unholy war terror in the name of islam may 2002

UNHOLY WAR
Also by John L. Esposito
Author
The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality?
Islam: The Straight Path
Women in Muslim Family Law
Islam and Politics
Makers of Contemporary Islam (with John O. Voll)
World Religions Today (with Darrell J. Fasching and Todd Lewis)
Islam and Democracy (with John O. Voll)
Editor
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World
The Oxford History of Islam
The Oxford Dictionary of Islam
Political Islam: Revolution, Radicalism, or Reform
Voices of Resurgent Islam
Islam in Asia: Religion, Politics, and Society
The Iranian Revolution: Its Global Impact
Muslims on the Americanization Path?
(with Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad)
Islam, Gender, and Social Change (with Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad)
Religion and Global Order (with Michael Watson)
Islam and Secularism in the Middle East (with Azzam Tamimi)
Muslims and the West: Encounter and Dialogue
(with Zafar Ishaq Ansari)
UNHOLY WAR
Terror in the Name of Islam
John L. Esposito
1
2002

3
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Copyright © 2002 by Joh n L. Esposito
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Library of Con gress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Esposito, John L.
Unholy war : terror in the name of Islam / John L. Esposito.
p. cm .
In cludes bibliographical referen ces and index.
ISBN 0-19-515435-5
1. Terrorism—Religious aspects—Islam.
2. Jihad. 3. Islam an d world politics.
4. An ti-Am ericanism. I. Title
HV6431 .E76 2002
322.4’2’0882971—dc21 2001058009
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Prin ted in th e United States of America

on acid-free paper
For John and Mary Esposito
in honor of their 87th and 90th birthdays

Contents
Preface / ix
1
The Making of a Modern Terrorist /3
2
Jihad and the Struggle for Islam /26
3
The Armies of God /71
4
Where Do We Go from Here? / 118
Notes / 161
Glossary / 169
In dex / 173

Terror in th e Nam e of Islam
The tragedy of September 11, 2001, brought Americans togeth er
as a n ation , un ited in grief and in resolve. At th e sam e tim e, Am eri-
cans from every walk of life began asking som e hard questions
about Am erica, global terrorism, and the Muslim world. More than
a decade ago, in th e wake of th e fall of th e Soviet Union and Saddam
Hussein’s call for a jihad against the West in the 1991 Gulf war, I
wrote The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality?, respondin g to the grow-
ing propensity am on g senior govern men t officials, political com-
m en tators, an d th e m edia to see a new “evil empire” replacing the
com munist threat.
Sadly, m ore th an a decade later, the sam e question s about Islam

and the Muslim world are still bein g asked: Why do they hate us?
Why is Islam m ore militan t than oth er religions? Wh at does the
Quran h ave to say about jihad or h oly war? Does th e Quran con -
don e this kind of violence an d terrorism? Is there a clash of civili-
zations between th e West and the Muslim world? Yet it is now
m ore important than ever that we educate ourselves about Islam
and the roots of terrorism .
Master terrorist Osam a bin Laden, like other religious extrem -
ists, is th e product of his upbrin ging an d experiences in life, of the
religious world he in herited and which h e rein ven ts for h is own
purposes. As in th e h istory of every world religion, violen t struggles
have been a part of Muslim h istory. Bin Laden and oth er terrorists
Preface
x Preface
exploit the auth ority of th e past (Muham m ad, the Quran, and Is-
lamic history) for the religious rationale, precedents, an d radical
interpreters to justify and inspire their call for a jihad against Mus-
lim governm ents and th e West; th ey legitim ate warfare and terror-
ism, and they equate their suicide bom bings with m artyrdom. An
understan ding of th e religious and historical sources for their be-
liefs, values, tactics, and actions becomes imperative. Have th ey
hijacked Islam for their own unholy purposes, or do they, as th ey
claim, represent a return to the authen tic teachings of th e faith ?
In som e sense, bin Laden an d al-Qaeda represent a watersh ed
for con temporary Islamic radicalism . Alth ough in the past the
Ayatollah Khomeini an d other major Islamic activist leaders had
called for a broader Islam ic revolution, both violen t and non vio-
len t, the focus and im pact of most extrem ist movem ents from
North Africa to Southeast Asia h ad been at th e local or region al
level. Osam a bin Laden and al-Qaeda represent the next m ajor

