Certain Basic Facts About Osama Alias Osman Bin Laden

1. Fought in Afghanistan against the troops of the erstwhile USSR and the Najibullah Government of Afghanistan between 1980 and 1990.

2. Operated from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries between 1990 and 1993.

3. Was based in the Sudan between 1993 and 1996.

4. Moved over to Jalalabad on May 18,1996, after the Sudanese authorities asked him to quit following the publication by the "Time" magazine of the US (May 6,1996) of an interview given by him from the Sudanese territory, which made it impossible for the Sudanese authorities to continue to deny his presence in their territory.

   The Burhanuddin Rabbani Government, then in power in Kabul, agreed to give him asylum after all other Muslim countries rejected his request for asylum. The Pakistan Government allowed him to transit through its territory on condition that he would not re-enter Pakistan from Afghanistan. After his arrival in Afghanistan, Bin Laden constructed a well- fortified camp at Tora Bora Agam in the Nangarhar province adjoining Pakistan.

5. The Taliban took him under its protection in September,1996, after its capture of Jalalabad.

   He was moved to Kandahar, where the Amir of the Taliban, Mullah Mohammad Omar, lives, in July,1997, after reports in the Pakistani Press that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the US were planning a joint operation with the collaboration of the Inter- Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan to capture him from his residence in Jalalabad and have him flown to the US for interrogation. He has been provided armed guards by the Taliban. In addition, he has been allowed to keep 150 of his Arab volunteers as his body-guards in Kandahar. After settling down in the Kandahar area, Bin Laden constructed another well-fortified base in southern Khost. Since the Taliban did not allow him to receive his overseas-based visitors at his residence in the Kandahar area, he used to meet them at his camp in Southern Khost.

His Relations With The Taliban And The Islaimc Groups of Pakistan

Excellent because :

• Of his assistance to the various Afghan Mujahideen groups in their jihad against Soviet and the Najibullah Government troops. He is a hero figure to them.

• Of his objective of fighting for the withdrawal of the US and other Western troops from Saudi Arabia, which appeals to orthodox Islamic elements which look upon the presence of these troops in Saudi territory as a desecration of the Muslim holy places in Saudi Arabia.

• Of his liberal financial assistance not only to the Taliban, but also to the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (formerly known as the Harkat-ul-Ansar) and the Markaz Dawa Al Irshad and its militant wing, the Lashkar-e-Toiba of Pakistan.

• Of his marriage to a Pushtoon woman of Pakistan and the marriage of his 18-year-old daughter from this woman to the Amir of the Taliban. Thus, Bin Laden is the father-in-law of the Amir.

• Of his assistance to the Taliban in the recent capture of Mazar-e-Sharif and Bamiyan by Taliban troops. Bin Laden and his Arab volunteers were in the vanguard of the attacks on these towns.

There have been unsubstantiated reports of differences among the Taliban leaders over the support given by Mullah Omar to Bin Laden. According to Ismail Khan, the Peshawar correspondent of the "News" ( August 20,1998), Mullah Rabbani, head of the interim council ruling the Taliban-controlled territory from Kabul, and Mullah Hassan, Governor of Kandahar, have been unhappy over the activities of Bin Laden from the Afghan territory. But, they have not been able to do anything about it because of the strong backing for Bin Laden from the Taliban Amir.

Taliban`s Attitude to his Activities From Afghan Territory

Openly one of disapproval of any statements or violent activities directed against the US and Saudi Arabia, but covertly one of tolerance so long as the activities are deniable. Like the Sudan before 1996, the Taliban has been unhappy over his penchant for seeking publicity to his activities through the media. The Taliban is reported to have strongly pulled him up following the press conference held by him at Khost on May, 26,1998, at which he announced the formation of an International Islamic Front For Jihad Against the US and Israel and the telephone interview given by Dr.Aiman al-Zawahiri of the Jamatul Jihad of Egypt, who lives with Bin Laden, to the "Frontier Post" of Peshawar, on behalf of Bin Laden immediately before and after the US bombings of the terrorist camps in Afghanistan on August 20,1998, uttering threats against the US. He has been silent since then. There have been unconfirmed reports that the Taliban has seized his satellite telephone and Fax instrument after the US bombings.

The Islamic Front for Jihad Against The US & Israel

The following groups are believed to have joined his Front:

1. The Jamatul Jihad of Egypt led by Dr.al-Zawahiri. Bin Laden understands English, but cannot speak fluently. Dr.al-Zawahiri, who speaks English without difficulty, therefore, acts as his spokesman.

2. Another Egyptian group led by Abu Asim ("kuniyat" or assumed name and not real name),a son of Sheikh Omer Abdur Rehman, the blind Egyptian cleric, who is undergoing imprisonment in the US for his involvement in the bombing of the World Trade Centre in New York in February,1993. Two other sons of the Sheikh are also living in the Kandahar area.

3. A third Egyptian group led by Shawqi Islam Bolo, brother of Khalid Islam Bolo, one of the assassins of President Anwar Sadat of Egypt.

