Afghan Arabs
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Afghan Arabs (; ; ) were the
Arab Muslims Arab Muslims () are the Arabs who adhere to Islam. They are the largest subdivision of the Arab people and the largest ethnic group among Muslims globally, followed by Bengalis and Punjabis. Likewise, they comprise the majority of the population ...
who immigrated to
Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...
and joined the
Afghan mujahideen The Afghan ''mujahideen'' (; ; ) were Islamist militant groups that fought against the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and the Soviet Union during the Soviet–Afghan War and the subsequent Afghan Civil War (1989–1992), First Afghan Ci ...
during the
Soviet–Afghan War The Soviet–Afghan War took place in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan from December 1979 to February 1989. Marking the beginning of the 46-year-long Afghan conflict, it saw the Soviet Union and the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic o ...
. The term does not refer to the history of Arabs in Afghanistan before the 1970s. Despite being referred to as
Afghans Afghans (; ) are the citizens and nationals of Afghanistan, as well as their descendants in the Afghan diaspora. The country is made up of various ethnic groups, of which Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazaras, and Uzbeks are the largest. The three main lan ...
, they originated from the
Arab world The Arab world ( '), formally the Arab homeland ( '), also known as the Arab nation ( '), the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, comprises a large group of countries, mainly located in West Asia and North Africa. While the majority of people in ...
and did not hold Afghan citizenship. It is estimated that between 8,000 and 35,000
Arabs Arabs (,  , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world. Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of yea ...
immigrated to Afghanistan to partake in what much of the
Muslim world The terms Islamic world and Muslim world commonly refer to the Islamic community, which is also known as the Ummah. This consists of all those who adhere to the religious beliefs, politics, and laws of Islam or to societies in which Islam is ...
was calling an Islamic holy war against the
Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
, which had militarily intervened in Afghanistan to support the ruling People's Democratic Party against the rebelling jihadists.Rashid, Ahmed, ''Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia'' (New Haven, 2000), p. 129. The Saudi Arabian journalist
Jamal Khashoggi Jamal Ahmad Hamza Khashoggi (13 October 1958 – 2 October 2018) was a Saudi journalist, Saudi dissidents, dissident, author, columnist for ''Middle East Eye'' and ''The Washington Post'', and a general manager and editor-in-chief of Al-Arab New ...
, who was the first Arab journalist from a major Arabic-language media organization to cover the Soviet–Afghan War, approximated that there were 10,000 Arab volunteer fighters in Afghanistan during the conflict.
Peter Bergen Peter Lampert Bergen (born December 12, 1962) is an American journalist, documentary producer, historian, and author, best known for his work on national security and counterterrorism. He has written or edited ten books—three of which were ...
, '' The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of al Qaeda's Leader'', Simon and Schuster (2006), p. 41
Among many
Muslims Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...
, the Afghan Arabs achieved near hero-status for their association with the defeat of the Soviet Union in 1989, and it was with this prestige that they were later able to exert considerable influence in mounting jihadist struggles in other countries, including their own. Their name notwithstanding, none of them were Afghans, and some who were grouped with the community were not even Arabs. A number of the foreign jihadists in Afghanistan were Turkic or Malay, among other ethnicities, or non-Arabs from Arab countries, such as
Kurds Kurds (), or the Kurdish people, are an Iranian peoples, Iranic ethnic group from West Asia. They are indigenous to Kurdistan, which is a geographic region spanning southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northeastern Syri ...
. To the
Western world The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to various nations and state (polity), states in Western Europe, Northern America, and Australasia; with some debate as to whether those in Eastern Europe and Latin America also const ...
, the most notorious Afghan Arab fighter was
Osama bin Laden Osama bin Laden (10 March 19572 May 2011) was a militant leader who was the founder and first general emir of al-Qaeda. Ideologically a pan-Islamist, Bin Laden participated in the Afghan ''mujahideen'' against the Soviet Union, and support ...
, who immigrated to Afghanistan from
Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...
and founded
al-Qaeda , image = Flag of Jihad.svg , caption = Jihadist flag, Flag used by various al-Qaeda factions , founder = Osama bin Laden{{Assassinated, Killing of Osama bin Laden , leaders = {{Plainlist, * Osama bin Lad ...
, which carried out the
September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...
against the
United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
in 2001, prompting the American invasion of Afghanistan a month later. Bin Laden then took refuge in
Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...
(with alleged Pakistani support) until May 2011, when he was assassinated by U.S. Navy SEAL Team Six, though the American-led
War in Afghanistan War in Afghanistan, Afghan war, or Afghan civil war may refer to: *Conquest of Afghanistan by Alexander the Great (330 BC – 327 BC), the conquest of Afghanistan by the Macedonian Empire * Muslim conquests of Afghanistan, a series of campaigns in ...
against the
Taliban , leader1_title = Supreme Leader of Afghanistan, Supreme leaders , leader1_name = {{indented plainlist, * Mullah Omar{{Natural Causes{{nbsp(1994–2013) * Akhtar Mansour{{Assassinated (2015–2016) * Hibatullah Akhundzada (2016–present) ...
continued until August 2021.