step, jihad international, th at not only declares jihad against gov-
ernm ents in the Muslim world and attacks Western representa-
tives an d institution s in th e region but now makes Am erica and
th e West a primary target in an unholy war of terrorism.
Am erica’s wars of th e twentieth cen tury were fought on th e soil
of oth er countries. Now, th e battle has been brought to our own
sh ores and to th e sym bols of our econ om ic an d political power.
The stakes h ave risen for everyone. Th e attacks again st America
on September 11 have righ tly been seen as a clarion call to recog-
nize our dan ger an d respon d to an en em y that threatens all—all
th e coun tries, cultures, and peoples of the world.
The twen ty-first century will be dom inated by the global en-
counter of two major and rapidly growing world religions, Chris-
tianity and Islam, an d by the forces of globalization that will strain
relations between th e West and th e rest. It is not a tim e for pro-
voking a clash of civilizations or for the self-fulfilling proph ecy
th at such a clash is inevitable. It is rather a time for global engage-
m en t and coalition building, for the active promotion of coexist-
ence an d cooperation. Amidst pressures to win th e global war
Preface xi
against terrorism at any cost, how we understan d Islam and the
Muslim world will affect how we address the causes of terrorism
and of anti-Am erican ism and wheth er we preserve our American
values at hom e an d abroad. We m ust be able to m ove beyon d politi-
cal rhetoric, beyon d th e world of black and white, of un adulter-
ated good versus evil invoked not on ly by bin Laden an d th ose
like h im but by his opponen ts as well.
I have written th is book for the vast majority of people in th e
West, n on-Muslims as well as Muslims, whose lives and com mu-
nities in th e twenty-first century are inextricably intertwined. The

Muslim world is no lon ger “out th ere”; Muslims are our n eigh-
bors, colleagues, an d fellow citizen s, an d th eir religion , like Juda-
ism and Christianity, rejects terrorism. Never before have soft
phrases like “building bridges of un derstandin g” been more criti-
cal in a war that ultimately can not be won simply by military
power. Understan ding and action go han d in h and for Muslim s
and non-Muslims alike. All of us are ch allenged to m ove beyond
stereotypes, h istoric grievan ces, an d religious differen ces, to rec-
ognize our shared values as well as in terests, and to m ove collec-
tively to build our com m on future.
Of all th e books I h ave written this has been th e m ost difficult,
because of the horrific occasion th at precipitated it an d th e range
and selection of coverage. As a result, I am especially indebted to
th ose who assisted m e an d worked under severe tim e con straints.
Natana De Lon g-Bas is in every sense m y sen ior research assistant.
Her work on th is project as on others reflected consistent excel-
len ce. Her commitm ent is captured in a picture I have of Natan a
in labor in the hospital delivery room, working on her research for
th is book! Juliane Hammer cam e late to th e project but at critical
points provided m uch-n eeded quick and thorough research . My
work h as been made in finitely easier due to two rem arkable people,
Clare Merrill, Assistant Director, and Thom as Jordan , Administra-
tive Assistant, of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding
at Georgetown, whose in telligence, energy, an d results-orientation
are invaluable.
xii Preface
I am indebted to several scholars—Ahm ed Rash id, Tam ara Sonn,
Jam es Piscatori, and Joh n O. Voll—who read all or portions of the
m anuscript, often providing key insigh ts. Cynthia Read, m y lon g-
time editor at Oxford, played an especially im portan t role with

th is book, carefully reviewing each chapter and providin g invalu-
able feedback. The most im portant person in writin g th is book was
Jean Esposito, my wife, partn er, and best frien d. Wh ile sh e always
m anaged to balan ce her own career and interests with substantial
involvemen t in all my books, for this book she was a pivotal force
as we determined its structure, contents, an d text, and when I was
ready to pull the plug, she convinced me to con tinue. Unholy W ar is
in every sense of th e words as m uch her book as m in e.
UNHOLY WAR

