Author: David Rohde and C. J. Chivers
Publication: The New York Times
Date: March 17, 2002
On Aug. 17, 1995, Amir Maawia Siddiqi,
the son of a bookshop owner in a small village in Pakistan, set down his
oath of allegiance to the jihad.
"I, Amir Maawia Siddiqi, son of
Abdul Rahman Siddiqi, state in the presence of God that I will slaughter
infidels my entire life," he wrote. "And with the will of God I will do
these killings in the supervision and guidance with Harkat ul-Ansar."
He accepted a code name, Abu Rashid,
signed his name and concluded, "May God give me strength in fulfilling
this oath."
The oath, found in a house in Kabul
used by a Pakistani Islamist group, was part of an extensive paper record
that fleeing Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters left behind last fall at sites
across Afghanistan. Reporters for The New York Times collected over 5,000
pages of documents from abandoned safe houses and training camps destroyed
by bombs.
It is a rare collection, the raw,
unmediated stuff of the jihadis' lives. Individually, the documents are
shards - as mundane as a grocery list and as chilling as notes for the
proper positioning of a truck bomb. But taken together, they tell a rich
inside story of the network of radical Islamic groups that Osama bin Laden
helped assemble in Afghanistan.
The documents show that the training
camps, which the Bush administration has described as factories churning
out terrorists, were instead focused largely on creating an army to support
the Taliban, which was waging a long ground war against the Northern Alliance.
An estimated 20,000 recruits passed
through roughly a dozen training camps since 1996, when Mr. bin Laden established
his base of operations in Afghanistan, American officials say. Most received
basic infantry training that covered the use of various small arms, as
well as antiarmor and antiaircraft weapons and, in some cases, basic demolition,
the documents show.
"The vast majority of them were
cannon fodder," a United States government official said.
A smaller group of recruits was
selected for elite training that appeared to prepare them for terrorist
actions abroad. "Observing foreign embassies and facilities," was the subject
of one Qaeda espionage course. Another taught "shooting the personality
and his guard from a motorcycle."
Above all, the documents show how
far Mr. bin Laden progressed in realizing his central vision: joining Muslim
militants, energized by local causes, into a global army aimed at the West.
From the mid- 1990's on, recruits came to Afghanistan from more than 20
countries, as varied as Iraq and Malaysia, Somalia and Britain.
The young men arrived in Afghanistan
under the auspices of several different militant groups, each of which
ran training camps. But once there, they received strikingly similar courses
of religious indoctrination and military training. Parts of the same Arabic-language
terrorist manual were found in houses of three of those groups: Al Qaeda,
the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and Harkat ul-Ansar, the Pakistani group
that changed its name to Harkat ul-Mujahadeen and has been linked to the
killing of the American journalist Daniel Pearl.
Commingled under that umbrella was
a mix of spoken and written languages; in the documents translated by The
Times, there were more than half a dozen: Arabic, Urdu, Tajik, Dari, Pashto,
Uzbek and Russian. A few documents were in English.
This community of militants had
progressed so far that it took on the feel of a bureaucracy. There were
forms to keep track of ammunition, spending and more. Al Qaeda commanders,
like middle managers everywhere, griped about the bosses. In one letter,
a commander commiserated with another about their boss's lack of support,
and tried to bolster his friend's flagging morale, reminding him, "Jihad
is, by definition, surrounded by difficulties."
Reporters came upon the documents
in musty basements and yards strewn with trash and grenades and mines.
Some were streaked with mud, others partly burned. They hardly present
a complete picture of Al Qaeda. They show no specific plans for terror
operations abroad, and while hinting at an ambition to use nuclear, chemical
or biological weapons, they contain no evidence that the groups possess
them.
They are a decidedly eclectic amalgam.
In a house used by the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, an Islamist publication
inveighed against "the phenomena of the Beatles and the hippies," which
had "caused a great danger against the security of America and Europe."
A National Rifle Association target was found in a Harkat house in Kabul.
A few miles away, in a Qaeda house, a sign implored, "My brother the mujahid,
my brother the visitor, please keep the guest house clean."