Origin

Pakistani military officer Hamid Gul, who led the
Inter-Services Intelligence The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is the premier Pakistani Intelligence community, intelligence agency of Pakistan. It is responsible for gathering, processing, and analyzing any information from around the world that is deemed relevant t ...
(ISI) from 1987 to 1989, stated of his country's role in recruiting Muslim volunteer fighters in Afghanistan: "We are fighting a jihad and this is the first Islamic international brigade in the modern era. The
Communists Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, d ...
have their international brigades, the West has
NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...
, why can't the Muslims unite and form a common front?"


Role of Abdullah Yusuf Azzam

The Palestinian jihadist Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, who was assassinated in Pakistan in 1989, is often credited with creating enthusiasm for the Afghan mujahideen cause in Arab countries and throughout the broader Muslim world. Upon the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in 1979, Azzam issued a ''
fatwa A fatwa (; ; ; ) is a legal ruling on a point of Islamic law (sharia) given by a qualified Islamic jurist ('' faqih'') in response to a question posed by a private individual, judge or government. A jurist issuing fatwas is called a ''mufti'', ...
'' (''Defense of the Muslim Lands, the First Obligation after Faith'') declaring that jihad against the Soviet Union was '' fard 'ayn'' (a personal obligation) for every able-bodied Muslim man: "Whoever can, from among the Arabs, fight jihad in Palestine, then he must start there. And, if he is not capable, then he must set out for Afghanistan." Although waging a jihadist struggle against
Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...
was regarded with the most importance in the Arab world, for practical reasons, "it is our opinion that we should begin ihadwith Afghanistan before
Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...
." The edict was supported by other prominent sheikhs, including the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia (the country's highest religious authority) Abd al-Aziz ibn Abd Allah Al Baz. Sometime after 1980, Azzam established the Maktab al-Khidamat to organize guest houses in
Peshawar Peshawar is the capital and List of cities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by population, largest city of the Administrative units of Pakistan, Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It is the sixth most populous city of Pakistan, with a district p ...
, a Pakistani city near the Afghan border, as well as jihadist training camps in Afghanistan to prepare international recruits for confrontations with the
Soviet Armed Forces The Armed Forces of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, also known as the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union, the Red Army (1918–1946) and the Soviet Army (1946–1991), were the armed forces of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republi ...
. With financing from Saudi Arabia, including from Bin Laden, Maktab al-Khadamat paid for "air tickets and accommodation, dealt with paperwork with Pakistani authorities and provided other such services for the jihad fighters" who had come from all over the Muslim world. During the 1980s, Azzam had forged close links with two of the Afghan mujahideen's faction leaders:
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (born 1 August 1949) is an Afghan politician, and former mujahideen leader and drug trafficker. He is the founder and current leader of the Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin political party, so called after Mohammad Yunus Khalis spl ...
, who was favoured by the Pakistani government; and Abdulrab Rasul Sayyaf, who was receiving close support from Saudi Arabian authorities for the purpose of spreading
Wahhabism Wahhabism is an exonym for a Salafi revivalist movement within Sunni Islam named after the 18th-century Hanbali scholar Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. It was initially established in the central Arabian region of Najd and later spread to oth ...
(a stream of Islamic revivalism that originated in 18th-century Saudi Arabia) throughout Afghanistan. Azzam toured not only the Muslim world, but also the United States in search of funding and young Muslim recruits. He inspired young Muslims with stories of miraculous deeds: mujahideen who defeated vast columns of Soviet troops virtually single-handed, who had been run over by tanks and survived, who were shot and still unscathed by bullets; while angels were said to ride into battle on horseback, and falling bombs were said to be intercepted by birds, which raced ahead of Soviet fighter jets to form a protective canopy over the Muslim warriors in Afghanistan. Estimates of the number of Afghan Arab that came from around the world to fight in Afghanistan include 8,000, 10,000, 20,000 and 35,000. In the camps of the foreign volunteers, Azzam was said to be "able to exercise a strong influence on the unpredictable jihadists". His slogan was "Jihad and the rifle alone: no negotiations, no conferences and no dialogues." He emphasized the importance of jihad: "those who believe that
Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...
can flourish ndbe victorious without jihad, fighting, and blood are deluded and have no understanding of the nature of this religion," and that Afghanistan was only the beginning:
This duty .e., jihadshall not lapse with victory in Afghanistan, and the jihad will remain an individual obligation until all other lands which formerly were Muslim come back to us and Islam reigns within them once again. Before us lie
Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...
,
Bukhara Bukhara ( ) is the List of cities in Uzbekistan, seventh-largest city in Uzbekistan by population, with 280,187 residents . It is the capital of Bukhara Region. People have inhabited the region around Bukhara for at least five millennia, and t ...
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,
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,
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,
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, the
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...
Sometime after August 1988, Azzam was replaced by Bin Laden as the leader of the Arab Afghans in Peshawar. In November 1989, Azzam was assassinated by a roadside bomb in an attack that is variously suspected to have been organized by one of three (or four) actors: Israel's
Mossad The Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations (), popularly known as Mossad ( , ), is the national intelligence agency of the Israel, State of Israel. It is one of the main entities in the Israeli Intelligence Community, along with M ...
and the United States'
Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...
, owing to his ties with
Hamas The Islamic Resistance Movement, abbreviated Hamas (the Arabic acronym from ), is a Palestinian nationalist Sunni Islam, Sunni Islamism, Islamist political organisation with a military wing, the Qassam Brigades. It has Gaza Strip under Hama ...
during the
First Intifada The First Intifada (), also known as the First Palestinian Intifada, was a sustained series of Nonviolent resistance, non-violent protests, acts of civil disobedience, Riot, riots, and Terrorism, terrorist attacks carried out by Palestinians ...
; the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, with whose leader
Ayman al-Zawahiri Ayman Mohammed Rabie al-Zawahiri (; 19 June 195131 July 2022) was an Egyptian-born pan-Islamism, pan-Islamist militant and physician who served as the second general emir of al-Qaeda from June 2011 until Killing of Ayman al-Zawahiri, his dea ...
he had an emerging rivalry; or Afghanistan's
KhAD The ''Khadamat-e Aetla'at-e Dawlati'' (Pashto/ literally "State Intelligence Agency", also known as "State Information Services" or "Committee of State Security"), better known by the acronym KhAD, was the agency in charge of internal security, ...
, possibly to cause infighting among the jihadist cause during the Soviet–Afghan War.