1
The Making of a Modern Terrorist
Osam a bin Laden seems like th e last person destined to be a global
terrorist. His journey from a life of wealth an d privilege, as th e
scion of a m ultibillion aire Saudi fam ily with close ties to th e kin g
and royal fam ily, to th e caves an d military train in g cam ps of Af-
ghan istan sounds m ore like the stuff of fiction th an reality. What
happened to tran sform a quiet, sh y, serious, and wealth y Saudi
youn g man into th e world com m un ity’s most wan ted crim in al?
How are we to un derstand a m an who h as been described as “an
Islam ic zealot, a military genius, a poet, an d an impassioned en -
emy of th e United States”?
1
Osam a bin Laden was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in 1957,
th e seventeen th (the seven th son) of fifty-two ch ildren. His fa-
th er, Muh am m ad bin Laden, h ad com e to th e Kingdom from South
Yem en around 1930 as an illiterate laborer. He started a sm all con-
struction business an d went on to becom e on e of Saudi Arabia’s
wealthiest con struction m agn ates. He developed ties to th e royal
fam ily an d was awarded exclusive contracts. In the 1950s, Osam a’s

father design ed and built th e al-Hada road, which perm itted Mus-
lim s from Yem en to m ake the pilgrim age to Mecca (hajj), one of
th e five basic religious requirem ents of Islam , m ore easily. His com -
pany also received a m ultibillion dollar contract to restore an d
expand the Grand Mosques of Mecca and Medina, raisin g his
com pan y’s prestige throughout th e Muslim world and settin g th e
stage for the com pan y’s expan sion beyond Saudi Arabia. The bin
Laden fam ily established a large industrial an d finan cial empire,
4 Unholy War
th e Bin Laden Group, wh ich became on e of the largest construc-
tion com panies in th e Middle East.
2
Ironically, given Osam a’s re-
cen t outrage at the Saudi-Am erican alliance an d th e presence of
Am erican forces in th e Kingdom , th e Bin Laden Group built many
m ilitary support facilities in th e Kingdom , in cluding those used
by U.S. forces during the Gulf War.
Th e relation sh ip between th e bin Laden clan and th e royal fam -
ily goes beyon d business ties to in clude friendsh ip and intermar-
riage. The bin Laden sons have attended th e sam e sch ools as
num erous princes of th e royal fam ily in Europe and Am erica and
have studied at and/or given money to some of th e best un iversi-
ties, including Harvard, Oxford, an d Tufts.
3
Osam a’s fath er was a strong, h ard-working, dom in ating, pious
m an who insisted on keeping all of his children in one household
and raised them according to a strict moral and religious code.
The fam ily home was open to man y Muslims, especially durin g
hajj, and Osama was able at an early age to meet Muslim scholars
an d leaders of Islamic m ovemen ts from all over the Islamic world.

4
Like m any in the Arab world, bin Laden’s fath er is said to have felt
passion ately about th e Palestinian-Israeli conflict. This appears in
an anecdote that has th e elder bin Laden seekin g to contribute to
th e liberation of Palestine. On e day, as th e story goes, h e dem anded
th at h is com pany’s en gineers convert two h undred bulldozers in to
tan ks for the purpose of attacking Israel. Told that the task was
impossible, he decided in stead to produce as man y sons as pos-
sible and convert them in to fighters. But out of all the bin Laden
sons, Osama became th e on ly fighter.
5
In formation on Osam a bin Laden’s youth is limited an d at tim es
contradictory. Som e maintain that he was a religiously com mit-
ted young m an protected from corruption by his early m arriage to
a Syrian girl.
6
Oth er sources report that, like m any wealthy youth s
of h is time, h e visited Beirut in the early 1970s, where h e enjoyed
th e n ightlife and wom en of th is cosm opolitan city, kn own at that
time as “the Paris of the Middle East.”
7
Like most young people,
he would find or begin to define himself at un iversity.
The Making of a Modern Terrorist 5
Bin Laden was educated in Medin a an d Jeddah , earning h is de-
gree in public adm in istration in 1981 at Jeddah’s King Abdulaziz
University, wh ere he studied man agem ent and econ om ics. During
his studies, he becam e m ore and more religiously oriented, influ-
enced by his un iversity experience an d un folding events in Saudi
Arabia and th e wider Muslim world. Osama’s religious worldview

