A Continuum Of Terror: From Mujahedeen to al-Qaeda

A native of Egypt, Ali Abdelsoud Mohamed rose to the rank of major in Egypt'sspecial forces before being forced out of Egypt's military in 1984 because hewas considered a religious extremist. Much later he was identified as a secretmember of the Islamic Jihad movement that assassinated Egypt's President Sadatin 1981. According to an amazing front page story in the Wall Street Journal onNovember 26 headlined The Infiltrator, "Ali Mohamed Served In the U.S. Army- And bin Laden's Inner Circle," it is implicit that the FBI and the CIAwould have had to have knowledge of Mohamed's chameleon-like lifestyle. Mohamedwas able to obtain a visa, marry an American woman, become a U.S. citizen,settle in California and somehow become a U.S. Army sergeant by 1986. Until1989, he was a supply sergeant and lecturer on Mid-east culture at the U.S.Army's special warfare school at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, a place where hehad studied earlier as an Egyptian officer.

Even though the U.S.. Army and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency declinedto comment to Journal reporters, Mr. Mohamed's new friends in California took itfor granted that he was working for the CIA in their proxy war against theSoviets in Afghanistan. The CIA helped recruit, organize and finance themujahedeen in an anti-Soviet Jihad throughout the Muslim world. Ali Zaki, a SanJose obstetrician and close friend of Mr. Mohamed, told the Journal that"Everyone in the community knew he was working as a liaison between the CIAand the Afghan cause." Mr. Mohamed brought Egyptian Islamic Jihad leaderDr. Ayman Zawahri, who is now thought to be bin Laden's right hand man, with himto California in the early 1990s on a fund-raising trip, ostensibly for theKuwaiti Red Crescent. Mr. Mohamed was also deeply involved with a group in NewYork headed by a "fiery blind imam," Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman. They setup the Kitah Refugee Center in Brooklyn, established to help the mujahedeen inthe anti-Soviet Jihad, but by the 1990s it began turning into an al-Queda front.The group was implicated in the assassination of the extremist Rabbi Meir Kahanein New York as well as the World Trade Center bombing in 1993.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the F.B.I. questioned Mr. Mohamed in1993 and he told them Mr. Bin Laden was running a group called al-Queda"and was building an army". Many of the mujahedeen liberation fighterswho fought with bin Laden in Afghanistan became al-Queda members under binLaden's leadership. It was not until 1998, following the bombings of the U.S.embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, that Mohamed was arrested. He pled guilty tothe East African bombings and is awaiting sentencing in federal prison. NabilSharef, a former Egyptian intelligence officer, told the Journal, "For fiveyears he was moving back and forth between the U.S. and Afghanistan. It'simpossible the CIA thought he was going there as a tourist." Like Dr.Frankenstein's creation, the CIA's invention of the marvelous mujahedeen to ridAfghanistan of the Soviets has turned into the "evil-doing" al-Quedathat attacked America.

The latest news from the war in Afghanistan has a bitterly ironic, butinteresting, story on the continuum of terror from the mujahedeen to al-Queda.Like the Saudi Arabian leader, bin Laden, the mujahedeen were recruited by theCIA from across the Arab world to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s.Many of those same Arabs are now Taliban or al-Queda, and U.S. Defense SecretaryRumsfeld has proclaimed they cannot leave Afghanistan alive. Rumsfeld wants themeither killed or made prisoners, but not allowed to go home to Saudi Arabia orEgypt or wherever they were recruited from in the Arab world.

There are news reports of the summary executions by the Northern Alliance ofseveral hundred prisoners of war including "foreigners" among theTaliban and more killings of "foreign Arabs" in a controversial"prison revolt" in the Northern Alliance controlled city ofMazar-e-Sharif. The U.S.'s Persian Gulf allies, led by Saudi Arabia, are callingfor the repatriation of the "foreign" fighters. Saudi Defense MinisterPrince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz told reporters, "We hope that all people whoare of Arab or Islamic origin in Afghanistan can return to their country oforigin.... We hope that no one will be subject to injustice."

Given the miserable human rights record of many elements of the NorthernAlliance who now occupy the Afghan capitol of Kabul, where they raped, murderedand pillaged as recently as 1996, human rights advocates have an overwhelmingsense of foreboding about the future of the strife-ridden land. The NorthernAlliance seems to have the upper hand in forming a new government as remnants ofthe Taliban and al-Queda are either destroyed or dissolve into the caves andbarren countryside. Meanwhile, back in the laboratories of Washington, D.C., isDr. Frankenstein concocting another invention that will extend the continuum ofterror?

Tom Turnipseed is an attorney, writer and civil rights activist inColumbia, South Carolina. www.turnipseed.net