Later foreign volunteers

While there was generous financial aid to Afghan guerillas throughout the 1980s, most foreign Muslim fighters did not arrive in Afghanistan until the mid-1980s. By 1986, the Soviet Union had begun contemplating a military withdrawal from Afghanistan. As it became increasingly clear that the mujahideen's fight against the Soviet military was succeeding, it achieved more popularity with Muslims worldwide and thereby attracted more foreign volunteer fighters. Consequently, a significant amount of Arab jihadists arrived in Afghanistan when they were least needed; the late arrivals were reportedly twice the number of those who partook in the fighting against the Soviets at the height of the conflict. Many of the later volunteers were different than the early "Afghan" Arab volunteers, who were inspired by Azzam, and have been criticized for being less serious:
Some Saudi tourists came to earn their jihad credentials. Their tour was organized so that they could step inside Afghanistan, get photographed discharging a gun, and promptly return home as a hero of jihad.Sageman, Marc, ''Understanding Terror Networks'', University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004, p.57-58
As the conflict continued, many Arab volunteers became sectarian and undisciplined in their violence, including in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, which served as the mujahideen's chief staging area and the centre of Afghan Arab activity. These later expatriate volunteers included many sectarian Salafists and Wahhabists who alienated their hosts with their aloof manner and particular disdain for
Sufism Sufism ( or ) is a mysticism, mystic body of religious practice found within Islam which is characterized by a focus on Islamic Tazkiyah, purification, spirituality, ritualism, and Asceticism#Islam, asceticism. Practitioners of Sufism are r ...
, which is held in high regard in Afghanistan and the
Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a physiographic region of Asia below the Himalayas which projects into the Indian Ocean between the Bay of Bengal to the east and the Arabian Sea to the west. It is now divided between Bangladesh, India, and Pakista ...
. While the first Arab Afghans were "for the most part" welcomed by native Afghan mujahideen fighters, by the end of the conflict with the Soviets, there was a great deal of mutual antagonism between the two ethnic groups. The Afghan mujahideen resented "being told they were not good Muslims" and called the expatriate volunteers " Ikhwanis" or "Wahhabis" as a pejorative, and this resentment is thought by some ( Marc Sageman) to have played a role in the relative ease with which the United States toppled the
Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...
.


Salafi influence

In the "great gathering" of international Islamists—Arabs, Afghans, and others—at camps and training centers around Peshawar, ideas were exchanged and "many unexpected ideological cross-fertilizations" took place, particularly a "variant of Islamist ideology based on armed struggle and extreme religious vigour" known as
Salafi jihadism Salafi jihadism, also known as Salafi-jihadism, jihadist Salafism and revolutionary Salafism, is a religiopolitical Sunni Islam, Sunni Islamist ideology that seeks to establish a global caliphate through armed struggle. In a narrower sense, ji ...
. Kepel, ''Jihad'', (2002): p.8


