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THE MARCH TO WAR AGAINST THE UNITED STATES

Team One Background Briefing

The Critical Juncture

In February 1989, the last Soviet troops pulled out of Afghanistan. The Islamist
leaders of the Jihad confronted the question of "where to go next," where to direct the
"Islamic Army" (as bin Laden himself then titled it) that had evolved in the decade-long war
with the Soviets. This brought to the forefront a growing split between bin Laden, who had in
the recent years become increasingly influenced by a group of militant Egyptians, and his
erstwhile mentor Abdullah Azzam. This would prove to be a decisive fork in the path to
declaration of war against the United States by the transnational terrorist force we now know
as al Qaeda.

Both factions affirmed adherence to the long-standing Islamist goal of re-establishing the
global Caliphate under pure Quranic law (which as a universal given would require eliminating
the Israeli state).1 Their division was over how to get there.

The Egyptian militants had long ago declared the "apostate" Middle Eastern regimes
to be the principal obstacle to the ultimate objective of re-establishing a pure Islamic
Caliphate, and they saw the emergent Islamic Army as a new force for their long standing
Jihad. By the time the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan bin Laden had come to fully espouse
this position. He was already creating his own organization, distinct from what he had until
then shared with Azzam, in which many of the top positions were held by members of the
Egyptian Islamic Jihad.

Azzam did not quarrel with the principle that bringing down the apostate regimes in the
Muslim countries was essential to the ultimate objective. But he strongly opposed what he
considered a diversion of forces, funds and other resources from what he insisted was the more
immediate task - completing the establishment of an Islamic state in Afghanistan. Although the
Soviets had withdrawn their troops they had left in place a proxy regime. He also argued that
the next priority for the Islamic Army should be expunging the Israeli "occupiers" from the
sacred Muslim lands of Palestine. Whatever resistance might have been sustained by Azzam
and his remaining supporters was taken care of on 24 November 1989 when he was
assassinated, along with two sons, in a car bombing in Peshawar.

'. The historical background is described in Daniel Benjamin and Steve Simon, The Age of Sacred Terror, (New
York: Random House, 2002) 95-109; Peter Bergen, Holy War, Inc., (New York -The Free Press/Simon and
Schuster, 2001), 40-62; Rohan Gunaratna, Inside al-Qaeda, (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002) 16-
26. The split between Azzam and bin Laden and the Egyptian groups is also described in testimony by Jamal
Ahmed al-Fadl, an al Qaeda member who was there at the time and turned himself over to U.S. authorities in
mid-1996. See New York District Court: Transcripts of Trial ofUsama Bin Laden et al [African Embassy
Bombings]; Testimony of Jamal Ahmed al-Fadl, 6 Feb. 01, 189-95; 506). Fadl claims to have been formally
"sworn in" as a member of bin Laden's group in 1989 at a special meeting at a bin Laden camp (Camp Farouq)
in Khost, Afghanistan. Re "Islamic Army," see Gunaratna 22-24. Contrary to common wisdom, bin Laden did
not form his organization under the title of al-Qaeda. It was Azzam who conceptualized it in 1987, and his
article "Al-Qa'aidah al Sulbah," The Solid Foundation," in the Arabic Journal Al Jihad in April 1988 has been
described by some Arabists it as the "founding document" for the organization that has become known as "al
Qaeda." See Bergen 60ff. Fadl has said in his testimony that when bin Laden was initially forming his group,
the members referred to it both as al Qaeda and the Islamic Army, and only later adopted use of the single term
al Qaeda. (Fadel 6Feb.2001, 212)

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Adopting the path of Jihad against the apostate rulers of the Muslims lands would have
almost certainly led inevitably to attacks on those whom the Islamists viewed as the sources, "the
props," of the apostate leaders' power - the U.S. and other western states. The U.S. was in fact
charged with being the prop for both the "far enemy" - Israel - and "near enemies" such as the
Mubarek regime in Egypt. (And by this time bin Laden had put the Saudi regime in the same
category.) In this situation, the deployment and ultimately sustained basing of U.S. forces in Saudi
Arabia and the Gulf States in 1990 was a match in an already smoking pit, and provided a
"billboard" for bin Laden's evocations for Jihad.

