Notes on the formation of al-Qaeda in Sudan during this period
[Early ideology circa 1981]
[Note: Wikipedia refers to this pamphlet as
The Neglected Obligation.
Another source calls it The Neglected Duty.
The transliterated title may be Al-Faridah al-Gha'ibah.]
[Turabi opposed the term "Islamic Fundamentalist" and preferred "Islamist"]
Turabi and other modern Muslim leaders described themselves as
"Islamists" to distinguish themselves and their followers from
"other" Muslims and to differentiate their politics and theology
from the secular political parties, Communists, Baathists, and
democrats.
The Orientalist, Bernard Lewis, [...] defined its practicioners
as "Muslim fundamentalists and those who feel that the troubles
of the Muslim world at its present time are the result not of
insufficient modernization but of excessive modernization."
[Citing Lewis, The Revolt of Islam]
[After May 1990] Mubarak passed legislation making it a crime
for an Egyptian to receive unauthorized military training in a
foreign country. Some 2,000 Egyptians were reported to have
received training in "fundamentalist concepts in camps in Sudan",
four of which were administered by "Iranian and Arab" instructors
trained by the Hizbollah [...]
Hasan al-Turabi welcomed the leaders of Islamic Jihad [...]
Hamas [...] the Popular Front and the Democratic Front for
the Liberation of Palestine (PFLB and DFLP) and to Yasser
Arafat of the PLO. After his expulsion form Egypt Arafat
often visted the Sudan where he forged ties with the Egyptian
Muslim Brotherhood in exile and their Sudanese friends [...]
Obar Abd al-Rahman [Abdulrahman], who was an adviser to
Islamic Jihad, extended his influence to the New Jihad Group
(Tala'i' al-Fath) and the dangerous Vanguards of Conquest
(Talaa' al Fateh) led by Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri who was regarded
as a protege of Hasan al-Turabi. [...] Abd al-Rahman fled to
the Sudan where he met with Hasan al-Turabi, Rashid al-Ghannushi
from Tunisia [...] and 'Abbas (Abassi) Medani from Algeria [...]
[The Popular Arab and Islamic Conference]
was a movement that would be the inspiration for the
Islamic revolution and "coordinate the activities of the
anti-Imperialist movement" in some fifty Muslim states.
[Citing al-Shiraa, Lebanon, October 1994]
[...] Turabi believed that the PAIC would be successful because
it was led by "intelectuals and not reactionary traditionalists."
[Citing Le Sabre et le Coran, Jeune Afrique, 4 January - 10 February 1993, p.24]
He later explained that it was the [1991] Gulf War that
decided him to establish this Islamic conference [...]
It remains unclear who providedthe funds for the initial
gathering [...] Bashir was not about to spend money he did
not have on Turabi's project and remained aloof from its
proceedings.
Muhammad Jamal Khalifa [...] used the International Islamic
Relief Organization and the Muslim World League to move funds
to the Philippine Benevolence International, an Abu Sayyaf
front.
[...]Yassir Arafat [...] played "a leading role" in the
April conclave.
[citing Yossef Bosansky, Arafat - Between Jihad and Survivalism]
The conference established a permanent secretariat with
Hasan al-Turabi as its secretary-general and Ibrahim al-Sanoussi,
an Islamic Front stalwart, as deputy [...]
[Turabi] personally knew every prominent Islamists [sic] from
the Muslim Brothers in Senegal to the Islamic Student Association
in the Philippines.
In August 1989, within only six weeks of the coup that brought
al-Bashir to power, al-Turabi attended an extraordinary meeting
of the International Muslim Brotherhood in London. During this
meeting he laid a ground-breaking offer on the table, one that
opened Sudan's doors to any groups who wished to utilise the
country as a base. In return for millions of dollars in payments to
the ailing government, Sudan was ready to be an official conduit in
the process of Islamic fundamentalism, a base from where groups
could freely engage in terror campaigns against non-fundamentalist
regimes.
[...]
Al-Turabi used his power to singularly become one of the most
prominent supporters of terrorism worldwide, setting his country
on a course that would see it providing military training, support,
or both to Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Egyptian Islamic
Jihad and Algeria's Armed Islamic Group, to name but a few.
[After the collapse of BCCI]
Investors large and small all over the world lost billions. Among
them were just about every major Islamic terrorist organization [...]
Without a system by which money could be shifted around the world
invisibly, it would be relatively simple for terrorist funds to be
traced. The [Islamic] cause would be bankrupted by having its accounts
frozen, funds seized, and assets impounded. Dealing with this crisis
fell to al-Turabi. In desperation he turned to Osama [bin Laden].
