Author: Betsy Hiel and Chuck Plunkett
Jr.
Publication: The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Date: August 4, 2002
URL: http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/news/s_84612.html
In July 2000, the last edition of
Assirat Al-Mustaqeem, an Arabic-language magazine published in Pittsburgh,
advocated jihad - "holy war" - against the West.
Ten months later - and four months
before Sept. 11 - the Islamic Assembly of North America (IANA) posted Web-site
justifications of "martyrdom operations," such as crashing an airplane
"on a crucial enemy target."
Like all extremists, radical Islamists
speak with hateful tongues.
But the militancy promoted in Assirat
Al-Mustaqeem (The Straight Path) between 1991 and 2000 alarms experts consulted
by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. They say it echoed the virulent anti-Americanism
of Osama bin Laden's videotaped rants - years before he became the global
face of terrorism.
The magazine's quality, its duration
and its presence in an American city such as Pittsburgh surprise them,
too.
More disturbing, an eight-month
Trib investigation found close connections between Assirat and Islamist
organizations such as IANA across the United States. Those groups endorse
an extreme strain of Islam - one that labels the United States an enemy,
defines American values as evil and clamors for "holy war."
Assirat and IANA maintained close
operating ties for years. A number of Assirat writers left Pittsburgh to
work for IANA in Michigan - and for an Islamic charity in Illinois that
U.S. authorities accuse of terrorist ties.
Several experts say the movement
between groups suggests a loose network intent on radicalizing Muslims
here and abroad.
Some of those individuals and groups
are under surveillance by U.S. authorities, sources say. An FBI spokesman
in Pittsburgh "cannot confirm or deny" a local investigation.
In addition, the magazine cast a
shadow over two other Pittsburgh organizations: Attawheed Foundation, made
up mostly of Middle Eastern graduate students at local universities, and
Al Andalus School, attended by many of their children.
Attawheed members deny ties to Assirat
or extremism. But Assirat's publisher and editor were officers of Attawheed;
one of its writers taught at the school. The school's Web site linked to
IANA and to extremist groups embracing the ideology in Assirat. And Attawheed
maintains its own relationship with IANA.
The Trib's experts - Arab and American
academics, researchers, intelligence analysts and former law officers -
say Assirat was not a case of cultural differences or of rhetoric sounding
sinister only after 9/11. It was a "radical group . clearly in tune with
the most extreme expression of Islamic revivalism - the most militant and
extreme version," according to Christopher Taylor, professor of religion
and Islamic studies at Drew University in Madison, N.J.
From 1991 to July 2000, it published
articles condemning Americans, Jews and even other Muslims as "infidels,"
"Zionist-Crusaders" or "apostates." Other articles justified killing Jews
or advocated acquiring nuclear arms.
The "reasons for concern are pretty
straightforward," says Matthew Levitt, a senior fellow at the Washington
Institute for Near East Policy and a former FBI terrorism analyst. "There
is a different threshold after Sept. 11 . we have to recognize that sometimes
when bad people say bad things, they mean it."
Assirat and its various connections
reflect "one of our fundamental problems" today - the clash between constitutional
rights and extremist threats, according to F. Gregory Gause III of the
University of Vermont.
"Should we worry about what they
say as opposed to what they do?" asks Gause, who directs the university's
respected Middle East program. "I would tend to think we should worry about
what they say, and particularly when there is good evidence they are following
an ideological line that has led to direct attacks on the United States."
He suggests "we at least try to
figure out who they are, what they are doing and where they get their money."
'Pulpit of truth'
Assirat operated in Pittsburgh in
relative obscurity, but it was not a few pages put together by college
students between classes.
It averaged 30 pages a month between
glossy covers, was produced by a paid staff and printed professionally.
Its goal was to be "The Voice of Islamic Awakening in the West," as it
subtitled itself - but with a global reach.
In its final years, Assirat printed
about 3,000 copies monthly and distributed about 2,200 in the United States,
according to two Pittsburgh firms that handled its printing and mailing.
Other copies were mailed to Canada and overseas. Initially distributed
for free, it later advertised subscription rates of $20 to $35.
How it was funded is unknown, but
its budget seems substantial. Printing and mailing alone cost more than
$48,000 annually, and two staffers claimed to earn $24,000 to $28,000 a
year.
Office workers who shared a building
in Scott Township with Assirat say its staff could swell to 40 young men.
Those sources describe the men as aloof and apparently religious: They
left their shoes in the building's hallway and washed their feet in restroom
sinks - part of a devout Muslim's ritual cleansing - before praying several
times daily.
