Islam and Terrorism (21 page)
And the bloody struggle continues.
S
UDAN
Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman went south to Sudan after he was released from prison. He spent a few months there with Dr. Hasan al-Turabi, the leader of the Sudanese movement
al-Islamia
. Al-Turabi had succeeded in overturning the Sudanese government and taking over the country with the help of one of the generals of the Sudanese military.
Al-Turabi’s movement was established except for the Christian minority in south Sudan. However, al-Turabi is getting rid of them. Al-Turabi has slaughtered Christians, cutting off their hands and legs, injecting them with the HIV virus—just as Islam taught him. He has shown the world what Islam will do to Christians if it can.
The Sudanese Christians refuse to convert to Islam. They are also poor and cannot afford to pay for the high
taxation of being Christians; therefore, they are dying by the thousands under the authority of al-Turabi. Al-Turabi’s Islamic authority has killed Christian men, gathered Christian women and children, and sold them into slavery. Many humanitarian organizations have rushed in to buy these Christian slaves and set them free.
S
UMMARY
In summary, though the highly organized fundamentalist group in Egypt did not succeed in overturning its own government, the people who were a part of it went out to influence radical groups in other countries, particularly Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Sudan.
These movements are gradually becoming a part of our world, and their mission is to take over. They’re always waiting for the right environment or a conflict to happen.
NEW STRATEGY: ATTACK THE WEST
Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman and Osama bin Laden
T
HE PRACTICE OF
terrorism has evolved since the early seventies in two points—first, the target and second, the method. In the early seventies we started to see a major shift in the targets of terrorism. Terrorists used to target certain individuals such as diplomatic figures, high-ranking military officials, and politicians. Today terrorism is no longer threatening individuals, but instead it is focused on the general public.
Random attacks on the public are more effective because they terrorize the majority and spread fear in a larger way. They give terrorists fast results and more bargaining power to get what they want. Terrorism has become a method of political debate and dialogue.
S
HEIKH
O
MAR
A
BDEL
R
AHMAN
C
OMES TO
A
MERICA
After Sheikh Abdel Rahman won his case in front of the Egyptian supreme court, he was given his freedom. He went to Sudan and was welcomed by his fellow jihad leader Dr. Hasan al-Turabi. Sheikh Abdel Rahman spent a few months there, giving him support.
Then Sheikh Abdel Rahman decided to make a new move toward bringing back the glory of Islam. This time the goal was not to fight any one country—he was pursuing global jihad. Remember, Sayyid Qutb and other
writers emphasized the importance of taking jihad to the world and establishing a worldwide Islamic nation.
Sheikh Abdel Rahman was now after what Muslims call the source of infidelity and evil—America and Europe. To work toward this goal, Sheikh Abdel Rahman decided to take advantage of the freedom and democracy that exist only in the West. He came to America.
When Sheikh Abdel Rahman arrived in New Jersey, he received a great welcome from the Muslim leaders of the United States. He settled in New Jersey and immediately started meetings at al-Salaam Mosque in Jersey City. Muslims from all over the United States also invited him to come and teach them. He held seminars and training sessions in many major cities.
What do you think he was teaching them? Love, peace, and forgiveness in Islam? Not at all! He taught the American Muslims the true meaning of jihad. He called all American Muslims to unite and work together for the call of Islam, the call for Islam to once again rule the world.
1993 W
ORLD
T
RADE
C
ENTER
A
TTACK
The only goal of Sheikh Abdel Rahman’s residency in the United States was to lead jihad from within. The following are his objectives:
• To base the Islamic jihad movement in nations of the infidels—these are his own words—in preparation for the worldwide revolution
• To pressure the US government by threatening America’s security from within
• To use this pressure to change US policies in the Islamic world—particularly to break down support for Israel and to resolve the Palestinian dilemma
America supports Israel and different governments in the Middle East that are considered secular by Muslim fundamentalists. Sheikh Abdel Rahman believes these governments should all be overturned by the sword of Islam. Therefore, America’s support for them makes it the world’s greatest obstacle to the Islamic jihad movement.
Sheikh Abdel Rahman’s first operation of business was to shake the United States by attacking one of the foremost symbols of prosperity, success, and free enterprise—the towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. In 1993, as the world heard, the jihad movement was responsible for a major explosion in one of the towers, killing six people. For leading this attack, Sheikh Abdel Rahman will be in a US federal prison for life. Yes, he’s still alive, and we are feeding and providing for him with taxpayers’ money while he continues to inspire the jihad movement from behind bars.
O
BSTACLES TO
W
ORLDWIDE
R
EVOLUTION
The Islamic movement believes there are three main ideologies that stand in the way of worldwide Islamic revolution.
1. Judaism, as manifested in Israel
2. Christianity, as manifested in the United States and the West
3. Communism, as manifested in the former Soviet Union and China
They also believe these obstacles must be destroyed before the revolution will take place.