Résumés of Holy Warriors
The letter, dated Feb. 26, 1995,
was addressed to "respected emir for ministry of ammunition" and it announced
the arrival at a Harkat safe house of another recruit.
"Brother, Muhammad Afzal, who is
with this letter, is coming for the training," said the letter from a Harkat
official in Pakistan. "He is master in karate. You can try to take full
advantage of him, very hard-working fellow. Blessings to all other fellows."
Throughout the late 1990's, young
men streamed through the Khyber Pass and on to dusty training camps operated
by Al Qaeda and other Islamic radical groups. Many carried letters of introduction
as proof of their trustworthiness.
Lists found in houses around Afghanistan
show that the men came from countries in the Islamic world and beyond:
Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Syria, Egypt,
Morocco, Algeria, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Libya,
Sudan, Somalia, Bosnia, Bangladesh, China, the Philippines, Russia, Britain,
Canada and the United States.
The imported military force turned
middle-class homes in Kabul, Mazar-i-Sharif, Kandahar and other cities
into headquarters and guest houses, crammed with recruits. Derelict Afghan
military bases and fallow fields became training grounds.
A variety of documents, mostly handwritten,
offer glimpses of the young men, and of what drew them to the jihad. One
document, found in a Kabul house used by Harkat, contains short biographical
sketches of 39 recruits. They were all unmarried. Few had gone beyond secondary
school. But quite a few, the interviewers noted, had studied the Koran.
Several had previously been connected to fundamentalist groups at home.
Many, it appears, were asked if their parents had given them permission
to join the jihad. Twelve, the document noted, had permission. Fifteen
did not.
The list gave this information about
a man with the code name Sultan Sajid: "Son of Mr. Muhammad Anwar, owner
of sweet store. Age: 18 years. Status: Unmarried. Education: Matriculate
and learned Koran by translation. Knows how to make sweets, and can hunt
birds and fish. Five brothers and four sisters. Address: Kamoke District
Gujranwala, at Saboki dandian. Got permission from home happily."
Of a man code-named Hafiz Abu Muhammad,
the document says: "Education: Matriculate, memorized Koran. Knows how
to embroider. Served in military for three and a half years. He is fond
of jihad; that is why he came to us."
Sixteen-year-old Hafiz Muhammad
Arif was the son of a customs officer and had five brothers and four sisters,
one in medical school. "No permission from home," the list says. "His [family]
wanted to send him to America. Impressed by the speech of Mr. Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehman
Khalil," Harkat's leader.
Across Kabul, near the Intercontinental
Hotel, an ornate, two-story home with a fireplace in the living room had
been converted into a Qaeda safe house. There, the lists revealed less
personal information; code names were primarily used. But they did record
the weapons the men carried.
A man from Yemen, code-named Abu
Labath, was armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle and three hand grenades.
He arrived on May 7, 1999. Abu Qatada al- Madani, a code name suggesting
he came from the Saudi city of Medina, arrived on Nov. 29, 1998, armed
with a Kalashnikov, an ammunition pouch and hand grenades. He had memorized
through the "second part" of the Koran and completed "half of the foundational
course."
Afghanistan was the embodiment of
Mr. bin Laden's vision of a global jihad. Radical leaders and foot soldiers
met there, networked and bonded, sharing military tactics and religious
tracts. The abandoned houses and camps were strewn with inspirational pamphlets,
books, videos and CD's, all sounding the call to arms. Central to their
message was the re-establishment of the Caliphate, the era of Islam's ascendancy
after the death of Muhammad in the eighth century.
The Caliphate "is the only and best
solution to the predicaments and problems from which Muslims suffer today
and indubitable cure to the turbulence and internal struggles that plague
them," said one English- language treatise. "It will remedy the economic
underdevelopment which bequeathed upon us a political dependence on an
atheist East and infidel West."
There was a publication for every
count in Mr. bin Laden's indictment of the West.
