2Bangalore Main Edition-pg8-0.qxd (Page 1)

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2Bangalore Main Edition-pg8-0.qxd (Page 1)

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• Publié par: ycyzadom
• Nombre de lectures: 48
• Langue: Français

Extrait

The face that launched

1991

After

participating in the

guerrilla war that forced

Soviet troops out of

Afghanistan, a

campaign backed by the

US, bin Laden turns

against both the US and

his home country, Saudi

Arabia. He objects in

particular to the basing

of US troops in the

kingdom during the

Gulf War.

1996

Sudan, from

where bin Laden has

been providing support

for Islamic extremist

groups in countries

such as Algeria and

Egypt, expels him under

pressure from several

countries, including the

US. He and his al

Qaeda group reappear

in Afghanistan, which

has fallen to the

Taliban.

1998

After the

devastating bomb attacks

against US embassies in

Kenya and Tanzania, east

Africa, an American court

indicts bin Laden in

absentia for the murder

of US citizens.

2001

The attacks

of September 11 on the

US put bin Laden’s name

at the top of “most

wanted” lists around the

world. US president

George W Bush calls for

the Saudi fugitive to be

taken “dead or alive”

and his country offers a

$25 million reward for

his capture.

Tora Bora:

The US and its

allies believed that

Osama bin Laden was

hiding in the rugged

mountains at Tora Bora

in eastern Afghanistan,

and heavily bombed the

region with US B-52s.

After intense fighting

between the US Special

Forces and al Qaeda the

Special Forces troops

believed that bin Laden

died in the cave. Despite

overrunning Taliban and

al-Qaeda positions, the

troops failed to kill or

capture him.

2002

A video shows

bin Laden alive, although

it is impossible to confirm

when it was filmed.

TEN

YEARS TO

HUNT, 40

MINUTES

TO KILL

O

sama bin Laden, who was killed in Pak-

istan on Sunday, was a son of the Sau-

di elite whose radical, violent cam-

paign to re-create a seventh-century

Muslim empire redefined the threat of terror-

ism for the 21st century.

With the attacks on the World Trade Center

and the Pentagon on Sept 11, 2001, bin Laden was

elevated to the realm of evil in the American

imagination once reserved for leaders like Hitler

and Stalin. He was a new national enemy, his face

on wanted posters, gloating on videotape, taunt-

ing the US and Western civilisation.

“Do you want bin Laden dead?” a reporter

asked president George W Bush six days after

the 9/11 attacks. “I want him — I want justice,”

the president answered. “And there’s an old

poster out West, as I recall, that said, ‘Wanted:

Dead or Alive.’”

Long before, he had become a hero in much

of the Islamic world, as much a myth as a man

— what a longtime officer of the Central Intel-

ligence Agency called “the North Star” of glob-

al terrorism. He had united disparate militant

groups, from Egypt to Chechnya, from Yemen to

the Philippines, under the banner of his al Qae-

da organisation and his ideal of a borderless

brotherhood of radical Islam.

Terrorism before bin Laden was often state-

sponsored, but he was a terrorist who had spon-

sored a state. For five years,

1996 to 2001, he paid for the

protection of the Taliban,

then

the

rulers

of

Afghanistan. He bought the

time and the freedom to make

his group, al Qaeda - the

name means “the base” — a

multinational corporation to

export terror around the

globe.

For years after the Sept 11

attacks, the name of al Qae-

da and the fame of bin Laden

spread like a 21st-century po-

litical plague. Groups calling

themselves al Qaeda, or act-

ing in the name of its cause,

attacked American troops in

Iraq, bombed tourist spots in

Bali, and blew up passenger

trains in Spain.

To this day, the precise

reach of his power remains

unknown: how many members al Qaeda could

truly count on, how many countries its cells had

penetrated, and whether, as bin Laden boasted,

he sought to arm al Qaeda with chemical, bio-

logical and nuclear weapons.