Thus the evolving "bin Laden doctrine" added a new layer to the hierarchy of targets.
Before the apostate regimes could be brought down, the U.S. military forces had to be evicted
from the region. And as the focus of the Jihad became the U.S., the objectives of the Jihad
would soon expand beyond eviction from the Muslim lands to global attack against the U.S.

The Path

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan provided a common cause for Islamists whose
militancy and motivations had diverse origins. The Afghan battlefield offered a focus for
recruitment of "troops," acquisition of weapons, and the development of a command and
logistic pipeline, including transnational financial sources and movement channels. Many of
the individuals who came from the Middle East to play key leadership roles in the "Afghan
Arab" forces had been engaged in some form of their own Jihad movements long before the
conflict erupted in Afghanistan. These included bin Laden's initial mentor and partner in
Pakistan, Abdullah Azzam, as well as the Egyptian Islamists that would later comprise most
of the inner circle.

Bin Laden linked up with Azzam in Pakistan in 1984, where they jointly
established the "Bureau of Services" (Maktab al-Khidmat - MAK,). The MAK served as
a recruiting network hub - bringing fighters to Peshawar, putting them up in guesthouses, and
then dispatching them to training camps in Afghanistan. Branches would be established
around the globe, including several in the United States.

Azzam had already been a prominent figure among Islamists long before he moved to
Pakistan, issuing public calls for Jihad to return the historic Muslim lands to the governance
of pure Islamic law. He was virulently anti-Israel; he was born in Palestine in 1941, and after
receiving a degree at a Damascus university in 1966 he had returned to fight against Israel in
the 1967 war. In 1973 he took up studies in Egypt at the al-Azhar University, the most
prominent center of Islamic studies, before becoming professor of Islamic law at Abdul Aziz
University in Jeddah. His experience in Palestine and immersion in the doctrine of ancient
Muslim teachers had committed him to Jihad.2 By the end of the 1970s Azzam was dropped
by Abdul Aziz University because of his rhetoric, and he migrated to Pakistan where he
became a lecturer at the Islamic University in Islamabad.

2. Bin Laden was a student at Abdul Aziz in 1981, and thus would have known of Azzam's teachings even
before the two linked up in Pakistan. Another teacher at Al-Aziz at the time was Muhammad Qutb, brother of
Sayyid Qutb, who had been executed by Nasser in 1966, but who, as described below, continued to be the most
widely read Islamist in the Middle East and is the author of what is still considered by many militant Egyptians
to be the "manifesto" of their Islamist groups.

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According to most accounts, when the MAK was initially formed Azzam was its
doctrinal leader while bin Laden served as his deputy and provided much of the funding. Bin
Laden essentially confined himself to shuttling between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan (with
occasional ventures into Afghanistan to establish his Mujahidin bona fides), while Azzam,
traveled the globe on recruitment and fundraising missions, which included some 20 trips to
US. The Farouq mosque in Brooklyn was one of his regular sites for lectures on the duties of
Jihad, and as is described below, one of the first branches of the MAK was set up there.

In the mid-to-latter 1980s key leaders of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) were
moving to the Pakistan and Afghanistan sites in increasing numbers, and bin Laden
became increasingly influenced by them. Many who have studied the history of the
emergence of al Qaeda have pointed out that the evidence suggests that the organization was
as much a product of the Egyptians Islamists drawing in bin Laden as is was a matter of his
incorporating them into his inner circle.

Most prominent among these was Ayman al-Zawahiri, a medical doctor, described
by some as the leader of EIJ, by others as leader of a "faction" of the EIJ.4 He had been
imprisoned for three years on weapons charges following the assassination of Egyptian
President Anwar Sadat on 6 October 1981. When released he went to Pakistan to provide
medical services to Mujahidin waging Jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan.

