Aug 27th 1998
*And a scholar, too
MENTION the name of Osama bin Laden in a Saudi public place and heads will turn, first to check that nobody from the government is listening, and then to give you their views. The exiled Saudi millionaire, branded by America as a terrorist mastermind, is fast becoming a cult hero to many of his more devout countrymen. Although few Saudis and other Gulf Arabs supported the bombing of American embassies in East Africa, most were appalled by America’s reaction. The lethal shower of Tomahawk cruise missiles on alleged terrorist facilities in the Muslim countries of Sudan and Afghanistan appears to them to be a crude and outdated way of putting the world to rights.
In the absence of public evidence from America, Arabs around the world doubt that the destroyed pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum was really producing the ingredients for nerve gas. They recall America’s blunder ten years ago when one of its warships shot down an Iranian airliner over the Gulf. But though Sudan now commands the attention of the Arab League, it is Mr bin Laden who commands an increasing fascination for ordinary Arabs. After all, he 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 was able to pop up from the rubble of cruise-missile strikes 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.
Born in the 1950s of a Yemeni father and Saudi mother, he is one of 55 siblings and half-siblings who grew up in Saudi Arabia at a time when oil was changing the country beyond recognition. His family made a fortune as builders, and when the young Osama took off for Afghanistan in 1979 to help the mujahideen fight the Soviet invaders, he used his family connections to import bulldozers for building tunnels and caves. He became a rallying-point for thousands of “Arab Afghans”, volunteers from as far away as Egypt and Algeria.
When the Russians left Afghanistan, he returned to Saudi Arabia with impeccable credentials as a holy warrior in the Islamic cause. But after ten years of living an ascetic existence in the mountains, he found his homeland well below his purist ideals. By 1990, Arabia was awash with American troops—some Jewish and some female—and his government was apparently embracing them. In his eyes, the sacred land of Mecca and Medina was being desecrated. Within four years, his strident criticism of the ruling al-Saud family had seen him exiled to Sudan, stripped of Saudi nationality and disowned by his rich and law-abiding brothers. But by 1996, his ever-stronger links to militant Islamist groups had led the Sudanese government to be pressed into expelling him too. He found refuge in Afghanistan.
By now the CIA had named him as the prime financier behind the bombing of the World Trade Centre in 1993. It also implicated him in the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 American servicemen, an act for which the Saudis have not named suspects. Mr bin Laden denied his involvement in either bombing, but called the perpetrators “heroes”.
At that time, to most people in the Gulf, he was still a little-known extremist with dangerous friends. Now, with the Arab-Israeli peace process in tatters, his words are striking a chord with many on the Saudi street. American foreign policy, he claims, is heavily biased against the world’s 1.2 billion Muslims. He cites America’s acquiescence with the expansionist policies of the Israeli government and its refusal to condemn Israel for the shelling of Lebanese civilians at Qana in 1996, and he blames America for the deaths of thousands of Iraqi children through prolonged UN sanctions. Regardless of the facts, these are sentiments shared by millions of Arabs, including many in the Saudi ruling family.
Mr bin Laden’s bête noire is the American forces on Arabian soil. He calls them the “new crusaders” and, in the past few months, he has told the media that, if American forces do not leave his homeland, then neither they nor the 30,000 American citizens in Saudi Arabia will be safe from attack.
Not surprisingly, his existence is a huge embarrassment to the Saudi government. Despite its misgivings over America’s Israeli policy, it has a deep military and economic partnership with America. But if Mr bin Laden makes good on his threats, Saudi Arabia risks being the recipient of the next terrorist attack
*And a scholar, too
MENTION the name of Osama bin Laden in a Saudi public place and heads will turn, first to check that nobody from the government is listening, and then to give you their views. The exiled Saudi millionaire, branded by America as a terrorist mastermind, is fast becoming a cult hero to many of his more devout countrymen. Although few Saudis and other Gulf Arabs supported the bombing of American embassies in East Africa, most were appalled by America’s reaction. The lethal shower of Tomahawk cruise missiles on alleged terrorist facilities in the Muslim countries of Sudan and Afghanistan appears to them to be a crude and outdated way of putting the world to rights.
In the absence of public evidence from America, Arabs around the world doubt that the destroyed pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum was really producing the ingredients for nerve gas. They recall America’s blunder ten years ago when one of its warships shot down an Iranian airliner over the Gulf. But though Sudan now commands the attention of the Arab League, it is Mr bin Laden who commands an increasing fascination for ordinary Arabs. After all, he 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 was able to pop up from the rubble of cruise-missile strikes 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.
Born in the 1950s of a Yemeni father and Saudi mother, he is one of 55 siblings and half-siblings who grew up in Saudi Arabia at a time when oil was changing the country beyond recognition. His family made a fortune as builders, and when the young Osama took off for Afghanistan in 1979 to help the mujahideen fight the Soviet invaders, he used his family connections to import bulldozers for building tunnels and caves. He became a rallying-point for thousands of “Arab Afghans”, volunteers from as far away as Egypt and Algeria.
When the Russians left Afghanistan, he returned to Saudi Arabia with impeccable credentials as a holy warrior in the Islamic cause. But after ten years of living an ascetic existence in the mountains, he found his homeland well below his purist ideals. By 1990, Arabia was awash with American troops—some Jewish and some female—and his government was apparently embracing them. In his eyes, the sacred land of Mecca and Medina was being desecrated. Within four years, his strident criticism of the ruling al-Saud family had seen him exiled to Sudan, stripped of Saudi nationality and disowned by his rich and law-abiding brothers. But by 1996, his ever-stronger links to militant Islamist groups had led the Sudanese government to be pressed into expelling him too. He found refuge in Afghanistan.
By now the CIA had named him as the prime financier behind the bombing of the World Trade Centre in 1993. It also implicated him in the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 American servicemen, an act for which the Saudis have not named suspects. Mr bin Laden denied his involvement in either bombing, but called the perpetrators “heroes”.
At that time, to most people in the Gulf, he was still a little-known extremist with dangerous friends. Now, with the Arab-Israeli peace process in tatters, his words are striking a chord with many on the Saudi street. American foreign policy, he claims, is heavily biased against the world’s 1.2 billion Muslims. He cites America’s acquiescence with the expansionist policies of the Israeli government and its refusal to condemn Israel for the shelling of Lebanese civilians at Qana in 1996, and he blames America for the deaths of thousands of Iraqi children through prolonged UN sanctions. Regardless of the facts, these are sentiments shared by millions of Arabs, including many in the Saudi ruling family.
Mr bin Laden’s bête noire is the American forces on Arabian soil. He calls them the “new crusaders” and, in the past few months, he has told the media that, if American forces do not leave his homeland, then neither they nor the 30,000 American citizens in Saudi Arabia will be safe from attack.
Not surprisingly, his existence is a huge embarrassment to the Saudi government. Despite its misgivings over America’s Israeli policy, it has a deep military and economic partnership with America. But if Mr bin Laden makes good on his threats, Saudi Arabia risks being the recipient of the next terrorist attack
ليست هناك تعليقات:
إرسال تعليق