Book Review
Peter L. Bergen, Holy War, Inc: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden (New York: The Free Press, 2001), pp. 281. Price US$ 26.00
Osama bin Laden is probably the world’s most wonted man since September 11, 2001. Speculations about his being alive and well take up much media time. His dreaded organization, Al-Qaeda, is still the nightmare of American security agencies. He is a symbol of organized terrorism in the Western world. But in the Muslim world, among ordinary people untutored in politics and theology alike, he is a symbol of defiance to the bullying might of the United States. Who exactly is this mysterious millionaire? What exactly does he stand for? What has he done? These are the questions which Peter L. Bergen answers in this well-researched book.
The author, a noted journalist, begins with his dramatic interview with bin Laden in March 1997. Such a beginning immediately arrests the reader’s attention and we follow Bergen to Pakistan and then on to Afghanistan. The cloak-and-dagger interview was held at a secret location in Afghanistan and bin Laden himself appeared ‘sometime before midnight’. He told the interviewer about the injuries visited upon Muslims by the United States. His major grievance was that Americans had been allowed to live in Saudi Arabia. Moreover, said bin Laden, the U.S is ‘directly responsible for those who were killed in Palestine, Lebanon, and Iraq’ (p. 19). One of the things bin Laden had said in response to the question about his future plans was: ‘You’ll see them and hear about them in the media, God willing’ (p.230). Bergen suggests that this was a prognostication of the demolition of the World Trade Center killing over three thousand people on 11 September 2001.
Bergen devotes most of the chapters from chapter 2 onwards to the biography of Osama and the formation of Al-Qaeda. Qsama was born in 1957 in Yemen. His father, Muhammad bin Awad bin Laden, emigrated to Saudi Arabia to seek his fortune. He first found a job as a porter but later rose to become the owner of a giant construction company with an earning of billions. Osama attended king Abdul-Aziz University in Jeddah from where he received a degree in economics and public administration in 1981. He also came under the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood which wanted Muslim states to be run on Islamic lines. Syed Qutb, the leader of the movement, was executed in Egypt in 1966 but this only further radicalized the movement. Bin Laden was among those who would give a practical shape to this radicalization.
When the United States started financing the Afghans to fight against the occupying Soviet troops, religious enthusiasm spread throughout the radical Islamic cadres of several religious movements. Osama bin Laden was one of them and in 1986 he moved to Peshawar where he lived in the University Town--an upscale residential area of the city. He founded the al-Qaeda in 1988 primarily to trace out and facilitate those Arab fighters who transited from Pakistan to Afghanistan or lost their lives in the war.
Bergen devotes a whole chapter to investigating the CIA’s role in creating al-Qaeda. He argues that the CIA did not have any relation with bin Laden or his al-Qaeda goup. However, since the CIA did encourage all those who fought the Soviets, it indirectly supported the al-Qaeda too. Since the CIA’s help was financial, individual American agents did not actually train the fighters. They were trained by Pakistan’s military intelligence agencies (notably the ISI). Bin Laden even at this stage harboured anti-American sentiments.
Bin Laden’s anti-Western bias became deeply entrenched hostility when, as a result of the Gulf War, American troops came to settle down in the Arabian peninsula. The Saudi government limited his travelling and in 1991 Bin Laden escaped to Khartoum. Here the al-Qaeda was organized as a global force with salaries ranging from $500 to $ 1200 per month. It used all modern means of communication----phone, fax, electronic mail etc---and employed educated young people who appeared no different from the employees of business firms and international organizations except that they were committed to defeating the United States and Islamizing Muslim Societies. In 1996 the Sudanese government expelled bin Laden and he settled down in Afghanistan where the Taliban regime welcomed him.
In August 1996 Osama declared ‘Jihad’ against the occupiers of the Arabian peninsula. In 1997 he was interviewed by Bergen and in 1998 he expanded his organization to form the ‘World Islamic Front for Jihad against the Jews and the crusaders’ In the same year the American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya were bombed. Chapter 6 is devoted to these bombings and gives details of how the plot was made and how it was executed. The arrest and confessions of al-Owahali and Odeh pointed to the hand of al-Qaeda and the U.S.A retaliated by launching cruise missiles on targets in Afghanistan and Sudan at bin Laden’s camps.
Chapter 10, on Islamic armed straggles going on all over the world, is most interesting considering that it touches upon Kashmir, Chechnya, Central Asia and the Philippines. It does not prove that bin Laden is connected with all these operations but at least a few militants engaged in these operations are either trained by al-Qaeda or have been associated with it. That is why Bergen calls al-Qaeda a truly global and modern organization.
In the concluding chapter Bergen argues that Huntington’s theory of the clash of civilizations is wrong. First, the bloodiest of conflicts is between tribal groups not civilizations. Secondly, Islamic groups fight among themselves as do other people. And, lastly, there is no monolithic, single version of Islam. He makes it clear that bin Laden is against American presence in the Arabian Peninsula; U.S support to Israel; the bombing of Iraq and propping up of regimes like that of Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
The book has several faults. First, some information and names are wrong. Second, there is a distinct pro-American bias at places. Third, there is no reference to theoretical material on violence, religious identity and terrorism. The references to Huntington in the end are not adequate. There could have been a far more in-depth study of the theoretical understanding of the birth of movements like that of al-Qaeda.
On the plus side, for the most part the tone is objective and the reporting is balanced and fair. Above all, Bergen’s immense courage in daring to go to Afghanistan and interviewing so many people associated with bin Laden is extremely impressive. But for this initiative and courage this book would not have presided so much new and authentic information about Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda group. The book is compulsory reading for all there who are interested in international relations in general and Islam in particular.
Dr Tariq Rahman