He waged holy war with distinctly modern

methods. He sent fatwas — religious decrees —

by fax and declared war on Americans in an

email message beamed by satellite around the

world. Al Qaeda members kept bomb-making

manuals on CD-ROM and communicated with

encrypted memos on laptop computers, leading

one American official to declare that bin Laden

possessed better communication technology

than the US. He railed against globalisation,

even as his agents in Europe and North Ameri-

ca took advantage of a globalised world to car-

ry out their attacks. He styled himself a Muslim

ascetic, a billionaire’s son who gave it all up for

the cause.

It was the US, bin Laden insisted, that was

guilty of a double standard. “It wants to occupy

our countries, steal our resources, impose agents

on us to rule us, and then wants us to agree to all

this,” he told

CNN

in the 1997 interview.

For bin Laden, as for the United States, the

turning point came in 1989, with the defeat of the

Soviets in Afghanistan.

Bin Laden, who had supported the resistance

with money, construction equipment and hous-

ing, saw the retreat of the Soviets as an affir-

mation of Muslim power and an opportunity to

re-create Islamic political power and topple in-

fidel governments through jihad, or holy war.

Through the looking glass of Sept 11, it

seemed ironic that the Americans and Osama

bin Laden had fought on the same side against

the Soviets in Afghanistan — as if the Ameri-

cans had somehow created the bin Laden mon-

ster by providing arms and cash to the Arabs.

He declared to an interviewer, “I am confident

that Muslims will be able to end the legend of

the so-called superpower that is America.” In its

place, he built his own legend, modeling himself

after the Prophet Muhammad, who in the sev-

enth century led the Muslim people to rout the

infidels, or nonbelievers, from North Africa and

the Middle East.

Al Qaeda became the infrastructure for his

dream. Under it, bin Laden created a web of busi-

nesses to obtain and move the weapons, chemi-

cals and money he needed. He created training

camps for his foot soldiers, a media office to

spread his word, even “shuras,” or councils, to ap-

prove his military plans and his fatwas.

In 1996, US officials described bin Laden as

“one of the most significant financial sponsors

of Islamic extremism in the world.” But he was

thought at the time to be primarily a financier

of terrorism, not someone capable of orches-

trating international terrorist plots.

But bin Laden demanded to be noticed. In Feb-

ruary 1998, he declared it the

duty of every Muslim to “kill

Americans wherever they

are found.” After the bomb-

ings of two American Em-

bassies in East Africa in Au-

gust 1998, Clinton declared

bin Laden “Public Enemy No

1.”

Bin Laden arrived in Pak-

istan on the border of

Afghanistan within two

weeks of the occupation. He

travelled like a visiting diplo-

mat more than a soldier,

meeting with leaders before

going to Sudan.

Bin

Laden

fled

to

Afghanistan in the summer

of 1996 after Sudan expelled

him under pressure from the

Americans and Saudis, and

he forged an alliance with

Mullah Muhammad Omar,

the leader of the Taliban. In August 1996, from

the Afghan mountain stronghold of Tora Bora,

bin Laden issued his “Declaration of War

Against the Americans Who Occupy the Land

of the Two Holy Mosques.”

After the attacks of Sept 11, bin Laden did

what had become routine: He took to Arab tele-

vision. He appeared, in his statement to the

world, to be at the top of his powers. President

George W Bush had declared that the nations of

the world were either with the Americans or

against them on terrorism; bin Laden held up a

mirror image, declaring the world divided be-

tween infidels and believers.

Bin Laden had never before claimed or ac-

cepted responsibility for terrorist attacks. In a

videotape found in the southern Afghan city of

Kandahar weeks after the attacks, he firmly took

responsibility for — and reveled in — the horror

of Sept 11. He explained that the hijackers on the

planes did not know what the mission would be

until just before they boarded the planes.

Bin Laden had eluded the allied forces in pur-

suit of him for months before he was caught,

moving under cover of night with his wives and

children, apparently between mountain caves.