Promoted as "a pulpit of the truth"
attracting "the best Muslim writers from all over the Muslim World," Assirat
aimed its message at Muslim youths, according to its Web site. It boasted
an advisory board of sheiks (religious leaders) from Saudi Arabia, Yemen,
Britain and the United States.
Not every article dealt in politics;
many reported on Muslim life in America or Islamic organizations such as
IANA and the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh. The magazine typically contained
a section on religious issues written by sheiks such as Salman Al-Awdah,
imprisoned in Saudi Arabia in the 1990s for his anti-regime rhetoric. It
included excerpts from the Arabic press, news briefs, editorials and letters
from readers.
It also printed advertisements for
such charities as Global Relief Foundation, Benevolence International and
Holy Land Foundation. U.S. authorities are investigating each for ties
to terrorism.
Assirat publisher Bandar Al-Mashary
was the founding secretary of Attawheed Foundation, the university-student
organization. He completed a doctoral degree in electrical engineering
at the University of Pittsburgh in 1996, then returned to Saudi Arabia
to teach at King Faud University.
Mohsen Al-Mohsen, the magazine's
editor from 1996 until 2000, was Attawheed's former chairman. He received
a doctorate in education from Pitt in April 2000 and now teaches at Imam
Mohammed bin Saud Islamic University in Saudi Arabia. A Saudi political
source describes the university as a "hotbed of extremists."
Three months after Al-Mohsen graduated
and returned home, Assirat stopped publishing. Neither he nor Al-Mashary
could be reached for comment.
Nazeeh Alothmany - who sat on Attawheed's
board for at least a year while Al- Mohsen chaired it - insists Assirat
had no connection to Attawheed, and no appeal for him: "It was too philosophical.
I am too practical. I read the magazine a couple of times. . I don't like
to get involved in these philosophical arguments and debates and opinions."
'A strategic target'
On Aug. 7, 1998, truck bombs exploded
at U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 244 and wounding 4,000.
The United States blamed Osama bin Laden and attacked al-Qaida terrorist-training
camps in Afghanistan.
In its next edition, Assirat mourned
the "martyrs" killed in those camps, listing the 19 dead mujahideen (holy
warriors) identified by al-Qaida's office in Peshawar, Pakistan. An accompanying
statement hoped "that God would . reunite us with them in paradise."
That and other articles show "very
clear, distinct al-Qaida 'stretch marks,' " says Rohan Gunaratna of the
Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at St. Andrews
University, Scotland. Gunaratna, author of the book "Inside Al- Qaeda,"
accuses Assirat of "using extremist propaganda to radicalize the Muslims
in America."
"It does surprise me that, somehow,
such inflammatory rhetoric is propagated in the heartland of America,"
says Fawaz Gerges, a professor of Middle East politics at Sarah Lawrence
College, New York.
Mary-Jane Deeb, an Arab specialist
at the Library of Congress and a prolific author on Middle Eastern topics,
is equally surprised by Assirat's Pittsburgh presence, by its militancy,
and by how long and how professionally it operated. A wide array of Islamic
publications exists, she explains, but "those that call for jihad are usually
a very small percentage." Even fewer are as sophisticated as was Assirat,
because radical publications are banned in most Arab countries and operate
underground.
Deeb - who stresses that her opinions
are not official Library of Congress views - describes Assirat's militancy
as "psychological warfare . I would expect this to be used when you are
training mujahideen."
"These are not your garden-variety
windbags," says Drew University's Taylor. "These are serious guys who are
talking about the same thing as bin Laden."
In the October 1998 issue eulogizing
al-Qaida's slain "brothers," for example, an editorial criticized Muslims
who oppose jihad. It praised holy warriors for following an exhortation
from Islam's holy book, the Quran, to be "humble to the believers and tough
on the infidels, and . fight for the cause of God."
A month earlier, another editorial
called the United States "a strategic target" containing "the virus of
its own destruction." It concluded: "May the believers be so fortunate."
America was not the only target
of Assirat's hate. Its March 2000 cover, titled "Year of the Plague," showed
dark- and light-skinned hands shaking, a skull behind them - alluding to
Israeli-Palestinian peace talks then under way. Inside, Sheik Abdel Rahman
Abdel-Khaleq condemned Jews as "the eternal enemy" and called fighting
"an unflinching duty."
"Anyone who believes that jihad
is not a duty or seeks to abrogate it is an infidel and an apostate," he
declared.