4. The Harkat-ul-Mujahideen of Pakistan and its two splinter groups.

5. The Markaz Dawa Al Irshad of Pakistan and its militant wing the Lashkar-e-Toiba.

6. The Sipah-e-Sahaba of Pakistan, an extremist Sunni organisation , which has been campaigning for the proclamation of Pakistan as a Sunni State and is believed to be responsible for the murder of a number of Shia leaders of Pakistan.

7. The Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, the organisation of Bin Laden, consisting exclusively of Arab volunteers of Afghan war vintage. Most of them are Saudis and Yemenis with a small spinkling of Egyptians, Sudanese and Palestinians from Jordan and the Israeli-occupied territories.

8. Groups from Tadjikistan, Xinjiang and the Philippines, whose identities are not clear.

Bin Laden`s Infrastructure in Afghanistan

What is described as Bin Laden’s terrorist infrastructure in Afghanistan consists of the training camps of the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, which had been in existence even before the arrival of Bin Laden in Jalalabad in May,1996, the camps of Gulbuddin Heckmatyar, the Afghan Mujahideen leader, which were taken over by the Taliban and handed over to the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen or Bin Laden and the camps set up during the 1980s by Jalaluddin Haqqani, another Mujahideen leader, who has since joined the Taliban.

Contrary to the claims of US officials, these were not sophisticated training facilities, but improvised structures to put up the trainees. The only sophisticated parts of these camps were the ammunition storage depots, which were being used during the Afghan war of the 1980s for storing the arms and ammunition given by the CIA before their distribution to the Mujahideen by the ISI. Since CIA officials used to visit these camps, set up with their assistance, during the 1980s, they were well aware of their location and of the location of the ammunition storage depots. It was, therefore , surprising that the American bombings of August 20,1998, failed to hit any of the storage depots. They destroyed only the improvised residential portions. This doesn’t speak well of the much-vaunted Cruise missiles (Tomahawks).

The available details of the terrorist training camps are as follows:

• The Harkat-ul-Jehad Al-Islami, Bin Laden’s organisation, runs two camps called Badr I and Badr II— in the vicinity of Khost.

• The camp of the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen of Pakistan at which Pakistanis, Kashmiris, Filippinos, Bosnian Muslims, Uighurs from Xinjiang etc were being trained. It was run by one Maulvi Jabbar, an ISI-trained cadre of the Harkatul-Mujahideen. This camp called the Salman Farsi camp is located at Jawah, a couple of kms from the Pakistani border post of Saidgai.

  This camp was started in 1989 by the Hizbul Mujahideen of Jammu & Kashmir with the assistance of the Jamaat-e-Islami of Pakistan for training Kashmiri extremists and Pakistanis. After the Taliban’s relations with the Jamaat-e-Islami deteriorated due to the latter’s support to Gulbuddin Heckmatyar, the Taliban ordered the Hizbul Mujahideen to quit the camp and handed it over to the Harkatul Ansar, as the Harkatul Mujahideen was then known. After the US declared the Harkatul Ansar a terrorist organisation in 1997, it changed its name as Harkatul Mujahideen and that of the camp as Hazrat Amir Mawia camp after one of the companions of the Holy Prophet. The Harkatul Mujahideen runs two other camps. One of them located near Zhavar is called the Khalid Bin Waleed camp and the other (name not known) is located near the Darwanta power station, close to Jalalabad.

• The camp of the Jamiatul Mujahideen, a splinter group of the Harkatul Mujahideen. It was being used exclusively for training Pakistanis and Kashmiris. It was being run by one Mufti Bashir, a resident of Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK). The name of the camp is not known.

• The camp of another splinter group of the Harkatul Mujahideen at Liza near Tanai. It was being run by Qari Saiful Islam Akhtar, another ISI-trained cadre of the Harkatul Mujahideen.

The Liza camp is located about 40 kms from the camps of the main Harkatul Mujahideen and the Jamiatul Mujahideen, which, in turn, are located about 5 to 20 kms from the exclusively Arab camps of Bin Laden.

Damages Inflicted by The US Bombings

There are conflicting accounts of the damages inflicted by the US bombings. To summarise these accounts:

• Rahimullah Yusufzai:
  A Peshawar-based correspondent of the "News", who was one of the few journalists invited by Bin Laden for the May 26 press conference at Khost and who had visited the site of all the camps after the US bombings ( "News" of September 6): There were only about 25 inmates in the Al Badr complex at the time of the bombing. Six of them were killed. According to some people, all of them were Arabs, whereas, according to others, four only were Arabs while the remaining two were Tadjiks. About a dozen Cruise missiles hit the Arab camps destroying two residential hutments and three mosques.The only cemented building in the Al Badr complex in which Bin Laden had held his May press conference was not hit. Most of the buildings and ammunition storage depots of the Harkatul Mujahideen camps were also not hit. Only seven or eight residential hutments were destroyed.

