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Illustration By Brad Holland
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Rory Nugent has spent years on the trail
of fundamentalist Islam.
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It was a simple meal in a complicated place. Fruit and cheese arrived
on a silver platter. There were three of us around a table inside the
headquarters of the Popular Arab and Islamic Conference located in
Khartoum, Sudan. Secretaries came in and out, whispering messages to
their boss, Hassan al-Turabi and, sometimes, to his other guest,
Osama bin Laden. Turabi, as always, looked sharp, spotless, his
turban crisply creased and perfectly tied; bin Laden appeared
comfortable in wrinkles and unbothered by the tea stain atop his left
bosom. Yes, I'll take it, Turabi tells a factotum and excuses himself
to field a phone call. Heading to his desk, he adds, please start,
you two. I'll only be a minute.
Good manners advises us to wait. But bin Laden turns away from me
and stares at a bare white wall. We had met once before, at a crowded
reception; we didn't say much to each other then, and, obviously,
he's not interested in making small talk now.
I had arrived in Khartoum weeks earlier to research a story about
the world's leading manufacturers of terror. Entering the city, I was
respectful of its magic. The Blue and White Nile rivers meet here,
forming what Arab poets call the longest kiss in history. It's also
the traditional gateway connecting black Africa to the Arab north,
and its bazaars were famed for offering goods and services that
blurred the lines separating the exotic and the forbidden.
Another more pressing reason for a circumspect approach came out
of Khartoum's position as both the wheelhouse and the engine room of
fundamentalist Islam. Military camps originally built by America to
prepare Islamic warriors for battle against Russian designs in
Afghanistan were now being used to train Islamic terrorists in their
battle against just about everybody. And, since this was home to the
officer corps, it was where the maps were being drawn for the passage
ahead.
At the time - November 1994 - Osama bin Laden was considered a
rich kid with a mixed reputation as a fighter. His money bought him
attention, and his knack for logistics garnered him respect. Earlier,
during conversations with various commanders in the Afghan war, bin
Laden had been described to me as just the kind of guy you want
behind the lines to keep an army going. These men thought it funny
that bin Laden's organizational skills were honed by retired American
spooks working with his father's construction company while building
the Saudi infrastructure. Not once did anyone remark on bin Laden's
qualities as a fighter.
Eat. Please start. I'm almost done, Turabi encourages, covering
the speaker end of the phone. I reach for a date; bin Laden doesn't
move, still intent on the wall. Turabi smiles at me, then nods and
returns to his phone call.
Back then, Turabi was the draw; not bin Laden. Turabi was the
acknowledged power in Sudan, a Geppetto pulling the strings of
puppetlike bureaucrats. He had left politics years ago, giving up his
post as Sudan's attorney general to assume greater prominence as
Islam's ‚minence grise. He directed the flow of events through his
speeches, religious writings and, when necessary, whispered commands
to politicians.
By all accounts, Turabi had engineered and nurtured the
Islamization of Sudan. His biggest trick was replacing civil law with
sharia, which treats crime as a sin, an affront to the Koran, and is
enforced with a passion absent in the West. Cops from the morals
squad prowl the streets, on patrol for bared legs and midriffs, rock
music and other banned signifiers of Western pop culture. Being
caught with a bottle of beer, for instance, earns a six-month jail
term; the second offense merits another six-months in the cooler,
plus twenty lashes with a whip made from camels' tails. Thanks to
Turabi, Sudan had been recast in religious terms, with Allah and his
prophet Mohammed providing context and direction. At last, after
waiting a thousand years, according to Turabi, the world's 700
million Sunni Muslims could draw inspiration from fundamentalism in
action.
Turabi rejoins us at the table, and we dig into the food. For the
last few years, his house and office were run like a salon, a place
where the best and the brightest and most ambitious flocked to make
connections and prove their worth to the revolution in the making. He
starts talking about model-making and how many pieces must be glued
together before the job is done. Believe me, he says, we're only at
the beginning of Islam's march. Soon, many nations will become one.
And God's voice will thunder.
Sudan, he adds, is merely the staging area for the worldwide
expansion of fundamentalist Islam. This is true, bin Laden seconds.
Turabi resumes speed and says that soon, revivalism will define a
vast geography. We will be bigger than the European Union. . . . We
will be more powerful than America. . . . The power that belonged to
Russia will be ours, yes, ours. Try the cheese. It's delicious. Is it
French? I ask, knowing Turabi refined his taste for fine clothes and
food while studying for his Ph.D. in Paris. I wish, Turabi says
wistfully.