Yet he was determined that if he had to die, he,

too, would die a martyr’s death.

His greatest hope, he told supporters, was that

if he died at the hands of the Americans, the

Muslim world would rise up and defeat the na-

tion that had killed him.

—NYT

O

S

A

M

A

B

I

N

L

A

D

E

N

1

9

5

7

—

2

0

1

1

Osama had become a

hero in much of the

Islamic world, as

much a myth as a

man, what a longtime

officer of the CIA

called ‘the North

Star’ of global

terrorism. He had

united disparate

militant groups, from

Egypt to Chechnya,

from Yemen to the

Philippines, under

the banner of his al

Qaeda organisation

WORLD

BIOGRAPHY:

OSAMA’S

VIOLENCE

A HISTORY OF

1957

I

Osama bin Mohammad bin

Awad bin Laden was born in Riyadh, one

of more than 50 children of a millionaire

businessman. There are conflicting

accounts of his precise date of birth.

1976

I

Studies management and

economics at university in Jeddah.

1979

December 26

I

Soviet Union invades Afghanistan.

1984

onwards

I

Bin Laden is

involved in Peshawar-based Services

Office to support Arab volunteers

arriving to fight Soviet forces.

1986

I

Bin Laden moves to

Peshawar, begins importing arms and

forms his own small brigade of volunteer

fighters.

1988

I

Al Qaeda (The Base) is

established as a magnet for radical

Muslims seeking a more fundamentalist

brand of government in their home

countries and joined in common hatred

of the United States, Israel and US-allied

Muslim governments.

1989

I

After the Soviets pull out of

Afghanistan, bin Laden returns to Saudi

Arabia to work for the family

construction firm. There he uses his

network to raise funds for veterans of

the Afghan war.

1991

I

Bin Laden leaves

Saudi Arabia and goes into

exile to Sudan, having opposed

the kingdom’s alliance with the

United States against Iraq.

1994

April 9

I

Saudi

Arabia, angered by bin

Laden’s propaganda against

its rulers, revokes his

citizenship.

1996

May

I

Bin

Laden is forced to leave

Sudan after US pressure on

its government, and goes to

Afghanistan.

1996

August

I

Bin Laden issues

a fatwa, or

religious decree, that US military

personnel should be killed.

1996

October

I

US brands bin

Laden as a prime suspect in two

bombings in Saudi Arabia which killed

24 US servicemen and two Indians.

1998

Aug. 7

I

Truck bombs

explode at US embassies in

Nairobi and Dar es Salaam

killing 224, including 12

Americans. President Bill

Clinton names bin Laden as

America’s top enemy and

accuses him of being

responsible for the bombings.

2000

Oct 12

I

Al Qaeda

strikes at destroyer USS Cole,

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO OSAMA

Acquiring weapons for

the defence of Muslims is

a religious duty... If I seek to

acquire these weapons, I am

carrying out a duty.”

December 1998, when asked by an

interviewer for

Time

magazine whether he

had acquired chemical or nuclear weapons.

Jihad will continue even if

I am not around.”

Late September 2001, in an

interview to a Pakistani newspaper.

America has been hit by

Allah at its most

vulnerable point,

destroying, thank God, its

most prestigious buildings.”

October 7, 2001, after the September 11

attacks on the World Trade Center and the

Pentagon.

The war is between us

and the Jews. Any country

that steps into the same

trench as the Jews has only

itself to blame.”

May 2002, from a video released to

several news organisations.

The occupation of Iraq is

only a link in the chain of

evil of the Zionists and

crusaders.”

January 2004, from an audiotape

obtained by

Al-Jazeera

.

America coming to our

territory and taking action is a

violation of our sovereignty.

Handling and execution of the

operation (by US forces) is not

correct. The Pak govt should

have been kept in the loop

—Pervez Musharraf,

ex-Pak president