A
MERICA AS A
S
PECIAL
T
ARGET
There are five clear reasons why America is a special target of Islamic fundamentalists:
1. America represents those whom the Quran calls “People of the Book”—Jews and Christians.
2. America supports Israel.
3. America is the source of all that Muslims consider to be evil—pornography, alcohol, homosexual rights, evil music, evil fashion, and evil culture.
4. America supports Christianity all over the world. More Christian missionaries come from the United States than any other country.
5. America is a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” which makes it a heathen government in Muslim thinking because Allah is to be the head of all government.
America and the West are seen as the true enemies of Allah and Islam. The West is always helping Arab governments to kill the Muslim fundamentalists and destroy their organizations. Also, the West helps Israel fight and kill the Arabs.
O
SAMA BIN
L
ADEN
There was a new leader in the Islamic movement. He was a Saudi millionaire with a history similar to Sheikh Abdel Rahman’s. He left his home country because of persecution from the government and went to Sudan for a short time, just as Abdel Rahman did. In 1996 he left to go to Afghanistan to unite with Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri and other original members of the Egyptian al-Jihad to establish the al Qaeda organization. This is an international organization that includes non-Arab members such as Chechnya, Kashmir, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Kenya, and many others. The people are different, but the goal is the same: to declare war on the West, the United States, and Israel. Israel is condemned for representing Judaism, and the United States is condemned for representing Christianity. He was killed by US forces on May 2, 2011.
T
HE AL
Q
AEDA
O
RGANIZATION
Osama bin Laden did not start from nothing. Al Qaeda is a repackaging, regrouping, and reorganization of the Egyptian al-Jihad experience. However, al Qaeda is different in the following three areas:
Mind-set: attacking Western targets
Previous Islamic movements believed that they should start locally—overturn their homeland first, establish a nation that is solely based on Islamic authority, and then overtake the world. After their failure to take control of Egypt in the eighties, Dr. Zawahiri and Sheikh Abdel Rahman concluded that it would be better to go for worldwide jihad. They decided to go after the “head” rather than the “hands.”
The head was identified by its political policies. America and Europe supported Egypt to destroy the Islamic sects; America supported Iraq to fight the fundamentalists of the Iranian revolution; and America is still supporting Israel to fight Palestine. Al Qaeda decided that America is the head, and the secular Arabic countries are the hands. (Remember, militant fundamentalists consider nearly all Muslim governments to be overly secular.)
Their mind-set is that if we take out the head, then the hands won’t work. In other words, if we take out the big brother, then we can do whatever we want to the little brothers.
So the leadership decided the West should be the prime target for al Qaeda. Bin Laden was convinced of Sheikh Abdel Rahman’s new philosophy that jihad, the battle against Islam’s enemies, should be fought on the enemy’s turf.
Preparation: diverse, international membership
The target is no longer the police force, the military, or the government. Now the target is civilization, economy, and the security of the world’s source of power, meaning the United States and European countries. The new philosophy for the Islamic movement is one of killing civilians and destroying economies, but it’s still in accordance with the Quran.
Because the target has changed, the preparation is different. Al Qaeda seeks worldwide membership, which gives the group a wide diversity of experience. Osama bin Laden was a multimillionaire, and he used all his wealth to help his movement. He also received a lot of help from the Taliban regime, which confiscated a large selection of weapons from the Russians after their war and also from
the United States, which supported the Afghans’ efforts against communism.
Perhaps the most important preparation for al Qaeda’s members is that most of them are experienced soldiers of war. Many of bin Laden’s people are survivors of the Egyptian jihad movement, the Afghanistan war, the Kashmir war, the war against Israel, and many other conflicts. These men are trained terrorists, rejected by their own governments.
Implementation: starting with smaller targets
Implementation of the plan started by learning from Sheikh Abdel Rahman’s example. He failed in the first bomb attack against the World Trade Center in 1993. Al Qaeda learned from past mistakes and made better plans: they began with smaller US targets. On August 7, 1998, they bombed the US embassies in both Kenya and Tanzania, killing more than two hundred people. The US response was weak: on August 20, 1998, President Bill Clinton launched two cruise missiles against suspected terrorist sites in Sudan. Al Qaeda laughed at the Clinton administration for using multimillion-dollar missiles to blow up ten-dollar tents.
Later on October 12, 2000, al Qaeda tried to sink one of America’s largest Navy ships, the
USS Cole
, as it sat in the harbor at Aden, Yemen. The bomb killed seventeen sailors, injured many others, and sent America’s great ship home with a huge hole in the middle. This time the administration did not retaliate. It acted as if nothing happened. Now al Qaeda perceived a message of tolerance from the United States, and bin Laden got the green light to do bigger and worse—attacking on US soil for the first time since the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. On September
11, 2001, his plan was put into action as four planes were hijacked. This act resulted in the collapse of the World Trade Center and damage to the Pentagon—not to mention the deaths of everyone on board the planes.