Also in Pakistan at this time was Sheikh Omar Ahmad Abdel Rahman (the "Blind
Sheikh"), who was generally considered to be the spiritual guide of Egyptian Islamic Jihad
(EIJ). Many accounts claim he simultaneously served as spiritual leader for a parallel,
similar organization known as the Egyptian Islamic Group (EIG), headed by Rifai
Ahmed Taha. Sheikh Rahman had for many years issued public "Fatawas" justifying the
terrorist actions of both groups. He publicly praised the assassination of Sadat in 1981, and
was subsequently arrested and tried for his role, but ended up being acquitted. (Mubarak
apparently viewed imprisoning a/the top Muslim cleric as likely to incite more trouble that it
would solve.)

Both the EIJ and the EIG were in effect "rebellious offspring" of the Muslim
Brotherhood. The Brotherhood had emerged in the Middle East in the late 1920s in the
tumultuous post-WWI situation - the Ottoman dominion gone, much of its former territory
placed under control of League of Nation "mandates" (seen by much of the populace in the
region as an extension of European colonialism), and Palestine erupting into what would
prove to be an unending conflict. The Muslim Brothers propagated the doctrine that only
"Salafiyya" Islam - Islam purged of impurities and Western influences - could save
Muslims from the colonial powers.

By the 1950s, as the colonial powers begin pulling out, the focus of animosity turned on
indigenous leaders of the Middle Eastern states who were seen as having accepted
western law as a substitute for the Sharia - "abandoning God's law" and submitting to
"man-made law." (These "apostate" leaders were labeled as "Jahiliyya," a term originally
used to described the "barbarians" existing before the Prophet's message began to be

3. Many who have studied the history of the emergence of al Qaeda have pointed out that the evidence suggests
that the organization was as much a product of the Egyptians Islamists drawing in bin Laden as is was a matter
of his incorporating them into his inner circle. See, for example, Bergen, Holy War Inc., 199-204; Benjamin and
Simon, The New Age of Terror, 103; Gunaratna, Inside al Qaeda, 25.
4. The "faction leader" description is by Benjamin and Simon, 103.

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propagated.) Some Islamic scholars framed the issue in terms of the need to deal first with
the "near enemy" in their own lands before moving to combat the "far enemy" in Israel.
While the "Brothers" first emerged in Palestine/ Jordan, their doctrine had its most potent
appeal and attracted most followers in Egypt. The Al-Azhar Islamic study center in Cairo
became the main site of its transnational gatherings.

The Brotherhood doctrine nominally did not call for violence, but rather preached a
"bottom up" approach, in which conversion of the masses was seen as the way to create
power that would eventually topple the "Jahili" leaders. Nonetheless, this declared position
did not prevent the movement from engaging in significant incidents of violence in the
ensuing decades.

By the late 1960s factions within and outside the Brotherhood were explicitly rejecting
the "bottom up" concept, declaring that experience demonstrated there was no way the
apostate leaders in the historical Muslim lands would accede to a peaceful transition to a true
Caliphate. This fueled the break off the groups that formed the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and
the Egyptian Islamic Group. While the doctrine of these groups started at the same point as
the Brotherhood - immersion in the Koran - they described it as a basis for forming a
"Revolutionary Vanguard" whose mission was "Jihad" against the existing political
leaders in the lands of the Prophet. (The most influential preacher in this development was
Sayyid Qutb, who was eventually executed by Nasser in 1966, but whose books are still the
most widely read in the militant Muslim world. His "Signpost" treatise is generally
considered to be the manifesto of the militant Egyptian movements. As noted above, his
brother was teaching at Al-Azziz University in Jeddah at the time bin Laden was a student
there.)

Bin Laden and his Egyptian colleagues saw the Islamic Army that matriculated from
the war against the Soviets as having created this "vanguard;" the main question was where to
employ it next. (Bin Laden, in fact referred to his organization as the Islamic Army, of which
al Qaeda was only a central leadership "foundation.") With the defeat of the Soviets, the
Egyptians not surprisingly wanted to take the army back to pursue their fundamental
objective of ousting the apostate leaders in the lands of Islam, starting in Egypt, but
extending through the region.

