Al Qaeda after Osama

Has bin Laden’s death registered in the Islamic world? Barring Pakistan, not at all.


Editorial May 07, 2011

After a decade of violence, Osama bin Laden is dead. He spent half of this decade hiding in Abbottabad, away from his organisational centre, while the Islamic world responded to his charisma and offered al Qaeda new recruits. His last message to his wives and children said that he feared he would be killed “because of his own people”, and advised his sons not to join the organisation.

Al Qaeda was founded in Peshawar in 1988 by bin Laden and Abdullah Azzam, a Palestinian philosopher who also taught at Islamabad’s International Islamic University (IIU) at the time. Azzam was killed in Peshawar together with his two sons in 1989, most probably by Egyptian doctor Aymen alZawahiri, who differed with him on his strategy of international terrorism. Sometime in 2005, alZawahiri probably also differed with bin Laden and put him away in Abbottabad, totally incommunicado.

Bin Laden is gone, after a total of 15,000 people dead around the world, including in countries in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Europe and the US. In Turkey, the explosions that killed Turks and a small Jewish community were planned and executed by a Kurdish member of al Qaeda who also taught at the IIU. (The university was attacked by al Qaeda after the PPP government tried to de-radicalise it under a secular vice-chancellor.)

Has bin Laden’s death registered in the Islamic world? Barring Pakistan, not at all. In African-Arab states, where the ‘revolution’ started by Arab youths is calling for democracy, no one has taken note of bin Laden’s death. In Iran, there is a sigh of relief; and in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, the Shia are happy that the war he had started may end in al Qaeda’s failure. In distant Indonesia, democracy has also brought in the trend of putting al Qaeda members on trial instead of idolising them.

AlZawahiri is now said to be in charge — a most predictable outcome. It is said that Osama had nominated his successor, but he must have known, as he sat in Abbottabad, that no one will stand by him. AlZawahiri himself faces the same kind of ‘problems of exposure’ as his dead chief who had became a liability with the passage of time. AlZawahiri, too, cannot stand under the open sky wherever he is right now. When the drones were not flying he was nearly killed by an aerial operation in Bajaur. Now he has to be somewhere where drones are not flying — as yet — to keep himself alive.

The stream of Arabs that came to Pakistan first through Muridke (near Lahore) and then through Iran — which facilitated al Qaeda against America — has slowed to a trickle because of the toll the drones have taken on them. In the days to come, this supply of warriors is going to drop to a minimum. The absence of the charisma of the tall, saint-like figure of Osama will have its effect too. Drones will continue to fly, but their effect will also spread to the al Qaeda affiliates hiding in the Tribal Areas. Nek Muhammad and Baitullah Mehsud were killed by drones while Hakimullah Mehsud has had to cut down on operations because of his compulsion to stay underground in North Waziristan.

That leaves Pakistan. All the religious parties are out protesting, calling bin Laden a shaheed, but no political party apart from Imran Khan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf has mobilised its cadre against America, thus implying support for al Qaeda. Politicians — those in power and those in opposition — are speaking out against America, but the opposition is actually using the rhetoric to unseat the government. The jihadi militias that the state favours — Deobandi and Wahabi — will carry the flag of al Qaeda, toting alZawahiri’s model constitution for Pakistan in the shape of his critique titled The Morning and the Lamp. This gives hope to a rather depressed al Qaeda.



Published in The Express Tribune, May 8th, 2011.

COMMENTS (3)

Salman Ali | 12 years ago | Reply Very correct JMM.I agree with every day.World is a market-busineess opportunity for neocons masters of USA,West and our slave rulers their pawns and toadies ruining us.There is only one voice which has reverberated the airs of Pakistan,world columns of Pro por reformists from Pakistan who speaks like him since many long warning world on such issues.I am glad Express printed your views.Thank you
Jamaludin Mohammad MustafA | 12 years ago | Reply You still miss the point.It is not Osama whom people ever idolized but hate America for their hate of humanity and hate of Muslims of world.They only know how to kill the natives Americans in millions and millions and the land they occupy for its wealth and resources etc.Nation of criminals,killers,looters,pirates and plunderers-all in the name of democracy,free market economy and hedonist moral values etc,they attacked on first western world,then Muslim by media power especially electronic waves..Americans better become better Christians as ordained by GOD in true bible and by Christ.Had Osama taken the right message of Islam of love,peace,moderation to America,West,half of them would have become Muslim and better human beings to bring peace,tranquility and prosperity to hundred of billion poor ,neglected and deprived of roof,potable water and half loaf of bread,no matter who they are,where they are.DECIMATE THE CRUEL WORLD ORDER AND BRING THE ORDER OF PEACE AND PROSPERITY FOR ALL AND EQUAL.
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