June 1994, including the massacre of 15
Christians in the southern Philippines. The group broke new ground,
like their Algerian comrades' hijacking in December 1994, by bombing
Philippines Airlines Boeing 747 on a flight from Manila to Tokyo the
same month. A Japanese passenger was killed and six other people
wounded, but the aircraft landed safely at Okinawa with a 60 cm hole
in the cabin floor. It is likely that Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, the alleged
mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing, was in contact with the
Abu Sayyaf group when he was in Manila during the Pope's visit in
January before his fateful journey to Pakistan.
Indian security authorities say they have killed or captured a score
of Arab and other foreign veterans of the Afghan war fighting with
Muslim guerrillas in disputed Kashmir where Pakistan, their old
patron, is active in fomenting rebellion among the Muslims. They are
also providing them with weapons, including large amounts of arms
originally provided by the Americans and their allies for the
mojahedin in Afghanistan. The Indians say they have learned the names
of 50 Arab guerrillas from the captured men.
Conclusions
The wave of Islamic extremism sweeping the Middle East is
increasingly deep-rooted. It is fuelled by not only the attempts to
suppress it by the governments concerned but also the growing belief
among the Muslim populations of the region that long-ignored
political and economic reforms can only be squeezed out of the
regimes in power, not obtained by negotiation. The fundamentalist
creed also believes that the secular Arab governments must first be
overthrown before the greater enemy, the West, can be tackled.
As the situation in Algeria disintegrates, all the signs point to a
prolonged war of attrition in which the country could be split, if
the government does not collapse first. It is considered
inconceivable that the Islamic guerrillas can be crushed, while they
are not militarily strong enough to defeat the army. If the turmoil
spreads from Algeria and Egypt to Tunisia and Morocco, and there are
already signs of Islamic fervour in these states, it could eventually
produce a hostile Islamic bloc on the southern shore of the
Mediterranean that would have serious implications for western and
southern Europe. The Air France hijacking by the Algerian GIA in
December and the gunmen's reported plan to turn the commandeered
Airbus into a flying bomb to explode over Paris, added a menacing new
dimension for Europe to the Algerian conflict.
An Islamic victory in North Africa would also have potentially
critical consequences for Israel which increasingly perceives
militant Islam to be its main adversary. Beyond Israel too lie the
Arab monarchies of Jordan and the Gulf, as well as Syria. So far,
Damascus has had little trouble from its fundamentalists who were
brutally crushed by President Assad's socialist regime in the early
1980s. It is interesting, to say the least, that Assad, scourge of
the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood, is now allowing mosques to be built all
over Damascus. The Arab-Israeli peace process - vehemently opposed by
Iran and its surrogates in the Arab world - will undoubtedly spawn
fresh expectations, and that, in the absence of conflict, standards
of living will improve and democratic reforms emerge. When those
reforms do not appear, Islamic fundamentalism, which has now eclipsed
the discredited and obsolete notion of secular pan-Arab nationalism,
will be where Arab Muslims will turn.
James Bruce is a journalist who has covered the Middle East for more
than 20 years.
GRAPHIC: Photograph, Four gunmen, belonging to the GIA, were killed by French
commandos as they stormed the hijacked Airbus A-300 at Marseille airport on 26
December 1994. The GIA responded by later killing three Roman Catholic priests
in the Algerian city of Tizi-Ouzou.; (Photograph, AFP); Photograph, Firemen and rescue crews outside the World Trade Center after the bombing on 26 February
1993.; (Photograph, AFP); Photograph, Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, the blind
fundamentalist cleric, is currently on trial in the USA for the bombing of the
World Trade Center.; (Photograph, AFP); Photograph, Mahoud Abouhalima, one of
Sheikh Rahman's sons, is also on trial for the same bombing.; (Photograph, AFP);Photograph, Ramzi Ashmed Yousef was extradited to the USA in February 1995 on
suspicion of being involved in the World Trade Center incident. He was also
believed to be behind the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II in the
Philippines in January.; (Photograph, AFP)