Azzam's insistence on focusing the Islamic Army's resources on finishing the job
in Afghanistan and then turning to the enemy in Palestine presumably was at least in part
because of his experience in Palestine. According to some sources he also was skeptical
about the reality of prospects - at least under the existing circumstances - for ousting the
Middle Eastern rulers through militant actions. This was the same debate among the Islamists
that scholars had in earlier years described as contesting priorities between the "near enemy"
and the "far enemy."

At the time Azzam was assassinated Bin Laden was conveniently back in Saudi
Arabia. He has since routinely praised Azzam, but many suspect that he was behind the
killing. (Or perhaps it was the Egyptians who initiated and pulled it off, while bin Laden
adopted a "don't ask, don't tell" position.)

By this time bin Laden was already well down the road in forming his organization.
According to an al Qaeda defector, Jamad Ahmed al-Fadl, who claims to have formally joined
the organization in its founding stages, its inner circle was dominated by members of

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Egyptian Islamic Jihad. 5 Zawahiri was his principal deputy. Abu Ubaidah al-Banshiri,
former Egyptian police officer and prominent participant in the Jihad battlefield in
Afghanistan, was the first "military chief," while Muhammed Atef, (aka Abu Hafs al
Masry) another EIJ member, was deputy chief of operations, and ultimately would succeed
Banshiri after his death a few years later. According to several sources with direct access, at
the same time Zawahiri held this principal deputy position in al Qaeda's Shura, he
continued to hold a leadership position in the EIJ, and the two organizations pursued a
common agenda in Egypt. (Members of al Qaeda who have since defected or been
apprehended have said many key players belonged simultaneously to both al Qaeda and a
terrorist entity in their countries of origin.)

Other members of the initial inner circle or "Shura," whom the source knew only by
their pseudonyms, included:
" An additional Egyptian - Sheikh Sayyid el Masry.
• Three Saudis (in addition to bin Laden - Abu Musab al Saudi, Abu Saad al
Sharif Abu Mohamed Saudi, and Abu Fadl al Makkee)..
• Three Iraqis - Mamudh Salim, aka Abu Hajer who managed weapons
procurement; Abu Ayoub and Abu Burhan.
• A Yemeni (Abu Farij); a Libyan (Saif al Liby); an Omani (Khalifa al
Muscat), and a Nigerian (Qaricrpt al Jizaeri).

Beneath the Shura were a series of committees, usually chaired by one or more
members of the Shura. These included
• The military committee, initially chaired by Banshiri with Atef as his deputy
(and ultimate successor).
• A finance or "business" committee, initially chaired by Abu Fadhl al
Makkee.
• A Fatawa Committee, chaired by Abu Saad al Sharif Abu Mohamed Saudi.

This composition, and the linkages and affiliations that the organization has continued
to demonstrate since then, suggest that its most descriptive title would the one - "The
International Islamic Front" - under which it issued its "Fatawa" enjoining Muslims of the
world to wage holy war against the western "crusaders."

An early bin Laden effort at toppling an "apostate" regime occurred in October 89.
when he offered bribes to Pakistan parliamentarians to support a no confidence resolution
against Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. She narrowly survived the vote on 1 Nov. In
a later interview, Bhutto said some parliamentarians who had been offered money told her it
came from Saudi sources. She said that when she queried the Saudi government she was told
that bin Laden had put up the money, and that this was the first she had heard of him. She
also said, however, that whatever bin Laden's role in providing the money, she was convinced
that the initiator of the scheme was the chief of Pakistani intelligence (ISI)., who had been
running the CIA support channels to the Afghan Mujahidin and who had both the motivation
and the necessary connections to set up the scheme.

5. The description of the initial leadership and structure is given in the Fadl testimony, 6 Feb. 2001, 193-211;
221; and 13 Feb., 510-514. This includes Fadl's account of his official "swearing in" process.
6. Bergen, Holy War, Inc., 61-62, describing his interview with Bhutto.

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