Globalization


After the Soviet withdrawal

The departure of the Soviets led to the start of the Afghan Civil War between Afghan Government forces and the so-called "Interim Afghan Government", Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda participated in the failed Battle of Jalalabad, Bin Laden personally led 800 Arabs to immobilize the 7th Sarandoy regiment but failed to do so leading to many casualties. At least 300 Arabs were killed by Afghan Forces during the Battle. The President of Afghanistan,
Mohammad Najibullah Mohammad Najibullah Ahmadzai (6 August 1947 – 27 September 1996) was an Afghan military officer and politician who served as the second president of Afghanistan from 1987 until his resignation in April 1992, shortly after the Afghan mujahideen' ...
was highly critical of Arab involvement in Afghanistan, claiming Wahabi Arabs would destroy Afghan values and culture and lead to an American invasion in the future. With the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Najibullah Government lost its most important trading partner. The new Russian government under Boris Yeltsin cut exports to Najibullah's Government and in 1992 President Najibullah was removed from power by 4 of his Generals and the Homeland Party government in Kabul ceased to exist in April 1992. After this, some foreign mujahideen stayed in Afghanistan participating in the following
Civil War A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...
caused by the power vacuum left behind from the dissolved Afghan Military. These Arab foreign fighters served as the essential core of the foot soldiers of
Osama bin Laden Osama bin Laden (10 March 19572 May 2011) was a militant leader who was the founder and first general emir of al-Qaeda. Ideologically a pan-Islamist, Bin Laden participated in the Afghan ''mujahideen'' against the Soviet Union, and support ...
's
Al Qaeda , image = Flag of Jihad.svg , caption = Jihadist flag, Flag used by various al-Qaeda factions , founder = Osama bin Laden{{Assassinated, Killing of Osama bin Laden , leaders = {{Plainlist, * Osama bin Lad ...
, bin Laden being seen, according to journalist Lawrence Wright, as "the undisputed leader of the Arab Afghans" by fall of 1989. Others returned "with their experience, ideology, and weapons," to their home (or other Muslim) countries, often proceeding to fight jihad against the government there. Kepel, ''Jihad'', (2002): p.218 However minimal the impact of the "Afghan" Arabs on the war against the Soviets, the return of the volunteers to their home countries was often not. In ''Foreign Affairs'' Peter Bergen writes:
The foreign volunteers in Afghanistan saw the Soviet defeat as a victory for Islam against a superpower that had invaded a Muslim country. Estimates of the number of foreign fighters who fought in Afghanistan begin in the low thousands; some spent years in combat, while others came only for what amounted to a jihad vacation. The jihadists gained legitimacy and prestige from their triumph both within the militant community and among ordinary Muslims, as well as the confidence to carry their jihad to other countries where they believed Muslims required assistance. When veterans of the guerrilla campaign returned home with their experience, ideology, and weapons, they destabilized once-tranquil countries and inflamed already unstable ones.


Bosnia–Herzegovina

Three countries where Afghan Arabs had the biggest impact immediately following the war were
Bosnia-Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina, sometimes known as Bosnia-Herzegovina and informally as Bosnia, is a country in Southeast Europe. Situated on the Balkan Peninsula, it borders Serbia to the east, Montenegro to the southeast, and Croatia to the north a ...
, where they fought against Bosnian Serbs and Croats,
Algeria Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered to Algeria–Tunisia border, the northeast by Tunisia; to Algeria–Libya border, the east by Libya; to Alger ...
and
Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...
, where they fought the respective governments. According to Compass, 2,000 Egyptians and 2,800 Algerians were trained for combat in the Pakistan border area though not all of these volunteers saw action in Afghanistan. Several hundred had recently returned home by 1992. Kepel, ''Jihad'', (2002): p.276 In Bosnia the war ended with peace accords and American peacekeeping troops rather than sharia law. In both Algeria and Egypt after much blood letting the Islamist movement lost popular support and the government prevailed. Kepel, ''Jihad'', (2002): p.277 Bosnia was a major issue in the Muslim World which saw it as an aggression of Christians against Muslims and proof of Western double standards on human rights. Kepel, ''Jihad'', (2002): p.237-8 About 4000 Jihadists from Peshawar and new international recruits went to fight in Bosnia, Kepel, ''Jihad'', (2002): p.239 but their calls for Jihad and re-Islamization often fell on deaf ears among
Bosnian Muslims The Bosniaks (, Cyrillic: Бошњаци, ; , ) are a South Slavic ethnic group native to the Southeast European historical region of Bosnia, today part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and who share a common ancestry, culture, history and the ...
which lacked a population explosion among the poor or a pious middle class that most Muslim countries had. The Afghan Arab veterans formed a ''El-Mudzahidun'' regiment in August 1993 but hurt the Bosnian image internationally with "photographs of grinning Arab warriors brandishing the freshly severed heads of 'Christian Serbs'". Kepel, ''Jihad'', (2002): p.250 The volunteers also took upon themselves Hisbah ("commanding right and forbidding wrong") and also attempted to impose the veil on women and the beard on men and in addition engaged in
causing disturbances in the ceremonies of ufibrotherhoods they deemed to be deviant, ... smashing up cafes, and ... rganizingsharia marriages to Bosnian girls that were not declared to the civil authorities. Kepel, ''Jihad'', (2002): p.251
After the 1995
Dayton Agreement The General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, also known as the Dayton Agreement or the Dayton Accords ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, Dejtonski mirovni sporazum, Дејтонски мировни споразум), and colloquially kn ...
(which gave Bosniaks control of 30% of the Bosnia and Herzegovina) were signed, all foreign volunteers were invited to leave the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina and were replaced by NATO peacekeeping forces, a "bitter experience" for Afghan Arab jihadist-salafists. According to Gilles Kepel as of 2003, the only thing left of their presence are "a few naturalized Arab subjects married to Bosnian women."