• Jalaluddin Haqqani:
  None of the ammunition depots of either Bin Laden’s organisation or the Harkatul Mujahideen and its splinter groups was hit by the US missiles. The Salman Farsi camp emerged largely unscathed and the Al-Badr camps suffered minimal damage. Only the Khalid Bin Waleed and the Hazrat Amir Mawia camps suffered substantial damage. ("News" of September 4,1998)

• Fazlur Rahman Khalili:
  The leader of the Harkatul Mujahideen: While the Arab camps in the Al Badr area came out almost unscathed, those of the Harkatul Mujahideen suffered damages, resulting in the death of nine members, including Abu Huraira (not real name), a well-known instructor. Four mosques were completely destroyed, while a fifth escaped with minor damages. (‘News" of August 26,1998)

Reasons for the Inadequate Success of The US Bombings

Amongst the important reasons were:

• Poor intelligence
  Bin Laden and most of the inmates of the camps had gone to Mazar-e-Sharif in the beginning of August to assist the Taliban in the capture of the city. From there, they had gone to Bamiyan. They had not yet returned to their camps till August 20,1998.Hence, the only inmates of the camps were the administrative staff and those who could not go to Mazar-e-Sharif due to illness. The US claim that Bin Laden was to attend a dinner at one of the camps on the night of August,20,1998, was, therefore, not correct.

• Absence of the surprise element
  Ever since July,1997, the Pakistani press had been speculating about a possible special operation by the CIA and FBI, with the co-operation of the ISI, to kidnap Bin Laden from the Kandahar area.. After the withdrawal of non-essential American personnel from Pakistan on August 18,1998, most of the Pakistani newspapers ( "Dawn" of August 20, "Nation", "News", "Muslim" and ‘Pakistan Observer", all of August 19,1998) had speculated about the imminence of an US operation against Bin Laden. The speculation focussed on the possibility of a helicopter-borne operation to whisk him out of Afghanistan after he had possibly been rendered unconscious through the use of drugs or chemical gases. However, none of them had anticipated a massive Cruise missile attack. The Taliban and the followers of Bin Laden had time to remove whatever arms and ammunition they had kept in the storage depots.

• The inaccuracy of the Cruise missiles
  This seemed to have mostly hit non-essential structures, possibly due to inaccurate target data fed into them.

Was The Pakistan Government Privy to The Bombings?

If the Pakistan Government was not privy, two dangers could have arisen:

1. A possible panic reaction by the Pakistani authorities under the mistaken impression that the missiles had been fired by India.

2. An accidental impact of the low-flying missiles with aircraft while they were in the process of taking-off or landing.

The Pakistani authorities have stated that while they were aware of the presence of US naval ships and a submarine 200 kms from the Pakistani coast, they were not aware of the purpose. According to them, the first intimation about the US strike was given to Gen.Jehangir Karamat, the then Army Chief, by Gen.Joseph Ralston, Vice-Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, during a transit halt at Islamabad airport, after the Cruise missiles had been launched and were on their way to the targets. Gen.Ralston himself told the "Wall Street Journal" on August 24 that he was sent to Pakistan to ensure that the launch of the missiles did not inadvertently start a war between India and Pakistan. He met the Pakistani officers "while the Cruise missiles were flying over their country". He added: "I didn’t in any way tell the Pakistanis what was going on until after the attack."

Critics of Pakistani Prime Minister, Mr.Nawaz Sharif, have alleged that Pakistan was privy to the bombings much before the Cruise missiles were launched and had secretly instructed all airport authorities to delay take-offs and landings of aircraft during the relevant period.

Likely Consequences of The Bombings

A) Other Islamic countries, which were even earlier reluctant to grant sanctuary or transit facilities to Bin Laden, would be even more hesitant in future lest they invite retaliation by the US.

B) Would strengthen the hands of those elements in the Taliban leadership which have been unhappy over Bin Laden’s anti-US and anti-Saudi activities from Afghan territory. The Taliban would exercise greater control over his activities.

C) This would not, however, reduce US vulnerability to terrorist attacks from Arab mercenaries of Afghan war vintage and other Muslim extremists. As against about 300 Arab mercenaries present with Bin Laden in Afghanistan, there is an equal number floating around in the world in autonomous groups. While they too are admirers of Bin Laden, they do not necessarily accept his leadership. They have their own grounds for grievances against the US. They are unlikely to be deterred by the US bombings.

Implications for India

The implications for India from the activities of Bin Laden are more indirect through his surrogates like the Harkatul Mujahideen, the Markaz Dawa Al Irshad and the Lashkar-e-Toiba than direct. During his press conference of May 26,1998, at Khost, Bin Laden had reportedly stated that while he would have liked to participate in the Jihad in Kashmir, the Pakistani authorities would not allow him to do so. This is most probably true. Bin Laden is the most wanted terrorist in the US today and, by assisting or using him in any way, Pakistan would run the risk of once again being put on the so-called watch list of State-sponsors of international terrorism as it was put for six months in 1993 by the Clinton Administration.