[...] Osama fell back upon his own experiences. During the Afghan
conflict, he had handled almost all major financial transactions
for MAK [Maktab al-Khidamat] and, during fund-raising swings around
the Middle East, had come to know who the sympathizers of the
fundamentalist cause were. During the summer of 1991 he discreetly
made contact with many of the wealthiest of these individuals [...]
[...]Within months, Osama unveiled before an astonished al-Turabi
what he called 'the Brotherhood Group'. This was a network of 134
Arab businessmen whose combined commercial enterprise extended
around the globe and back many times. They maintained bank accounts
in virtually every country and, collectively, routinely shifted
billions of dollars around as part of their legitimate businesses.
[...] Islamic envoys ended an abortive mission to secure peace in the
gulf crisis this week [...]
"There was a fear of this Islamic monolith that threatened the entire
Arab political order," said a senior Western diplomat in Cairo. "That
is no longer the case," [...]
[...]
"In every place, it is division and the absence of an Islamic order
which is leading to these conflicts," said Hassan al-Turabi, a senior
Sudanese member of the delegation that ended its mission here on
Monday.
[...]
Mr. Turabi said that, while in Baghdad, President Hussein had promised
to release Islamic militants detained for their perceived opposition
to his regime [...]
In Baghdad, the Sudanese Islamic leader said, "we found an element of
flexibility in the Iraqi position, but a determination not to countenance
any unilateral withdrawal and a very cold and calculating determination
to accept the consequences of their decision and go to war if necessary."
The flexibility, Mr. Turabi said, "was that if there was a proper linkage
between the gulf crisis and the Palestinian problem, if this context was
exclusively Arab, if there was a reasonable offer that was made that would
satisfy them, they would be prepared to consider discussions, maybe even
a degree of withdrawal."
Officials of the Islamic fundamentalist junta here continue to deny that
the Sudan faces the possibility of a severe famine [...]
Dr. Hassan al-Turabi, head of the National Islamic Front, the main
financial and political backer of the Government, said in a recent
interview in a Government newspaper, "it is a blessing in disguise when
people seek to withdraw financial and food supplies to the Sudan."
Dr. Turabi was apparently referring to the American decision to divert
45,000 tons of a 90,000 wheat delivery to protest the Government's
restrictions on relief efforts.
[...]
The most powerful person in the Relief Ministry, Ibrahim Abu Ouf, a
former academic at the University of Khartoum, is also a member of the
Muslim Brotherhood.
[...]
The Minister of Finance, Abdul Rahim Hamdi, has said it was "Zionist
propaganda" to suggest the Sudan faced a famine.
Under the leadership of al Turabi, Sudan hosted the first Popular
Arab and Islamic Congress (PAIC) on April 25-28, 1991, a conclave
of 300 Sudanese and 200 delegates from 45 countries [...] In his
role as a great pan-Islamic unifier, al Turabi is considered a
godfather of Sunni-Shi'a cooperation.
[...] al Turabi (Sunni) also established close ties to the
Iranian intelligence and political leadership (Shi'a) [...]
By 1991, when al Turabi invited Usama bin Laden and several hundred
of his Afghan fighters to Sudan, this terror network was well
established.
On October 18, 1991, Iran convened the International Conference in Support
of the Islamic Revolution of the People of Palestine, with more than 400
delegates from forty-five to sixty countries attending. The PIO attended
the conference as an important member of the Islamic revolutionary movement,
and several PIO-affiliated leaders, including Turabi, were seated in prominent
positions during the proceedings. [...] Immediately after the conference
Iranian intelligence dispatched three delegations of experts to numerous
Asian, Arab, and African countries to follow up on the financial, political,
and economic decisions adopted at the conference and expedite the escalation
of the Islamic struggle.
[...]
Immediately after returning from Tehran on October 23, Turabi convened a
forty-member ad-hoc council for a critical strategy-formulation session.
[...] Turabi assured the council that "there was no going back on the policy
of giving assistance to the soldiers of Muhammad in Egypt, and that Islam is
coming eventually, no matter what."
The United States and other Western Governments are becoming increasingly
alarmed by evidence that international terrorist organizations that once
operated from Lebanon and Libya are now using the Sudan as a safe haven,
foreign diplomats here say.
[...]