The cover of a magazine called The
Window shows a woman weeping as a cobra bearing the Star of David looms
over Muslim protesters at the Dome of the Rock, the holy Islamic site in
Jerusalem. A pamphlet with an American soldier superimposed over the holy
city of Mecca urges readers, "Fight until there is no discord and all of
religion is for God." A yellow paperback book, "Announcement of Jihad Against
the Americans Occupying the Land of the Holy Places," shows a map of Saudi
Arabia encircled by American, French and British flags. Its author was
"Sheik Osama bin Laden."
Diverse Muslim groups joined Mr.
bin Laden's global jihad. Sometimes, they also came seeking help in pressing
their own causes back home.
In a Qaeda house in Kabul, there
was a public statement from the "Islamic Battalion, Kurdistan, Iraq," dated
Nov. 20, 1999, calling on "the movement for Islamic unity" to help in the
jihad against President Saddam Hussein. There was also a handwritten letter
to Mr. bin Laden from an unidentified Russian who said his group needed
training for two attacks in Russia.
Harkat members fought alongside
the Taliban in Afghanistan, but their true obsession was India's control
of the disputed territory of Kashmir. In the moldering basement of the
group's Kabul house, amid rocket-propelled grenades, ammunition boxes and
land mines, sat boxes of glossy green labels for a recruiting cassette
featuring "sermons of distinguished Muslim scholars" and "jihadi poems."
Fighters from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan
had a different agenda: installing an Islamic government in Uzbekistan,
and ultimately uniting Central Asia and Xinjiang, a predominantly Muslim
region of western China, into an sprawling Islamic theocracy called Turkestan.
"All the Muslim people of Turkestan
have lost their patience and have chosen the holy road to emigration for
preparing for jihad- in-the-way-of-God," said a flier found in the headquarters
of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan in Mazar-i-Sharif. "Thank God that
all these new immigrants have completed jihad training and are prepared
for practical jihad."
Push-Ups and Sit-Ups
A sprawling training camp in the
serene farming village of Rishkhor, 20 miles south of Kabul, is mostly
rubble now. Walls are still painted with Koranic verses and slogans invoking
the jihad. "All the Christians, Jews and infidels have joined hands against
Afghanistan," one poster begins. Bombing by American fighters last fall
destroyed all but two of the dozen or so buildings and turned fields into
a landscape of craters. The ground is littered with unexploded mines and
unspent ammunition. Everywhere there is paper.
Documents from Rishkhor - where
Afghans, Pakistanis and Arabs trained - along with records, notebooks and
manuals found elsewhere in Afghanistan, show that recruits received the
kind of regimented, demanding basic training that infantry soldiers get
in much of the world, but with steady infusions of Islamic fervor. This
is reflected in the "Rules for the Day" found at a Harkat house. It declares:
"Follow all Islamic principles.
"Pray five times a day.
"Punctual for food.
"No ammunition training without
the permission of the teacher.
"Cleanliness.
"Clean beds and tents once a week.
"Clean the environment.
"Do not leave compound.
"No political discussions.
"No arguments.
"No drugs.
"Go to bed early."
Physical training began at 6 a.m.,
according to a schedule found at the house. Calisthenics performance was
scrupulously monitored. One morning, a recruit named Abu Turab led his
class of 38, knocking off 45 push- ups and 40 sit-ups and crawling 25 meters
in 21 seconds, according to a chart.
Abu Rashid was in the middle of
the pack, with 30 push-ups, 30 sit-ups and 35 seconds in the crawl. Even
injured men took part. Abu Hanza, who the chart noted had a wounded hand,
and Asad Ullah, with a wounded leg, did 30 sit-ups each and crawled 25
yards in 23 seconds. (They skipped push-ups.)
Others struggled to make the grade.
Saif Ullah took a full 60 seconds to crawl those 25 yards. Others labored
to complete a group run. Khalid was "slightly behind," Abdullah "cannot
run along," and Asad Ullah "stopped three times," according to the chart.
Tipu Sultan appeared to be the worst of all, managing only 11 push-ups
and 10 sit- ups and skipping the group run. His name was scratched off
the list.