Algeria

Several veterans of jihad in Afghanistan were important in the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria or GIA—one of two insurgent groups fighting the government in the Algerian Civil War after the army intervened to prevent the leading Islamist party from winning elections scheduled for January 1992. Sief Allah Djafar, aka Djafar al-Afghani, spent two years in Afghanistan and in 1993 became "amir" of the GIA. Kepel, ''Jihad'', (2002): p.263 Providing doctrinal justifications for the GIA and a "steady stream of pro-GIA publicity" for Muslims outside Algeria (until June 1996 when GIA atrocities became too much) were two other Afghan veterans, Abu Mousab (a Spanish Syrian) and Abu Qatada (a Palestinian). The GIA slogan—"no agreement, no truce, no dialogue"—echoed that of Abdullah Azzam. The group was committed to overthrowing the "impious" Algerian government and worked to prevent any compromise between them and the Islamist FIS party. Kepel, ''Jihad'', (2002): p.260 Under Djafar, the GIA broadened its attacks to include civilians who refused to live by their prohibitions, and then foreigners living in Algeria.''
The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...
'', 20 November 1993.
By the end of 1993 26 foreigners had been killed. Kepel, ''Jihad'', 2002: p.264 In November 1993 it kidnapped and executed Sheik Mohamed Bouslimani "a popular figure who was prominent" in the moderate Islamist Algerian Hamas party who refused "to issue a fatwa endorsing the GIA's tactics." Djafar was killed February 26, 1994, but GIA continued to escalate violence, massacring whole villages of peasants for their alleged apostasy from Islam manifested by their failure to support GIA's jihad. Though the "undisputed principal Islamist force" in Algeria in 1994, Kepel, ''Jihad'', (2002): p.265 by 1996, militants were deserting "in droves", alienated by its execution of civilians and Islamists leaders and believing it to be infiltrated by government agents. Kepel, ''Jihad'', (2002): p.269-70 By the end of the 1990s the group was spent, somewhere between 40,000 and 200,000 lives had been lost, and the once broad and enthusiastic support by voters for the anti-government Islamism was replaced "with a deep fear of instability". Algeria was one of the few in the Arab world not to participate in the
Arab Spring The Arab Spring () was a series of Nonviolent resistance, anti-government protests, Rebellion, uprisings, and Insurgency, armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s. It began Tunisian revolution, in Tunisia ...
.


Egypt

In Egypt, "fundamentalists fighting the government in the 1990s included "several hundred 'Afghan' guerrillas". The main group was led by
Ayman al-Zawahiri Ayman Mohammed Rabie al-Zawahiri (; 19 June 195131 July 2022) was an Egyptian-born pan-Islamism, pan-Islamist militant and physician who served as the second general emir of al-Qaeda from June 2011 until Killing of Ayman al-Zawahiri, his dea ...
and Mohammed Shawky al-Istambouli—brother of the army lieutenant who led the assassination of Egyptian President
Anwar Sadat Muhammad Anwar es-Sadat (25 December 1918 – 6 October 1981) was an Egyptian politician and military officer who served as the third president of Egypt, from 15 October 1970 until Assassination of Anwar Sadat, his assassination by fundame ...
in October 1981. Al-Istambouli established a base in
Jalalabad Jalalabad (; Help:IPA/Persian, ͡ʒä.lɑː.lɑː.bɑːd̪ is the list of cities in Afghanistan, fifth-largest city of Afghanistan. It has a population of about 200,331, and serves as the capital of Nangarhar Province in the eastern part ...
, in eastern Afghanistan, during the war. (The Islamist terror group
al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya (, "Islamic Group") is an Egyptian Sunni Islamist movement, and is considered a terrorism, terrorist organization by the United Kingdom and the European Union, but was removed from the United States list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations i ...
still had about 200 men there in 1994.) A former army colonel and "prominent fundamentalist" who fled Egypt after the Sadat assassination, Ibrahim el-Mekkawi, maintained training camps and other bases near the Afghan-Pakistan border and directed the Islamic campaign in Egypt from Pakistan according to authorities in Cairo. Egypt's institutions had more political strength and religious credibility than Algeria's, and hundreds rather than thousands were killed in the terror campaign before it was crushed in 1997–8. Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya militants harassed and murdered members of the Coptic Christian minority, and by 1992 had broadened their targets to police and tourists, causing serious harm to Egypt's economy. Violence in Egypt reached its peak in the November 1997 Luxor massacre of 60 people most of whom were tourists. Kepel, ''Jihad'', (2002): p.277-8