In an interview at his home here, Mr. Turabi denied that international
terrorist groups were president in the Sudan. "We wouldn't know if an
Abu Nidal element came into Sudan. But there is no office, official or
unofficial," Mr. Turabi said.
[...]
The [American] official said he did not have much hard data of what the
terrorist organizations were doing in the Sudan. He added that although
there was enough evidence to suggest there were training camps, he could
not specify their locations or the number of men involved. But the official
said he believed that there might be about "100" people he could classify
as members of terrorist groups in the Sudan and that the number was likely
to rise as Sudanese links with Iran were cemented.
HASSAN TURABI stands outside his house in one of the rich suburbs of north
Khartoum to welcome guests into the unofficial headquarters of the unofficial
leader of Sudan. For the past 40 years Mr Turabi has manipulated his way
through democracy, dictatorship and jail with one intent : to spread the
Islamic revival through the Arab and African worlds. Now, as the man behind
General Omar Bashir, who seized control of Sudan in a coup in June 1989, he
and his National Islamic Front have their chance.
[...]
He speaks of the tolerance of government based upon consensus and upheld by
the moral and legal fibre of Islamic culture. The Islamic revival comes from
below, from the people: "In this way it is a democratic movement because it
is populist. These laws reflect directly without representation." Sudan's
entrenched political parties have all been banned.
He describes Islam's sharia law as "a spiritual mobilisation for development,
for agriculture, for social cohesion". The law is being implemented in Sudan's
economy, in banking and in insurance. Although fundamentalists account for only
about 20% of Sudan's Muslims, they tend, as rich men, to control the commercial
and banking systems and have infiltrated the civil service, the medical service
and senior posts in the university.
[...]
The dusty rubble of Khartoum does not speak of a glorious revolution.
Dissidents tell of confiscated property, torture chambers and unexplained
after-dark arrests.
[...]
Mr Turabi insists that there is no law ordering women to comply with a strict
dress code. But in offices and schools women complain that they have been
threatened with the loss of their jobs if they continue to wear western dress.
All this, says Mr Turabi, is only transitional.
Deputy Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Robert Houdek met with Sudanese
National Islamic Front leader Dr. Hassan Al-Turabi on May 20 at Dr. Turabi's
request. The meeting was part of our ongoing dialogue with prominent Sudanese
political leaders. Mr. Houdek expressed our strong concern regarding Sudan's
policy of allowing known terrorists and terrorist organizations to operate in
Sudan. He also raised human rights concerns and the civil war in southern Sudan.
He assured Dr. Turabi that the United States does not object to Islam or to
groups that make Islam part of their political platform. However, we are
extremely concerned by efforts to promote political objectives outside Sudan's
borders by non-democratic means. With regard to the presence of terrorists in
Sudan, he issued a clear warning that if Sudanese hospitality is abused by them,
Sudan will not escape responsibility.
Mr. Houdek noted our serious concern over Sudan's human rights record, especially
in regard to the government's continuing forcible relocation of hundreds of
thousands of displaced persons in the Khartoum area. He also urged that the
Government of Sudan allow humanitarian relief flights to resume to all areas of
southern Sudan, where the latest government military offensive has displaced
thousands of people.
In regard to the continuing civil war in the south, Mr. Houdek called for the
Sudanese Government to profit by the opportunity at the upcoming talks in Abuja,
Nigeria, and not continue to pursue an unachievable military solution.
The trial in Ottawa of Hashim Bedreddin Mohammed has become a cause
celebre for his fellow Sudanese political exiles in Canada. The opponent
of Sudan's Islamist military government is charged with assaulting
Sudanese Islamist leader Hassan Al Tubari on May 25 (see the July
1992 Washington Report). Turabi spent nearly a month in an Ottawa
hospital guarded by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police before returning
to Sudan on June 20.
[...] Liberal MP Jim Peterson demanded to know why the NIF leader was
allowed into Canada at all, and why members of the Conservative
government had agreed to meet with him. [...] [Don] Blenkarn added
that Turabi and the Sudanese government wanted to do business with
Canada in transportation, banking, communications and pharmaceuticals.
Turabi was interviewed at the Ministry of External Affairs in Ottawa
on May 25 and was to lunch with Conservative MPs Blenkarn, Allan Redway
and Harry Chadwick in Toronto on May 26. The meeting was cancelled when
Turabi was hospitalized [...]