After their workout, recruits took
a break, presumably for breakfast, and returned for basic infantry classes
from 8:30 to 9:10, 9:15 to 10:40 and 11:10 to 12:35. After lunch and prayers,
the afternoon was for Koran study, sports and lectures. Students answered
essay questions. "It is not easy to write on martyrs such as these," one
said in answering a question on the lives of the great Muslim martyrs.
"The pen does not give them their due."
Classes at the different camps followed
the same basic infantry lesson plan. A training notebook from a recruit
named Muhammad Rashid Arghany moved through the use of the Kalashnikov,
rocket-p ropelled grenades, mortars, map reading and celestial navigation.
The course was highly detailed, and the recruit appears to have taken handwritten
notes every step of the way.
Military instruction drew on religious
doctrine. "Without a sign from the leader you should not retreat," read
the notes of a student in a class on ambush tactics. "Because the Koran
says: `Do not retreat, but stay steady; in time of war there is no death.
My only power is the power of Allah.' "
The instructor emphasized the importance
for gunmen to remain completely still while laying in wait. "This is very
difficult work, and therefore in order to save oneself from melancholy,
and selfishness and confusion, you must remain in prayer and meditation
on Allah," the class notes say.
The notebook goes on to describe
how to carry out a coordinated infantry assault, a carefully timed maneuver
in which infantrymen advance while support troops on their flank fire directly
in front of them. If the timing is off, the advancing soldiers can be killed
by the fire of their comrades.
"If he is hit by their own bullets
or if the enemy's fire becomes intense, do not become upset, but do your
work with patience and care," the notes say. The lecturer explained that
a soldier killed by his own forces would still be considered a "shahid,"
or martyr, and be granted immediate entrance to heaven.
Like any army, though admittedly
with its own religious and political vernacular, the jihadi network was
constantly indoctrinating and building esprit de corps. A quick summary
of the "Goals and Objectives of Jihad" was found in a Qaeda house:
"1. Establishing the rule of God
on earth.
"2. Attaining martyrdom in the cause
of God.
"3. Purification of the ranks of
Islam from the elements of depravity."
Another document described the two
"illegitimate excuses for leaving Jihad" - "love of the world" and "hatred
of death."
The Qaeda Media Committee made sure
past victories were remembered. A flier from one guest house advertised
a screening of a new film, "The Destruction of the American Destroyer Cole."
"Please let us know your comments
and suggestions," the committee wrote.
Other notebooks depicted an entirely
different type of training: espionage and explosives classes, perhaps for
more advanced recruits or those headed to terror cells abroad. (Ahmed Ressam,
a Qaeda member convicted of plotting to blow up Los Angeles International
Airport during millennium celebrations, testified at a trial in New York
last year that he first attended a basic infantry camp and then received
advanced training.)
An espionage class notebook, written
in neat Arabic but not signed, had the following headings: "How to use
a code, security of operations, security plan, intelligence, intelligence
gathering, surveillance, methods of communication, methods of opening envelopes,
persuasion, planning for intelligence operations, recruitment, managing
assets, choosing an asset."
"Persuasion," for instance, involved
"obtaining information from a person through conversations with him without
his realizing the importance of what he is saying."
There were step-by-step instructions
on surveillance: "Get complete description of person, his habits, his daily
errands, his children and his wife, his standing in the community, his
skills and educational goals, his income, when he wakes, the best times
for inspecting his house, places he goes regularly."
An Arabic-language explosives curriculum
found in the Harkat house gave detailed instructions on how to make and
handle a range of substances: nitroglycerin, HMDT, RDX, C-4, C-3, dynamite
and ammonium nitrate.
A final section dealt with "major
poisons and poison gasses," which "can be extracted in various ways, and
we shall, God willing, review these various ways later." The document listed
the toxins - including ricin, botulism and cyanide - and described how
to manufacture and use them.
There were syllabuses for a variety
of advanced classes. For one class, a Harkat document listed these "standards
to be achieved":
"1. Follow the armed person, and
kill him quietly.
"2. To be able to patrol closely.
"3. To penetrate at enemy positions
with expertise."