was sh aped both by Saudi Arabia’s deeply conservative Wah habi
interpretation of Islam and by the revolutionary Islam th at began
to spread in the 1970s. Each of th ese influences would be formative
in th e developm en t of his jihadist vision, mission , and strategy.
Th e Islam ic Vision
Islam em ph asizes action , performing th e will of God. It more closely
resembles Judaism with its focus on following the law th an Chris-
tianity with its emphasis on belief. Muslim s are enjoined to act, to
struggle (jihad) to im plem ent their belief, to lead a good life, to
defend religion, to contribute to th e developm ent of a just Islam ic
society throughout the world. Th e life and experience of the early
com munity provide the model for the spread and defen se of Islam
th rough hijra and jihad. Wh en Muham mad and his Com pan ions
suffered un rem itting persecution in Mecca, th ey emigrated (hijra)
to Yathrib, later renam ed Medina, “the city” of th e Proph et. Hav-
ing regrouped, establish ed, an d strengthen ed the commun ity at
Medin a, Muham m ad th en set about the struggle (jih ad) to spread
and defend God’s Word and rule. This pattern of h ijra and jihad in
th e face of adversity, coupled with th e con cept of the ummah (the
worldwide Islam ic com m un ity), wh ich stresses a pan -Islam ic un ity,
h as guided Muslim s th roughout th e ages, in cludin g bin Laden an d
m any terrorists today.
Jih ad an d t he Creation o f Saudi Arabia
Osam a bin Laden’s worldview was very much in fluenced by the
religious heritage and political clim ate in Saudi Arabia an d th e
6 Unholy War
Arab world in the 1960s and 1970s. Key in fluences included the
environ m en t of Saudi Arabia, a self-styled Islam ic state with a rigid,
puritanical, Wahh abi brand of Islam, the militan t jihad ideology
of Egypt’s Sayyid Qutb, wh ose disciples h ad foun d refuge and po-

sitions in th e kin gdom, and the devastating Arab defeat in the
1967 Arab-Israeli war.
The kin gdom of Saudi Arabia from its earliest beginnings has
relied on the blen ding of religion and political power. Its origins
stretch back to the eighteenth cen tury when an Islam ic revivalist
and theologian , Muham m ad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, formed an alli-
ance with a local tribal chief, Muham m ad ibn Saud of Dariyya (a
town n ear modern-day Riyadh), to create a religiopolitical m ove-
m en t, Wahhabism . The movem ent swept across central Arabia,
capturin g Mecca an d Medina and un iting its tribes in wh at its fol-
lowers believed was a re-creation of Islam’s seventh-century be-
ginnings un der th e Prophet Muham m ad. Ath ough th e m ovemen t
was crushed by the Ottom an Em pire, a descen dant of th e House
of Saud, Abdulaziz ibn Saud (1879–1953), reasserted th e fam ily’s
claims to Arabia an d led a religious and political m ovemen t th at
resulted in the establish men t of modern-day Saudi Arabia.
The Wah habi religious vision or brand of Islam, nam ed after
Muh amm ad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, h as been a staple of th e Saudi
govern men t, a source of their religious and political legitimation.
It is a strict, puritanical faith th at emph asizes literal interpretation
of the Quran and Sunnah (example) of th e Proph et Muh ammad
and the absolute onen ess of God. Th e Wahh abis denoun ced oth er
tribes and Muslim com mun ities as polytheists or idolaters. An y-
th in g th e Wahh abis perceived as un-Islamic behavior constituted
unbelief (kufr) in th eir eyes, wh ich must be countered by jih ad.
Thus jihad or h oly war was not simply permissible: to figh t the
unbelievers and reestablish a true Islam ic state was required.
Abdulaziz fram ed th e developm ent of Saudi Arabia using sto-
ries and symbols drawn from th e life and struggles of Muham m ad.
He recruited Bedouin tribesm en to join th e broth erh ood of believ-