Bin Laden insists Muslim hands make the best of everything and
spears a date with a paring knife. Turabi shrugs but doesn't correct
his guest. It's important, he told me earlier, that Khartoum welcome
all types willing to fight for Islam. It's the only way to insure
that revivalists from around the world have somewhere to share
information and coordinate strategies. He'll offer whatever it takes
to come up with the attack plan that banishes modernism and other
products of the Enlightenment.
He then reminded me that fundamentalist Islam is, essentially, a
reaction against cultural forces that encroach on a Muslim's ability
to practice his or her faith. Anything that denigrates the premier
role of the Koran or even competes for attention is, by definition,
morally corrupt. If the climate is off one degree or 180 degrees, the
fundamentalist is duty-bound to seek socio-moral change by whatever
means necessary. And heaven belongs to those who die while battling
the devil in whatever guise.
Ever eloquent, Turabi weaves fundamentalism into a dramatic
theology of liberation. Monarchist governments and secular ones
already in the Arab orbit, he says, must be toppled to free people of
their great burden. He then puts those nations on notice and predicts
their imminent destruction. Yes. Yes. Right. It will happen, bin
Laden cheers and goes quiet, resuming his nodding in sequence with
Turabi's phrasing. Suddenly, bin Laden twists his neck to face me and
runs his eyes up and down my body as if he's sizing up a lamb
carcass. I can't tell if he's smiling or sneering; his beard is
untrimmed and shades the corners of his mouth. He locks on me as
Turabi reprimands me for being arrested yet again. Three strikes and
you're out, I'm warned.
A few days before, I was thrown in jail for the second time,
arrested inside African International University. It's the school of
choice among radical Muslims looking for a career in terrorism. It
functioned like a graduate school, offering advanced training in
theology and bomb-making. Students were drilled in the classroom as
well as in the field, and the pop-pop of automatic weapons lured me
inside with a camera.
You stay away from there; no Westerners allowed, bin Laden
lectures, picking up where Turabi leaves off. He's aghast that a
bald, pasty-white Westerner could walk uninterrupted through school
doors. He tells Turabi security must be tightened and then revs his
engine, raising his voice and speaking far too quickly for me to
understand. Turabi laughs and changes the subject. He's recording a
sermon later and briefs us about what he's going to say. Bin Laden
leans into every word.
While Turabi plays host to the officer corps, video and audio
cassettes of his speeches take him deep into the hearts and minds of
the average grunt manning the front lines. The foot soldiers memorize
these speeches and, eventually, let their AK-47s and Turabi speak for
them. Inevitably, in jail cells and courtrooms from New Jersey to New
Caledonia, captured revolutionaries spout Turabi's words in answer to
almost any kind of question involving identity (Who are you?) and
purpose (Why are you shooting at us?).
Orange Fanta is brought in, and the conversation drifts to Egypt.
Turabi laments the state of the revolution there and goes on about
the need to topple any government propped up by America. America is
so arrogant, he says. Your government feels it can buy anything it
wants. . . . A bit later, he notes - and correctly so - that a free
election in Egypt would install fundamentalist allies of his into
power. The United States stands in the way of the truth. Don't you
see that?
Now finished, he asks my thoughts. You forgot something, I say:
The armed revivalist groups fighting the regime of Egyptian President
Hosni Mubarak are best known for their incompetency. They've neither
advanced the revolution's cause nor adhered to the teachings of the
Koran. Indeed, they appear to be led by nitwits intent on killing
tourists, even though the Koran forbids taking an innocent life.
Bin Laden flashes anger, making me think that the give-and-take of
dialogue is alien to him. It's his way or no way, so shut up.
Turabi either doesn't notice bin Laden's reaction or doesn't care.
He tells me repair work is underway, the revolutionary groups are
starting to observe a new way of doing things. Wagging a finger, he
advises me not to visit Aswan. He says it's the foreigner's
responsibility to stay away from the front lines, and southern Egypt
is an active battle zone.
Bin Laden weighs in, speaking double time as Turabi interprets for
me. Planning. Planning. Planning, bin Laden says. The old, tribal way
of fighting is dead. Although bin Laden keeps gunning his motor,
Turabi goes quiet and hands me the platter of fruit and cheese. When,
at last, bin Laden finishes his rant, he clicks his tongue as he
glances at me and lets his eyes rest on our host. In return, Turabi
offers him a tired look, a professor surveying an eager but not very
bright student and hands him a paper napkin, along with advice to
clear the debris of cheese and bread clinging to his beard.
The fuel for the coming Islamic revolution is being bunkered as we
sit and talk, Turabi informs me. From earlier discussions, I know
he's referring to sophisticated weaponry, like Stinger missiles,
which, more than any other single bit of gear, sent the Russians out
of Afghanistan. What's missing, he adds, is the spark that will set
events into motion. He's not sure what that spark exactly is, but he
knows what it will cause: a juggernaut. He's convinced that once
things start moving, fundamentalist Islam will re-create those 300
years, from 650 to 950, when Muslim armies established an empire that
reached from the Pyrenees to the Himalayas.