Another Harkat class, this one 65
days long, involved instruction in such matters as "hit teams" and "hijacking
of air, bus, ship." For yet another, the fourth item on the syllabus was
"Movie, `Great Escape.' "
Among the students at one elite
10-day program was a Qaeda recruit named Atta al-Azdi. On his first day,
a Sunday, he learned "shooting the personality and his guard from a motorcycle,"
his class schedule shows. On Monday, he moved along to "shooting at two
targets in a car from above, front and back."
The training, which included strict
limits on the range and number of bullets he could use, wound up with lessons
in "killing personality using R.P.G.," a rocket-propelled grenade, and
"killing personality and guards from car."
An instructor scribbled a one-word
evaluation of Mr. Azdi's performance during the final two sessions: "Good."
Bureaucracy and Paperwork
Behind the sprawling network of
camps lay an extensive bureaucracy. And like every bureaucracy, it churned
out paper: expense forms, finance notebooks, computer parts inventories,
lists of rented houses.
"Twenty-Second Jihad Division -
Kabul Front" had its own forms for tracking soldiers and expenses, with
the name of its commander, "Abdul Wakil from Somalia," printed in the lower
left-hand corner. "Al Qaeda Ammunition Warehouse" forms kept an inventory
of weapons and munitions.
Officials were hounded to monitor
spending. In a testy note dated June 19, 2001, a Qaeda official named Abdel
Hadi el-Ansary wrote to a colleague, "El Shaikh Abu Abdalla had personally
emphasized for the second time the necessity of absolutely sending the
budget expenditure tables."
Even the most common expenditures
were recorded. "Bread, vegetables, cooking oil, medicines," one expense
form read. "Potatoes, onions, tea, rice," read another. One document accounted
for an assistant chef's salary of $20 a month.
There were even inventories of martyrs.
A computer-generated list found in the Harkat house enumerated each man's
"time of death," "place of death," "cause of death," "where buried," and
"number of grave."
The groups even produced organizational
guidelines, including a 28-page Arabic-language document, "Forming Military
Units at the Behest of the Ministry of Jihad," found in a Qaeda house.
One page devoted to command structure
listed three divisions under the "executive officer": "administrative affairs,"
"personnel issues" and "social work." It went on to enumerate various administrative
responsibilities, including "monitoring young men," "attention to administrative
affairs of brothers staying for periods of longer than six months," and
"undertaking basic services - food, cleaning clothes, making sure meals
are served on time."
Another page showed how to set up
a camp for a battalion of soldiers, with a diagram showing placement of
the entrance gate, sleeping quarters, ammunition warehouse, water tank,
mosque and headquarters. The camp, the document said, "is like a beehive,"
where soldiers should "check and maintain their weapons," "train for combat,"
receive "moral guidance" and have "pure, clean competitions between the
various units for excellence."
There were equipment specifications.
Each "mujahid," according to a Harkat document, should get "uniform, boots,
army belt, hat, handkerchief, flashlight, batteries, soap, pencil, jackets,
gloves, medicines."
Mr. bin Laden, who has effectively
used the media to fashion an image and spread his message, was also quite
interested in what the press was saying about him and his cause. The March
2001 issue of the Qaeda Media Committee's monthly press packet included
news articles culled from the Internet with these headlines:
"Taliban Halt Production of Opium."
"Belgian Intelligence Service Stops
Bin Laden Smuggling of Russian Missiles."
"Jordan: 9 Indictments Against 2
Leaders of Bin Laden's Organization."
"Taliban Execute 2 Women Accused
of Prostitution."
Under a headline that read "American
State Department: Israel Used Excessive Force" was a picture of a Israeli
soldier picking up the body of an Arab man. The soldier resembled former
Prime Minister Ehud Barak of Israel. Under the picture was a note: "Barak
murdering a Muslim."
If the jihadi army operated like
other organizations, it also displayed much of the usual internal bickering.
Recruits complained about their
instructors. "Thank God for the opportunity to take this course," a recruit
named Rami wrote in what appeared to be an evaluation of one of his classes.