ers an d, like Muh ammad’s com mun ity, engage in a process of hijra
The Making of a Modern Terrorist 7
and jihad. Like Muh ammad and the early com m un ity, they em i-
grated to new settlem en ts wh ere they could live a true Islam ic life
and be train ed religiously and militarily. They combin ed mission -
ary zeal, m ilitary m igh t, and a desire for booty to on ce again spread
Islam ic rule in Arabia, waging h oly wars approved by their reli-
gious leaders. Abdulaziz used th e banner of th e puritanical Wah habi
to legitim ate fighting oth er Muslim tribal leaders an d seizin g Mecca
and Medina. As in the Christian tradition, death in battle m erited
m artyrdom an d eternal bliss in paradise; likewise, as in th e Ch ris-
tian Crusades, victory m eant n ot only the trium ph of virtue but
also th e rewards of plun der an d booty. Wahh abi h istory and para-
digms were an essential part of Osama bin Laden’s religious faith
and sense of h istory, a heritage he would turn to in later life for
inspiration and guidance.
Durin g th e 1970s man y Islam ic activists, both Saudi-born an d
foreigners, were to be found in the Kin gdom. Among Osam a’s
teachers at Kin g Abdulaziz Un iversity was Dr. Abdullah Azzam ,
wh o would later becom e prom in en t in Afghan istan. Azzam, a Jor-
danian mem ber of th e Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood and re-
portedly a foun der of Hamas, had strong academic and Islamic
activist credentials.
8
Trained at Damascus University in theology,
he earn ed a doctorate in Islamic jurisprudence at Egypt’s fam ed al-
Azhar University. Azzam was an advocate of a militan t global jihad
ideology an d culture, seeing it as a duty incumbent on all Mus-
lim s. Sometim es described as the Em ir of Jihad or Godfather of
global jih ad, Azzam was a captivatin g speaker who preach ed a clear

m essage of m ilitant confron tation and conflict: “Jih ad and the
rifle alon e: no negotiations, no con feren ces, and no dialogues.”
9
Azzam ’s jihad was global in scope, aim ed at recouping the glories
and lan ds of Islam . “This duty will n ot en d with victory in Af-
ghan istan ; jihad will rem ain an in dividual obligation un til all oth er
lands th at were Muslim are returned to us so th at Islam will reign
again: before us lie Palestin e, Bokhara, Lebanon, Chad, Eritrea,
Somalia, the Philippines, Burm a, Southern Yem en, Tash ken t and
An dalusia [south ern Spain].”
10
8 Unholy War
Dr. Muham m ad Qutb, a fam ous scholar an d activist, was an other
of Osam a’s teachers. He was a broth er of Sayyid Qutb, a leader of
th e m ilitant win g of th e Muslim Brotherhood who was executed in
1966 when Gam al Abdel Nasser’s governm en t crush ed an d outlawed
th e Broth erh ood. Sayyid Qutb is widely ackn owledged as th e father
of m ilitant jih ad, a m ajor influence on th e worldview of radical
m ovemen ts across th e Muslim world, an d venerated as a martyr of
con tem porary Islam ic revivalism. Qutb’s writin gs and ideas provided
th e religious worldview and discourse for generation s of activists,
m oderate an d extremist. For those Muslims wh o, like bin Laden ,
were educated in schools and un iversities with Islam ist teach ers,
Sayyid Qutb was a staple of th eir Islam ic education.
Bin Laden was educated at a time when Islam ic movemen ts
and religious extremist or jih ad m ovements were on the rise in
th e broader Muslim world and within Saudi Arabia. The disastrous
and hum iliating defeat of th e Arabs in the 1967 Six-Day Arab-
Israeli war, in which the com bined forces of Egypt, Syria, an d Jor-
dan were beaten with in h ours by “tin y little Israel,” was a m ajor

turn in g point in th e history of contemporary Islam . It gen erated
deep soul-search in g about what had gone wrong with Islam , th e
m odern failure and im potence of a Muslim world th at for centu-
ries after its creation h ad experien ced un paralleled success and
power. What cam e to be called Th e Disaster was countered in 1973
by a jih ad against Israel fought by Anwar Sadat. Its code nam e was
Badr, sym bolizing the first great and miraculous victory of the
Proph et Muh ammad over a superior Meccan arm y. This was fol-
lowed by anoth er sign ificant event in th e world of Osam a bin
Laden. The Arab oil em bargo, with its cripplin g im pact on th e
West, gave Muslim s a n ew sen se of pride. The Arab world and th e
h eartlan d of Islam seemed to reem erge as a major economic power
after cen turies of subservien ce to European imperialism.
The 1970s also witnessed an in crease in the power an d visibil-
ity of in ternal Islam ic opposition and reform m ovemen ts. In Egypt
th e Muslim Brotherhood along with a series of radical groups re-
emerged as a m ajor opposition al force. Iran ’s Islamic revolution
The Making of a Modern Terrorist 9
came as an inspirational rallying cry for Islam ic activists across
th e Muslim world. Saudi Arabia itself was rocked by the seizure of
th e Gran d Mosque in Mecca in 1979 by m ilitants who called for
th e overthrow of th e House of Saud. Man y of these militan ts were
well-educated, pious activists who denounced th e wealth and cor-
ruption of the “infidel” regim e an d th e corrosive impact of th e
West on religious and social values. Th ey wanted to purify an d
return to traditional Islam, re-creatin g a true Islamic state and so-
ciety. Wh ile bin Laden does not seem to h ave sided with Saudi
extremists, h e could not h elp but be stron gly affected by the activ-
ist mood of th e 1970s in Saudi Arabia an d beyon d.
Jih ad in Afghan ist an :