In the same issue, another sheik,
Muhammad Ahmad Al-Rashid, proclaimed "struggling" against Jews to be "a
religious duty."
"We believe that one day we will
win, because of the prophet's saying: '. until the stones and trees say:
O Muslim, O servant of Allah, there is a Jew hiding behind us, come and
kill him,'" he wrote.
'Mujahideen' and nukes
Killing, anti-Americanism and "holy
war" were long-running themes of Assirat.
In 1994, it published an interview
with Abu Abdel Aziz, a Saudi mujahid (holy warrior) who fought in Afghanistan
and Bosnia. An editor's note defined jihad for the "rank-and-file of the
youth of revivalist Islam" as "an authentic expression" of their religion.
Fresh from Bosnia's killing fields,
Abdel Aziz thanked Assirat for its "interest in jihad and mujahideen" and
for promoting Islam in "the land of infidelity and promiscuity." He accused
an "international media campaign" of equating jihad with terrorism: "They
know that Muslims, if they hold tight to jihad, will achieve the intended
thrust which will make them reach whatever Allah wills."
American Muslims should donate money
to mujahideen, he urged, a request he repeated in a 1995 Assirat update.
Aziz was one of several mujahideen
profiled in the magazine.
Throughout its pages, Assirat accused
the West and the United States of oppressing Muslims. Its October 1998
cover story, two months after the two U.S. embassy bombings, was "The International
Aggression Against Muslims: The Story of the Covert War Against Muslims
All Over the World."
The University of Vermont's Gause
says Assirat often "taps into this notion that 'everyone is against us'
that seems so pervasive" among Islamist groups.
That sentiment seems behind an October
1998 article by Dr. Wasim Fathallah. Only an "Islamic nuclear force," he
wrote, can "deter the enemy from waging a nuclear attack on Muslims." He
called the "terror" of nukes "exactly what we need . the reward Allah has
given to the (Muslim) nation."
Like many Assirat writers, Fathallah
quoted the Quran - "prepare for them whatever force . you may to throw
terror into the hearts of the enemies of Allah and your enemies" - to prove
his point.
Such invocations of Allah disturb
Farooq Husseini, an interfaith-dialogue leader at the Islamic Center of
Pittsburgh. He says Assirat's ideology is a fringe interpretation of Islam
at odds with mainstream-Muslim beliefs.
Assirat's message, "that death is
to be valued more than life, is not Islamic in any way," says the Library
of Congress's Deeb. Neither are its "emphasis again and again on killing"
and "the whole attitude toward Christians and Jews."
'Pure, simple extremism'
Assirat is "the sort of material
that converts or gives people that final push that they sometimes need
to commit acts of terror," says Hisham Kassem, former head of the Egyptian
Organization of Human Rights.
Kassem, who publishes the Cairo
Times magazine, has tracked Egypt's battle with terrorists for years. He
is alarmed by "the rift and strife it can cause in society once you start
pumping that sort of material and calling others 'heathens.' "
Pointing to a copy of Assirat lying
on a desk in his central-Cairo office, he says: "I am sure people like
Mohamed Atta" - the Egyptian suspected of leading the 9/11 hijackers -
"started off reading material like that."
But Attawheed Foundation spokesman
Nazeeh Alothmany insists Assirat's articles are mistranslated or misinterpreted.
So does Adel Fergany, president of the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh.
Fergany says he only "browsed through"
Assirat, although it published his 1999 article about establishing Islamic
schools in America. Shown another 1999 article, on waging jihad against
"infidels," he replies: "It talks about fighting infidels. It talks about
fighting mushrikeen, but mushrikeen literally translated means 'those who
do not walk with God.' It talks about fighting them. But it does not say
those infidels are Christians and Jews. It does not give the option for
fighting them for no reason."
The article, "Practical Principles
for the Group," endorsed jihad as "a continual endeavor. . Jihad in its
absolute sense is facing the infidel in battle."
That article and others were translated
for the Trib by an Egyptian translator. Several experts who analyzed them
for the Trib are Arab; several of the Americans - including Deeb and Drew
University's Taylor - read Arabic.
"Any reasonable person who reads
that text on jihad, the only reasonable conclusion anyone could come to
. is that for Islam to achieve what is required of it necessitates violent
confrontation with the 'infidel,' " Taylor says. "There's no bones about
it."
Sarah Lawrence's Gerges, who translated
one of bin Laden's videotaped statements for Columbia University, calls
Assirat's language "pure and simple extremism."