Taliban-controlled Afghanistan

In the mid- and late-1990s, the Afghan Arabs, in the form of the
Wahhabi Wahhabism is an exonym for a Salafi revivalist movement within Sunni Islam named after the 18th-century Hanbali scholar Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. It was initially established in the central Arabian region of Najd and later spread to other ...
-oriented
Al-Qaeda , image = Flag of Jihad.svg , caption = Jihadist flag, Flag used by various al-Qaeda factions , founder = Osama bin Laden{{Assassinated, Killing of Osama bin Laden , leaders = {{Plainlist, * Osama bin Lad ...
, became more influential in Afghanistan helping and influencing the Taliban. Several hundred Arab-Afghans participated in the 1997 and 1998 Taliban offensives in the north and helped the Taliban carry out the massacres of the Shia Hazaras there. Several hundred more Arab-Afghans, based in the Rishkor army garrison outside Kabul, fought on the Kabul front against General
Ahmad Shah Massoud Ahmad Shāh Massoud (2 September 19539 September 2001) was an Afghan militant leader and politician. He was a guerrilla commander during the resistance against the Soviet occupation during the Soviet–Afghan War from 1979 to 1989. In the 19 ...
. At the same time the Taliban's ideology changed. Until the "Taliban's contact with the Arab-Afghans and their he Taliban'span-Islamic ideology was non-existent." By 1996 and 1998, al Qaeda felt comfortable enough in the sanctuary given them to issue a declaration of war against Americans and later a fatwa to kill Americans and their allies. "The Arab-Afghans had come full circle. From being mere appendages of the Afghan jihad and the Cold War in the 1980s they had taken centre stage for the Afghans, neighbouring countries and the west in the 1990s." This was followed by
al Qaeda , image = Flag of Jihad.svg , caption = Jihadist flag, Flag used by various al-Qaeda factions , founder = Osama bin Laden{{Assassinated, Killing of Osama bin Laden , leaders = {{Plainlist, * Osama bin Lad ...
1998 American embassy bombings in African countries and the
September 11, 2001 attacks The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...
. Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, America invaded Afghanistan, deposing the Taliban, ending the heyday of the Afghan Arabs. During the American campaign in Afghanistan in late 2001, many coherent units of Arab fighters were destroyed by JDAMs. Some Arab fighters have been held by Afghan tribesman for ransom paid by Americans.


Characteristics


Contributions to the Afghan mujahideen

Perhaps the major contribution of the more serious Afghan Arab volunteers was humanitarian aid —- the setting up of hospitals around Peshawar and Quetta and providing funds for supply caravans to travel to the interior of the country. Abdullah Anas, himself one of the most famous of these Afghan-Arabs fighters, said that "90 percent were teachers, cooks, accountants, doctors ver the border in Pakistan" The effectiveness of the Afghan Arabs in Afghanistan as a fighting force has been scoffed at, called a "curious sideshow to the real fighting," Estimates are there were about 2000 Arab Afghans fighting "at any one time", compared with about a 250,000 Afghan fighters and 125,000 Soviet troops. Marc Sageman, a Foreign Service Officer who was based in Islamabad from 1987 to 1989, and worked closely with Afghanistan's Mujahideen, says
Contemporaneous accounts of the war do not even mention he Afghan Arabs Many were not serious about the war. ... Very few were involved in actual fighting. For most of the war, they were scattered among the Afghan groups associated with the four Afghan fundamentalist parties.
One instance where the foreign volunteers did participate in the fighting is reported to have backfired disastrously, hurting the Afghan resistance by prolonging the war against the Afghan Marxist government following the Soviet withdrawal. The March 1989 the Pakistani/American sponsored Battle for Jalalabad, was supposed to be the beginning of the end for the Afghan Communist government forces, the PDPA Government began negotiations with the "Interim Afghan Government". Unfortunately, radical non-Afghan salafists became involved, executing some 60 surrendering Communists, cutting their corpses into small pieces, and sending the remains back to the besieged city in a truck with the message that this would be the fate awaiting the infidels. Despite apologies and assurances of safety from Afghan resistance leaders, the Communists ended their negotiations of surrender, spurred them on to break the siege of Jalalabad launching over 400 Scud Ballistic Missiles at Mujahedeen(Interim Afghan Government) positions leading them to win the first major victory of the Civil War. The battle was an international embarrassment for the Pakistanis whom had supported the "Interim Afghan Government" causing the sacking of ISI head Hamid Gul In the words of Brigadier-General Mohammed Yousaf, an officer of the ISI, "the
jihad ''Jihad'' (; ) is an Arabic word that means "exerting", "striving", or "struggling", particularly with a praiseworthy aim. In an Islamic context, it encompasses almost any effort to make personal and social life conform with God in Islam, God ...
never recovered from Jalalabad". Contrary to American and Pakistani expectations, this battle proved that the
Afghan Army The Islamic National Army (, ), also referred to as the Islamic Emirate Army and the Afghan Army, is the land force branch of the Afghan Armed Forces. The roots of an army in Afghanistan can be traced back to the early 18th century when the Ho ...
could fight without Soviet help, and greatly increased the confidence of government supporters. Conversely, the morale of the mujahideen involved in the attack slumped and many local commanders of Hekmatyar concluded truces with the government. Over 300 Arab foreign fighters were killed by Afghan Forces during the Battle.