Th e Mak in g o f a Ho ly Warrior
A m ajor turning point in Osama bin Laden’s life, the beginning of
his journey toward becom in g a mujahid, or warrior for God, oc-
curred with the 1979 Soviet in vasion and occupation of Afghan i-
stan. As bin Laden would later say, “What I lived in two years
th ere, I could not h ave lived in a hun dred years elsewhere.”
11
By
th e 1970s Afghan istan had becom e overwhelmingly dependent
on th e Soviet Un ion ’s patron age for its survival. Marxist an d Maoist
parties thrived while Islamist parties an d m ovemen ts were re-
pressed. In July 1973 Prince Muham m ad Daud, a former prim e
m in ister and cousin of th e Afgh an King Zahir Sh ah, overthrew th e
govern men t, abolished the monarch y, and proclaim ed himself
president of Afghan istan. Five years later th e People’s Democratic
Party of Afghan istan staged a coup and established a new commu-
n ist govern m ent. This was followed by the direct interven tion an d
occupation of Afghan istan by the Soviet Union in 1979. Th e oc-
cupation galvan ized Afghan istan ’s diverse tribal and religious lead-
ers an d m ovem ents in a popular jihad. Afghan istan’s tribal society
had a fragile unity offset by the realities of its multiethnic tribal
society comprisin g Pash tun s, Uzbeks, Tajiks, and Hazaras divided
religiously between a Sun ni Muslim majority and a m inority of
10 Unholy War
Sh ii Muslim s. Soviet occupation, however, provided a com mon
enem y an d m ission . The call for a jih ad offered a common, though
tran sien t as history would prove, Islam ic religious identity an d
source of in spiration. Th e mujahidin holy war to liberate Islam and
Afgh anistan from Soviet (atheistic) com mun ist occupation would
eventually drive out th e Soviet m ilitary, defeat th e Afghan com -

m unists, an d lead to th e establish m ent of an Islam ic state in 1992.
12
When the anti-Soviet jih ad began, bin Laden was among the
first to rush to th e Afgh an refugee camps in Pesh awar, Pakistan , to
m eet with m ujahidin leaders, some of whom h e had already com e
to kn ow during hajj gatherin gs at his h om e in Saudi Arabia. From
1979 to 1982 h e collected funds and materiel for the jihad and
m ade intermittent visits from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan . In 1982 h e
finally entered Afghan istan, brin ging large quan tities of con struc-
tion m achinery as well as funding, and becoming a full partici-
pant in th e Afgh an jihad. By 1984 in creasing n umbers of Arab
m ujah idin were arrivin g in Pakistan to join th e h oly war. Bin Laden
respon ded by establishing a guesthouse in Pesh awar for Arabs on
th eir way to th e front in Afgh anistan . In 1986 Osam a became more
directly in volved in the war, setting up his own camps and com-
m anding Arab mujahidin forces wh o becam e kn own as Arab Af-
ghan s in battle. He subsequen tly created al-Qaeda (th e base), to
organize and track th e chan nelin g of figh ters an d fun ds for the
Afgh an resistance. Six-feet five-in ch es tall, with a long beard and
piercing eyes, the wealth y an d powerfully con nected bin Laden
was well on his way to becom in g a poster-boy for th e jihad, at first
as a h ero and later as a global terrorist.
Bin Laden’s activities were applauded by the Saudi governm ent,
wh ich, alon g with th e United States, had made a h eavy commit-
m ent to supportin g th e jih ad again st th e Soviet Union . For Am erica,
th is was a “good jihad.” Ironically, although the United States had
been th reatened by Iran ’s revolutionary Islam and the violence
and terrorism com mitted by jihad groups in Egypt, Leban on , and
elsewhere, our govern ment was able to cheer an d support Afghan -
istan ’s holy warriors, providing con siderable funding as well as