The subject of "holy war" - what
Imad Shahin, a specialist in Islamic movements at American University in
Cairo, terms "jihadist discourse" - appeared regularly in Assirat. While
some editions carried disclaimers that an article did not necessarily reflect
Assirat's opinion, its editorials often endorsed the same views.
An October 1998 editorial, for instance,
mocked Muslims who "love earthly life and hate death." The phrase mirrors
the mantra recited by many Islamist suicide- bombers, by bin Laden and
other Islamist militant groups.
"When a Muslim speaks about jihad,"
the editorial continued, "all others distance themselves from him, in fear
of dire consequences."
Under Islamic law, only a legitimate
political leader can declare "holy war" - so extremists often reject their
leaders as infidels in order to declare jihad themselves. In a 1999 article,
Assirat condemned "some organizations that call themselves 'Islamic,' but
the flagrant conduct of their belief resembles the infidel." It called
for jihad to become "one of the pillars of the faith."
Taylor says that article echoes
Mohammed Abd al Salem Farag, who led Egypt's Islamic Jihad. After the terrorist
group assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981, Farag was arrested
and executed. An Islamic Jihad faction led by Ayman Al-Zawahiri then joined
bin Laden's al-Qaida network, and Al-Zawahiri became a key al-Qaida leader.
In its final issue, Assirat called
for "jihad against the usurping assailants who wave Zionist and Crusader-type
banners, occupy the land of Muslims, shed Muslim blood and assail Muslim
women and the Muslim faith. We, or our governments, have failed to wage
jihad against those assailants, and this is why our Muslim nation lives
today in such humiliation and degradation." It also called for a "jihad
against apostates" - Muslims it judged to be faithless - once the West
was defeated.
Deeb accuses the magazine of "calling
for murder."
The words alarm some local Muslims,
too. Safdar Khwaja, a leader of the Muslim Community Center of Greater
Pittsburgh, Monroeville, believes he would be considered one of the "apostates"
condemned by Assirat.
'Cockroach bait'
"These guys are not on their own
planet," says the University of Vermont's Gause. "They are part of an intellectual
trend which is . a small minority, but still important because it animates
a fair amount of the violence that we see."
Although Assirat's language "represents
a tiny fraction of the Islamist movement," says Sarah Lawrence's Gerges,
"it is highly vocal, highly assertive, highly powerful . inflammatory rhetoric
that resonates in the political imagination of many Arab youth."
Both men and others call the magazine
a "mobilizing" tool that aimed, in Deeb's words, "to educate the youth
. to become mujahideen."
She describes it as "a form of brainwashing.
When you say 'you must not fear death and you must not love life,' you
train people to say, 'OK, I reject everything that makes me happy in life
- family, love, connections, my home, my land, everything that means something.'"
"Why are they publishing this stuff?"
asks Taylor. "In my mind . it is targeted toward the mainline Muslim community,
and the hope is that you are going to attract some raw recruits that you
might use as the senior leadership sees fit down the road.
"The process of recruiting someone
like Mohamed Atta takes a lot of time and requires a large pool of candidates
. This incendiary rhetoric acts like cockroach bait."
Steven Emerson, a researcher who
has investigated Islamist militants for more than a decade, sees a greater
danger. Calling Assirat's articles "pretty incendiary," he says it "clearly
shows the existence of a radical center operating again, as we have seen
too many times, below our radar screen."
Emerson's book "American Jihad"
and his award-winning 1994 PBS documentary, "Jihad in America," contend
an Islamist network operates in the United States. Many Muslims and other
critics claim he is anti-Arab.
Levitt, the former FBI analyst,
insists Assirat is not a free-press issue because, "when you start calling
for the death of certain kinds of people . it is just a little bit more
than free speech. I think it is something to be very concerned about."
"This doesn't mean that these people,
or the people they support, are about to attack the United States tomorrow,"
he adds. But "a publication like this demands our attention, whether it
happened yesterday, or in 2000, or in 1998."
Taylor believes Assirat was a "bulletin
board of the Islamist presence in the United States." That presence worries
many people - including many Muslims, who urge their mosques and organizations
to root out any radicals in their midst.
But Assirat's own words suggest
that won't be easy.
"If the people ordered to deliver
Allah's word were to fail to deliver it," the magazine editorialized in
1998, "or run out of patience, or lost their faith, Allah would change
them with others who would continue the mission, until Allah completes
his glory and his faith is victorious against all other creeds."