In a long sermon billed as a lecture in the Quran University's seminar
on the "internationalization of Islam", NIF leader Dr. Hassan al Turabi
told an overflow crowd [...] that Muslims should be motivated to establish
an "Islamic system" in their countries because of attempts by the West
to "impose" the New World Order [...] Citing the West's indifference to
the suffering of Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iraq, Libya, and
Somalia, he said these countries' situations reveal "intrigues against
Islam and the Muslims."
In order to retrieve Carlos from his new hiding place, the French
government knew that their only option was to convince the Sudanese to
give him up. After inviting the heads of the two Sudanese intelligence
sections to Paris, the DST and the DGSE offered to sell them much needed
communications equipment and even supplied them with satellite pictures
of their enemies positions.
[...] To help sweeten the deal, the French Minister of the Interior,
Charles Pasqua invited Sheik Hassan al-Turabi to Paris. In the first
round of talks, al-Turabi made it clear that to give up a man that was
a guest in his country amounted to treachery. Pasqua countered by offering
to approach the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, on Sudan's
behalf, to secure loans to eventually erase Sudan's foreign debt.
[...] The final straw came when a secret video of Carlos at a party was
shown to al-Turabi. He was already aware of his guest's reputation for
partying, drinking and carousing with women and as a devout Moslem it
offended him. Finally in August 1994, al-Turabi advised the French that
they were going to give Carlos up because as al-Turabi explained to one
of his senior officials:
"We welcomed him as a combatant, someone who fought for the Palestinian
cause, for noble causes. Now he's a hoodlum, his behaviour is shameful.
He drinks and goes out with women so much that I don't know if he's a
Moslem. Given that his presence has become a real danger we are going to
hand him over. We have no regrets. Because of his behaviour, we are
absolved from blame."
2. Summary.
The GOS/NIF is indoctrinating its people in its radical, anti-Western
version of Islam. It promotes its ideology abroad by training and helping
foreign Islamists and by preselytizing through Islamist non-governmental
organizations. The GOS/NIF also seeks to export political change by force,
as evidenced by its efforts to destabilize Eritrea and Uganda. Moreover,
the GOS/NIF supports most Middle Eastern terrorist groups.
[...]
4. Since the GOS/NIF seized power in 1989 it has become increasingly clear
that this ostentibly military governmentis a tool of Sudan's National
Islamic Front (NIF). Speaking to U.S. officials, senior officials of the
GOS and NIF that controls it often portray themselves as "moderate"
Islamists. They say thay bear no fundamental hostility to the West or
to the U.S., and blame strained U.S.-Sudanese relations on an alleged
U.S. bias against Islam.
5. Their protestations, however, are belied by the extremist message the
regime propounds to the Sudanese. The ubiquitous GOS/NIF propaganda
campaign promotes a militant and intolerant version of Islam. Although
Sudanese belong to a variety of creeds, official rhetoric treats Islam
as the de facto state religion and advocates infusing all of society with
its values. Official propaganda extols the war in the south as a "Jihad"
(holy war) against unbelievers.
6. Nowhere, perhaps, is the extremism of GOS/NIF Islamist propaganda more
apparent than in its treatment of the West. GOS/NIF officials routinely
depict the West as ungodly, decadent, and hostile. They single out the
U.S. for special attack, portraying it as a malevolent power bent on
combating Islam [...] Pro-NIF teachers relay the message in schools
and universities, and GOS-appointed preachers echo the themes in sermons
at mosques [...] Many have no other source of information on the outside
world.
[There are twenty more paragraphs of detail and analysis.]
[...] an attempt to assassinate him [Qaddafi] failed in Sirte in
September 1995 [...] followed by a series of clashes in Benghazi
between the security forces and 3,500 "Islamic activists", many
of whom were armed [27] [...] The Libyan demonstrators were led by
Islamists of the so-called "Martyr's Movement" but were supported by
liberals opposed to Qaddafi [...] Senior Libyan security officials
were assassinated [...]
[... Qaddafi declared] that the attempt to assassinate him showed
a "remarkable similarity" to the attack on Mubarak in Addis Ababa.