I lose count of the number of times bin Laden nods his head.
Minutes later, a secretary walks in and says something to Turabi
that merits his immediate attention. Lunch, my friends, is over. Back
to work.
He escorts me and bin Laden to the door, and, together, the two of
us walk through the courtyard, into the gatehouse waiting room and
match steps to the street. A Mercedes waits for him. Do I need a
ride? he asks. I decline and return for my next meeting with Turabi.
As usual, when I return, the waiting room is packed. Abu Nidal is
there, as well as representatives of al-Jihad, Hamas, Hezbollah, the
Red Hand Commandos and other, smaller organizations. Everyone is
candid about his association with one or another fundamentalist
movement. But no one will talk about his work; instead, we chat about
the weather (unrelenting heat) and local soccer action (unexciting
club teams).
I bump into Osama bin Laden a few times later on. We shake hands
and leave it at that. He didn't strike me as a particularly
interesting character. Money had given him things others had to work
for, and their stories were much more revealing. Besides, over the
course of my six weeks in Khartoum, I came to understand bin Laden as
a small part in a colossal machine that was growing day by day.
What resonated for me, and, I'm sure, for thousands of others in
Khartoum at the same time, were Turabi's words. They truly empowered
the fighter and scared the hell out of me. For instance, on a Sunday,
Turabi told me there is a renaissance of Islam coming. We are rising
again, with Jews all around us. . . . It's part of a historical
cycle. Islam will be on top again. . . . Dramatic explosions, he
predicted, will propel Islam's army and reconfigure governments along
an East-West axis. He then went into a long riff about one of his
favorite subjects: coordination and the importance of the various
revolutionary Muslim groups to speak in one thunderous voice.
From Khartoum, I headed south, into the heart of the rebel
territory, where armies were locked in war against Turabi and the
government of Sudan. The year before, I had spent three months with
one army and nothing had changed. Southern Sudan was still hell on
earth, a place where the horrific had twisted itself into the
routine. The smell of death was inescapable across an area larger
than Texas, the direct consequence of a civil war that has killed
more than 2 million people. The civil war, which pits black
Christians and practitioners of traditional animistic ways against
the Islamists, has been going on, running hot then cold, ever since
Sudan gained independence from England in the Fifties. This war will
not stop until the Khartoum government accepts blacks and non-Muslims
as equals. Sadly, no one I talk to thinks that will happen in his
lifetime unless the U.N. steps in and a new country is born.
Recently, Turabi lost power. The puppet president he had handled
for so long turned against the master and he now lives under house
arrest. Turabi was educated in the West. He said he loved
Shakespeare, and I never doubted him. He was a debater, easy to
engage and always willing to enter a dialogue. But his followers
lived in a world of stark whites and blacks and were quickly tiresome
talkers - when, that is, they deigned to even acknowledge my
presence. Turabi was the top man in a hierarchy of one. Directly
under him were hundreds of dedicated fighters, a select few, like bin
Laden, rich enough to finance their own groups within the umbrella
organization. More problems I think emanate from the fanaticism that
these men wear like badges of honor. They don't think beyond the
mission at hand: destruction of Western culture. They've ratcheted up
terrorism beyond anything we've ever experienced. Over the course of
thirty years, the troubles in Northern Ireland, as traumatic as they
have been, have caused approximately 3,600 deaths. In one morning,
Islamic fundamentalists nearly doubled that number.
Moreover, the new order and leadership of the revolution took
special pleasure whenever they used America against itself. They're
humorless people. Their idea of a joke is using training camps built
by Americans. They laugh thinking about their training by former
Green Berets.
It's important, I believe, that America not embark on yet another
program that could boomerang. I reckon the fundamentalist leadership
would derive warped enjoyment if it could tear a page from the Bible
and rub it in our faces. In particular, I'm thinking of the Gospel of
St. Matthew describing a savior killed for the sins of others. Bin
Laden may be insulated from the doings of his top aides. He's in
lousy health, his operation is huge. Some underlings enjoy large
budgets and free reign - like Al Zawarhiri, a senior member of Al
Qaeda, or the Lebanese operative Imad Mugniyeh, who has connections
with Iraq and the Hezbollah. If we catch bin Laden, the U.S. case
against him must be airtight, good enough to convict him and send him
off to oblivion. After all, history will judge us, too. And it would
be a grave mistake to launch bin Laden's star so as to lead others on
a journey like his.
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