Composition

According to one source, some "35,000 Muslim radicals from 43 Islamic countries in the
Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...
,
North North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating Direction (geometry), direction or geography. Etymology T ...
and
East Africa East Africa, also known as Eastern Africa or the East of Africa, is a region at the eastern edge of the Africa, African continent, distinguished by its unique geographical, historical, and cultural landscape. Defined in varying scopes, the regi ...
,
Central Asia Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...
and the
Far East The Far East is the geographical region that encompasses the easternmost portion of the Asian continent, including North Asia, North, East Asia, East and Southeast Asia. South Asia is sometimes also included in the definition of the term. In mod ...
," fought for the Afghan Mujahideen. Tens of thousand more foreign Muslim radicals came to study in the hundreds of new madrassas in Pakistan and along the Afghan border, that the Pakistan government funded. Eventually "more than 100,000 Muslim radicals were to have direct contact with Pakistan and Afghanistan and be influenced by the jihad." The Mujahideen of Afghanistan were divided into several factions and the Afghan Arabs helped some factions much more than others. Factions led by
Abdul Rasul Sayyaf Abdulrab Rasul Sayyaf ( ; ; born 1946) is an exiled Afghan politician and former Afghan mujahideen, mujahideen commander. He took part in the war against the Marxist–Leninist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) government in the 198 ...
and
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (born 1 August 1949) is an Afghan politician, and former mujahideen leader and drug trafficker. He is the founder and current leader of the Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin political party, so called after Mohammad Yunus Khalis spl ...
are described as having had good relations with Arab foreign fighters, Bin Laden would personally finance the 1990 Afghan Coup attempt by Hardline Communist
Khalq Khalq (Dari/, ) was a faction of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). Its historical ''de facto'' leaders were Nur Muhammad Taraki (1967–1979), Hafizullah Amin (1979) It was also the name of the leftist newspaper produced by ...
ists and Gulbuddin's Hezbi Islami. The faction led by
Ahmad Shah Massoud Ahmad Shāh Massoud (2 September 19539 September 2001) was an Afghan militant leader and politician. He was a guerrilla commander during the resistance against the Soviet occupation during the Soviet–Afghan War from 1979 to 1989. In the 19 ...
, had good relations with Abdullah Azzam which is why Hekmatyar is one of the suspects for his demise alongside
KhAD The ''Khadamat-e Aetla'at-e Dawlati'' (Pashto/ literally "State Intelligence Agency", also known as "State Information Services" or "Committee of State Security"), better known by the acronym KhAD, was the agency in charge of internal security, ...
.


Pan-Islamism and martyrdom

Afghan Arabs have been described as strongly motivated by hopes for martyrdom. Rahimullah Yusufzai, the Peshawar bureau chief for the Pakistani daily ''News'', remarked on his amazement that one camp of Arab Afghans pitched white tents on the front lines, where they were easy marks for Soviet bombers, then attacking the camp. When he asked the Arabs why, they replied: "We want them to bomb us! We want to die!" Bin Laden himself has said: "I wish I could raid and be slain, and then raid and be slain, and then raid and be slain."


Attitude towards the Western world

The Afghan resistance "had been considerably romanticized in the American press and had made tours through American churches, where they were lauded for their spiritual courage in the common fight against
Marxism Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflict, ...
and godlessness". Some of the Afghan Arabs ''jihadis'' who flocked to Afghanistan, however, saw themselves as opponents of the West every bit as much as of
Communism Communism () is a political sociology, sociopolitical, political philosophy, philosophical, and economic ideology, economic ideology within the history of socialism, socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a ...
. French writer Olivier Roy, who spent some years in Afghanistan, and served with the
United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...
Office for Coordinating Relief in Afghanistan (UNOCA), has written that the jihadis "did not become anti-Western after 1991 – they had always been so."
All westerners, like me, who encountered the so-called "Arabs" inside Afghanistan during the war of resistance were struck (sometimes physically) by their hostility. The Arabs constantly asked the Afghan ''mujahideen'' commanders to get rid of the "infidels" and to choose only good Muslims as supporters, and called for the expulsion of Western NGOs ... in many areas the ''mujahideen'' had to intervene to prevent physical assaults on westerners.
Author Gilles Kepel writes that in Peshwar Pakistan, some Afghan Arabs attacked "Europe and American humanitarian agencies ... trying to help the Afghan refugees." In contrast according to former British Defence Secretary
Michael Portillo Michael Denzil Xavier Portillo ( ; born 26 May 1953) is a British journalist, broadcaster, and former Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Party politician. His broadcast series include railway documentaries such as ''Great British Railway Jou ...
, late Prime Minister of Pakistan
Benazir Bhutto Benazir Bhutto (21 June 1953 – 27 December 2007) was a Pakistani politician who served as the 11th prime minister of Pakistan from 1988 to 1990, and again from 1993 to 1996. She was also the first woman elected to head a democratic governmen ...
told him said Osama bin Laden was initially pro-American. According to Prince
Bandar bin Sultan Bandar bin Sultan Al Saud (; born 2 March 1949) is a member of the House of Saud, Saudi ruling family, a grandson of Ibn Saud, King Abdulaziz, military officer, and retired diplomat who served as Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States fr ...
of Saudi Arabia, on the one occasion he met and talked to Osama bin Laden, bin Laden thanked him for his "efforts to bring the Americans, our friends, to help us against the atheists, he said the communists."