The Making of a Modern Terrorist 11
Central Intelligen ce Agency (CIA) advisers. Everyone was in agree-
m en t. For Osam a bin Laden, as for Saudi Arabia an d in deed Mus-
lim s worldwide, the Afghan jih ad to repel foreign ers from Islam ic
territory was em inently in accord with Islam ic doctrin e.
Bin Laden proved him self to be a selfless an d dedicated mujahid,
or holy warrior. Still young, he was more com fortable as an activ-
ist th an as an ideologue, focused prim arily on the jihad in Afghan -
istan rath er th an on Muslim in ternational politics an d activism .
Ah med Rash id, expert on th e Taliban an d al-Qaeda, writes of bin
Laden:
Arab Afghan s who kn ew him durin g th e jihad say he was n eith er
intellectual nor articulate about what n eeded to be don e in the
Muslim world. In th at sen se h e was neither the Lenin of th e Is-
lam ic revolution, n or was h e the in tern ationalist ideologue of
th e Islam ic revolution such as Che Guevera was to th e revolution
in the third world. Bin Laden’s former associates describe him as
deeply im pression able, always in need of m entors, m en wh o kn ew
m ore about Islam an d the modern world than h e did.
13
Th e Rad icalizat ion of a Saudi Elit e
How did Osam a bin Laden , mem ber of the Saudi elite, mujahid,
and hero of th e war in Afghan istan, become radicalized? After So-
viet troops withdrew from Afghan istan in 1989, bin Laden returned
to Saudi Arabia and a job in the fam ily business. Though initially
received as a hero, speakin g at mosques and to private gatherings,
he was soon at loggerheads with th e royal family, vociferous in h is
warning of an im pending Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Saudi Arabia,
along with Kuwait and the United States, had for man y years, in
particular during the Iraq-Iran War, been stron g supporters of

Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, seeing it as a check on the Ayatollah Kh o-
m eini’s Iran. Wh en Iraq did in vade Kuwait in August 1990, bin
Laden quickly wrote to King Fahd, offering to brin g th e Arab Af-
ghan m ujah idin to Saudi Arabia to defend the kin gdom . In stead,
12 Unholy War
th e deafening silence from th e palace was shattered by news th at
Am erican forces were to defend the House of Saud. The adm ission
and stationing of foreign non-Muslim troops in Islam ’s holy lan d
and their perman ent deploym ent after the Gulf war, bin Laden
would later say, tran sformed his life com pletely, placin g him on a
collision course with th e Saudi governm ent an d th e West. He spoke
out forcefully against the Saudi alliance with the United States,
obtained a fatwa (legal opinion) from a senior religious scholar
th at training was a religious duty, and sent several th ousan d vol-
unteers to train in Afghan istan.
Like other Arab Afghan s who return ed to th eir h om e countries,
in Afghan istan bin Laden had enjoyed th e freedom to th ink and
act and to engage in a religious mission to overcom e injustice and
create an Islam ic state an d society. In Saudi Arabia h e found him-
self boun d within th e confin es of a regime whose policies and
alliances h e m ore an d more came to despise as corrupt an d un -
Islam ic. While man y of th e Arab Afghans who return ed to Egypt,
Algeria, and elsewhere quickly became in volved in radical opposi-
tion m ovem en ts, bin Laden contin ued to struggle with in the sys-
tem . The govern men t restricted h is m ovemen t in an attem pt to
silence him. Fin ally, in April 1991 he escaped to Afghan istan via
Pakistan . When h e arrived, h owever, he foun d himself not in the
Islam ic state for wh ich the jihad had been fought but in one mired
in th e religious and ethnic warfare of its aftermath.
With in a brief period after th e Soviet withdrawal, the great Is-

lamic victory h ad collapsed into intereth nic and sectarian war-
fare, fueled by foreign patron s. The net result was ch aos and the
devastation of Afghan istan as various warlords vied to set up th eir
own fiefdoms.
Despite the Afghan victory, the jihad had failed to develop a
coherent ideology or basis for political un ity. The Un ited States
walked away from an Afghanistan wh ose countryside was devas-
tated by a ten-year Soviet occupation th at had cost more th an on e
m illion lives. Mujahidin groups, m any of which today m ake up
th e North ern Allian ce that with U.S. backing fought and defeated