But then he pointed out that "I'm not sure about the requirements of this
course, since the trainer pressures the trainees and stresses their nerves."
Commanders griped about their bosses.
In an Aug. 27, 2001, letter, a commander named Abd al-Hadi al- Ansari commiserated
with a colleague, Abd al-Wakil, about how their superior did not support
them. He said he had noticed a recent loss of morale in Mr. Wakil and counseled
him on how to navigate the frustrations of the bureaucracy.
"Don't let anyone put pressure on
you. Don't accept an assignment you cannot implement," he wrote. "Whenever
you are given a new assignment, try to create your own team and never choose
brothers that are older than you."
Even the big bosses carped.
"I think that there are no more
people who truly trust in good any more," said a memo dated June 15, 1998,
from a Qaeda house. "Everyone has trained his followers so that they are
only concerned about their own status, name and rank, that they have forgotten
everything about following orders and respecting their main leader."
It was signed "the servant of Islam
Mullah Muhammad Omar."
Chain of Command
Mr. bin Laden's dream took shape
on the desolate Shamali Plain, a broad plateau just north of Kabul where
years of trench warfare have turned a belt of vineyards into a maze of
wilted vines and jagged stumps. Hundreds of young Muslim men who came from
around the world for indoctrination and training in Afghanistan were sent
to the front to fight for the Taliban in a grinding war with the Northern
Alliance.
Defending the Taliban's hold on
Afghanistan was the primary mission of the jihad, and Northern Alliance
soldiers spoke with awe of the willingness of Arabs, Pakistanis and other
volunteers to die for the cause.
Mr. bin Laden, in a long dispatch
to the Muslim faithful found in a house used by Al Qaeda in Kabul, urged
them to recognize Mullah Omar, the head of the Taliban, as "the leader
of the faithful."
But for many fighters, the deepest
inspiration was Mr. bin Laden himself.
In a handwritten Arabic letter from
the trenches north of Kabul, a commander named Oma al-Adani described a
dream "one of the brothers" had about Mr. bin Laden. "I was in my bedroom,
and I saw the Prophet Muhammad," he wrote. "He looked to his left and saw
Fahd, the king of Saudi Arabia, and said, `Those are not from me, and I
am not from them.' "
"Then he walked and saw Sheik Osama
and the martyrs," a reference to Mr. bin Laden and his followers, "and
said, `Those are from me, and I am of them.' "
The machinery that Mr. bin Laden
had assembled answered his call to defend the Taliban. Ledgers, notebooks
and letters found in houses used by Al Qaeda and Harkat detailed the movement
of soldiers to units stationed north of Kabul. A notebook entitled "Kabul
front" and written in Arabic appeared to record fighters sent to the front:
Bilal, 20, who went to Afghanistan in 1998, and Amir, 23, who arrived in
2000.
Left behind in the trenches of the
Shamali Plain are crumpled scraps of paper that reflect the diversity of
fighters Mr. bin Laden had drawn to the jihad. In one bunker, Lufti, an
Arab recruit, left a note written by two friends, imploring, "Don't forget
us in your prayers while you're gone." Pakistani newspapers and cassettes
with sermons by radical Pakistani clerics were found a few hundreds yards
away. A pay stub for a young Pakistani man named Ahmad Bakhtair lay on
the ground outside one bunker. His job title was "helper," according to
the stub, and his net salary in May 2001 was 2,655 rupees, or roughly $40.
In another trench, a volunteer left
another scrap: a page from Newsday, the Long Island newspaper, dated April
19, 2001.
Today, the young men of Mr. bin
Laden's jihad are again in combat, this time against American troops.
The end of their story has not yet
been written, but the words of a Harkat recruit who fought against the
Northern Alliance in an earlier battle may suggest one.
"I was wounded," he wrote in a diary
found in a Harkat house. "Out of four of us, three of us were wounded and
the fourth one, Brother Muhammad Siddiq, was martyred. . . . We were taken
to the hospital, and there we said farewell to Brother Siddiq. We three
are still in search of our home."