Connections with the Central Intelligence Agency

Robin Cook, former leader of the
British House of Commons The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. The House of Commons is an elected body consisting of 650 memb ...
and Foreign Secretary from 1997 to 2001, wrote in ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'' on Friday, July 8, 2005,
Bin Laden was, though, a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies. Throughout the 80s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al-Qaida, literally "the database", was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians.
However the notion that the CIA had any contact with non-Afghan mujahideen and specifically bin Laden is disputed by a number of sources. According to
Peter Bergen Peter Lampert Bergen (born December 12, 1962) is an American journalist, documentary producer, historian, and author, best known for his work on national security and counterterrorism. He has written or edited ten books—three of which were ...
of
CNN Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news organization operating, most notably, a website and a TV channel headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable ne ...
the story
that the CIA funded bin Laden or trained bin Laden—is simply a folk myth. There's no evidence of this. In fact, there are very few things that bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and the U.S. government agree on. They all agree that they didn't have a relationship in the 1980s. And they wouldn't have needed to. Bin Laden had his own money, he was anti-American and he was operating secretly and independently.
The real story here is the CIA didn't really have a clue about who this guy was until 1996 when they set up a unit to really start tracking him.
Bergen quotes Pakistani Brigadier Mohammad Yousaf, who ran ISI's Afghan operation between 1983 and 1987:
It was always galling to the Americans, and I can understand their point of view, that although they paid the piper they could not call the tune. The CIA supported the mujahideen by spending the taxpayers' money, billions of dollars of it over the years, on buying arms, ammunition, and equipment. It was their secret arms procurement branch that was kept busy. It was, however, a cardinal rule of Pakistan's policy that no Americans ever become involved with the distribution of funds or arms once they arrived in the country. No Americans ever trained or had direct contact with the mujahideen, and no American official ever went inside Afghanistan.
According to Peter Beinart,
Vincent Cannistraro, who led the Reagan administration's Afghan Working Group from 1985 to 1987, puts it, "The CIA was very reluctant to be involved at all. They thought it would end up with them being blamed, like in Guatemala." So the Agency tried to avoid direct involvement in the war, ... the skittish CIA, Cannistraro estimates, had less than ten operatives acting as America's eyes and ears in the region. Milton Bearden, the Agency's chief field operative in the war effort, has insisted that " e CIA had nothing to do with" bin Laden. Cannistraro says that when he coordinated Afghan policy from Washington, he never once heard bin Laden's name.
According to Olivier Roy, "the CIA was not in charge (accusing Bin Laden of having been a CIA agent is nonsense) of the program" to enlist Muslim volunteers to fight Soviets in Afghanistan, "but it did not oppose the scheme or worry about it negative consequences."
The US attitude had more to do with benign neglect than Machiavellian strategy. Eagerness to claim absolute victory in Afghanistan, bureaucratic inertia, lack of concern and expertise, overconfidence in the Saudi and Pakistani security services ... all explain why nobody in Washington cared.
However, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman—a major recruiter of the Afghan Arabs—was given his visas to enter the US on four separate occasions by the CIA. Egyptian officials testified that the CIA actively assisted him. Rahman was a co-plotter of the
1993 World Trade Center bombing The 1993 World Trade Center bombing was a terrorist attack carried out by Ramzi Yousef and associates against the United States on February 26, 1993, when a van bomb detonated below the North Tower of the World Trade Center complex in Manhat ...
.


See also

Afghan conflict: * 055 Brigade * Reagan Doctrine ** CIA activities in Afghanistan * Operation Cyclone ** Allegations of CIA assistance to Osama Bin Laden ** Allegations of Pakistani support for Osama Bin Laden Chechen–Russian conflict: * Islamic International Brigade * Arab Mujahideen in Chechnya Yugoslav Wars: * Bosnian mujahideen Iraqi conflict: * Kurdish mujahideen


References

* {{Arab diaspora Afghanistan conflict (1978–present) Pan-Islamism Salafi jihadists