He responded by expelling 70,000 Sudanesefrom Libya. [...] [and] he
denounced the NIF government for training the "Muslim militants
opposing him."[29]
[citation 27 is "Libya puts clamp on Muslim activists",
Washington Times, 11 September 1993]
[citation 29 is Al-Sharq al-Awsat]
[Osama bin Laden] had become "the main bankroller of Islamic
fundamentalist organizations throughout the Arab world and
Europe" [3] [...] a few days after the incident in Riyadh the
Egyptian embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, was destroyed by
a large car bomb planted by militant Islamists associated
with Osama bin Laden and Hasan al-Turabi. [...] the four Saudi Afghan mujahideen who were arrested
and accused of the Riyadh bombing [...] "confessed to
being influenced by extremist groups" and by "views
circulated by Muhammad Massari and Osama bin Laden." [5]
[citation 3 is: "Saudi Millionaire Denies Role In Riyadh
Bombing", COMPASS News Service, Washington, D.C., 29 April 1996]
[citation 5 is: "Riyadh Bombing Culprits Arrested, Embassy of
Saudi Arabia press release, Washington, D.C., 22 April 1996]
[Sudan held elections in early 1996]
The candidates were "favored", however, by "popular committees"
of NIF supporters in the voting districts. Indeed, electoral
registers were missing and thousands complained they were
unable to vote especially where unpopular politicians and
non-NIF members were running for office [...]
[The pages that might explain why Sudan turned against Turabi
are missing from the Google Books preview]
While Bashir pursued one course of action to be rid of Osama
bin Laden, Turabi decided on another. [...] [in] April 1996,
he [Bashir] warned expatriate residents living in the Sudan
to either cease their hostile activities against other
governments or be expelled. [...] On 18 May, Osama bin Laden
quietly disappeared from the Sudan on a chartered plan for
Peshawar [...] Isam al-Turabi, the son of Hasan [...] warned
him that he was to be the next Carlos [the Jackal] in a deal
between the intelligence agencies of Saudi Arabia and the
Sudan.[17]
[citation 17 is: "Anyone seen Ussama bin Laden?", The Indian
Ocean Newsletter, Paris 14 September 1996)
The plotters who did kill Sadat, though under the command of
Khalid Islambouli, found their ideological inspiration in a
pamphlet written by an obscure electrician named
Abd al-Salam Faraj. [...] titled variously The Hidden Imperative
or The Absent Precept, it refers to jihad as the missing element
in modern Islam [...] Faraj found justification for the extreme
step of killing a Muslim ruler, especially a corrupt one,
in the works of a thirteenth-century Islamic scholar,
Taqi al-Din Ibn Taymiyya [...] [who] denounced the [Mongol]
invaders for converting to Islam and then being unfaithful
to its core beliefs [...] By making peace with Israel and
abandoning Islamic lands, Sadat qualified for the same treatment
as the Mongols, namely, elimination.
[Turabi] had long been a champion of womens' equality [...]
The Egyptian media supported the [1989 Sudan] coup.
[by 1990] Egyptian intelligence had concluded that the RCC
was becoming hostage to Islamist foreign policy schemes
from Iran, Iraq, and Libya. [Hosni] Mubarak distrusted
the leadership in each of these countries [...]
[ideological purges following 1990 counter-coup attempt]
Within twenty-four hours twenty-eight senior Sudanese military
officers were tried, blindfolded, shot, and buried in a
common pit. The commander of the Sudan air force, General
Khalid al-Zain, and more than 200 enlisted men were
executed [...] in violation of the Armed Forces Law of
1983. This [...] was unlike the Sudanese who traditionally
would arrest those who challenged the government and
promptly pardoned them on good behaviour or sent them into
exile. [...]
[Following another attempted revolt] eighteen senior
non-commissioned officers were executed followed by a
purge of the ethnic Nuba.
Turabi arrived in Chicago in December 1990 to promote the Islamic
Committee for Palestine (ICP) Conference, "Islam: The Road To Victory."
The ICP described itself as a charitable organization [...] Rashid
al-Ghannushi of Tunisia, Khalil Shqaqi of Al-Najah University in Nablus,
Shaykh Abd al-Aziz Odeh of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Shaykh Said
Shaban of Lebanon, and Muslim Brothers from Egypt and Jordan were in
Chicago [...]
Osama [bin Laden] left Saudi Arabia for Pakistan in April 1991 [...]
Meanwhile, the National Islamic Front (NIF), led by Dr Hasan al-Turabi,
its spiritual head, which came to power in Sudan in 1989, sent a
delegation to Peshawar. Drawing from Soviet experience, al-Turabi
argued that the Americans too could be taken on and defeated by the
united force of Islamists. The NIF's three-man delegation brought with
them a letter from Sudan's spirtual leader to Osama,expressing the
keenness of the new government of Sudan to develop a relationship
with Al Qaeda.
The newly elected Parliament first met on 1 April [1996],
when Mr. Hassan Al-Turabi - who was widely regarded as
the power figure in the Bashir administration - was elected
Speaker.