Interview with Mullah Omar

Coverage Highlights-2001 to date
2001 - Interview with Mullah Omar
UPI Exclusive: Osama bin Laden - 'Null and void'
By Arnaud de Borchgrave, UPI Editor at Large

KANDAHAR,Afghanistan, June 14, 2001 (UPI) -- Any fatwa (Islamic holy decree)issued by Osama Bin Laden, America’s most wanted alleged terrorist,declaring ""jihad,"" or holy war, against the United States andordering Muslims to kill Americans is “null and void,” according toTaliban’s supreme leader.

“Bin Laden is not entitled to issuefatwas as he did not complete the mandatory 12 years of Koranic studiesto qualify for the position of mufti,” said Mullah Mohammad OmarAkhund, known to every Afghan as amir-ul-mumineen (supreme leader ofthe faithful).
He also said the Islamic Emirate, as theTaliban (students) regime calls itself, has “offered the United Statesand the United Nations to place international monitors to observe Osamapending the resolution of the case, but so far we have received noreply.”

Omar, 41, is a soft-spoken man of very few words. Herelies on Rahmatullah Hashimi, a 24-year-old multilingual“ambassador-at-large,” rumored to be Afghanistan's next foreignminister, to translate and expand his short, staccato statements.
Theone-eyed, 6-foot-6-inch, five-times wounded veteran of the war againstthe Soviet occupation in the 1980s was also the architect of Taliban’svictory over the multiple warring factions that followed the Sovietwithdrawal in 1989.

Sitting cross-legged on the carpeted mudfloor of his Spartan adobe house on the west end of town, Omar’sshrapnel-scarred face, topped by a black turban, shows no emotion as heanswers in quick succession a military field telephone, walkie-talkiesand a sideband radio.
“We’re still fighting a war,” he saysimpatiently, referring to Ahmed Shah Masud’s guerrilla forces thatstill hold 10 percent of Afghan territory in the northeastern part ofthe country.

United Press International was accompanied byUPI consultant Ammar Turabi, a Pakistani-born American who is the sonof one of Pakistan’s Founding Fathers, Allamah Rasheed Turabi, widelyrespected in Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan.
Omar made clearto UPI that the Taliban regime would like to “resolve or dissolve” thebin Laden issue. In return, he expects the United States to establish adialogue to work out an acceptable solution that would lead to “aneasing and then lifting of U.N. sanctions that are strangling andkilling the people of the Emirate.”

The two issues arelinked, both in Washington and in Kandahar. (Kabul is the officialcapital; Kandahar, a sprawling, dust-choked city of 750,000, is thecountry’s religious capital where Omar and his 10-man ruling Shura(council) has their headquarters.)
According to U.S.intelligence reports, bin Laden has issued instructions, which hisfollowers have described as fatwas. But Omar said, “Only muftis canissue fatwas.”

Bin Laden “is not a mufti and therefore any fatwas he may have issued are illegal and null and void.”
Omar’saides remind visitors that pictures are not allowed under Islamic law.There are no portraits of Omar on the streets or inside stores andhouses. Omar himself travels in a Land Rover with dark windows.

TheAfghan supreme leader also said bin Laden is not allowed any contactwith the media or foreign government representatives. Bin Laden himselfhas sworn fealty to Omar in a statement published locally last April:
“Amir-ul-Mumineen is the ruler and legitimate amir who is ruling by the shariah of Allah,” bin Laden wrote.

Afghanistan,according to the amir, has suggested to the United States (via the U.S.Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan) and to the United Nations thatinternational “monitors” keep bin Laden under observation pending aresolution of the case, “but so far we have received no reply.”
Hashimi,in flawless English, added, “We also notified the United States we wereputting bin Laden on trial last September for his alleged crimes andrequested that relevant evidence be presented. The court sat for 30days without any evidence being presented against him. It then extendedits hearing for another 10 days to give the U.S. side time to act. Butnothing materialized. Bin Laden, for his part, swore on the Koran hehad nothing to do with those terrorist bombings and that he is notresponsible for what others do who claim to know him. If others actedin his name, that does not make him the culprit. Moreover, the Koranforbids the taking of the lives of women, children and old people instrife, conflict and war.”

Omar said the bombings of the U.S.Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which the U.S. says bin Laden ordered,are “criminal acts and the perpetrators are criminals and should be sojudged.”
Hashimi explained that the U.S. case against binLaden was “based on a plea bargain, a concept unknown under Islamiclaw. Justice is black and white. Plea bargains pervert the very essenceof justice.”

On Tuesday, a New York court sentenced one SaudiArabian to life in prison in connection with the embassy bomb attacks:three more men -- a Tanzanian, a U.S. citizen and a Jordanian -- havealso been found guilty and are awaiting sentencing. All claimed to havebeen acting on orders from bin Laden.
Bin Laden was America’screation at the beginning of his career “and that was 16 years beforeTaliban came to power,” Omar reminded UPI.

After the SovietUnion invaded Afghanistan Dec. 27, 1979, bin Laden worked closely withSaudi, Pakistani and U.S. intelligence services to recruit Mujahideen(freedom fighters) from many Muslim countries. They became known asArab Afghans.
Encouraged by the CIA’s psychological warfarespecialists, the Koran and the Islamic banner became the sword and theshield against atheist communism. After the Mujahideen forced a Sovietwithdrawal after nine years of fighting, the United States closed downan operation that cost (shared 50/50 with Saudi Arabia) about $1billion a year. Afghanistan, by then a war-ravaged country of 22million with no working infrastructure, was left in the lurch by theearlier Bush administration.

Bin Laden’s career took a newturn after Iraq invaded Kuwait and President George Bush hammeredtogether a 29-nation coalition that moved 700,000 military personnel tothe Gulf region and defeated Saddam Hussein’s army.
Afghanofficials in Pakistan, speaking not for attribution, said bin Ladenremains convinced to this day that the United States “deliberatelyentrapped Saddam into invading Kuwait in order to occupy the regionpermanently and guarantee cheap oil from its corrupt Saudi puppets.”

U.S.intelligence believes that throughout the 1990s, bin Ladenpainstakingly developed a global terrorist network whose backbone ismade up of embittered Arab-Afghan veterans.
In March,Pakistan's leader Gen. Pervez Musharraf told UPI that by demonizing binLaden, the United States had turned him into a cult figure among Muslimmasses and “a hero among Islamist extremists.” Since then, the U.S.State Department has decided to play down the importance of bin Laden.Omar clearly wishes to do the same. But politically, he cannot affordto deport him lest he arouse the wrath of his fellow extremists andrisk his own political demise.

His trusted No. 2, MullahRabbani Muhammad, who was his liaison with financial backers in SaudiArabia and the United Arab Emirates, died of cancer last month.
Omarin effect confirmed his dilemma when he said, “U.S. and U.N. threatsand sanctions cannot force us to expel Sheikh Osama or to abandon ourIslamic methodology. He is a Muslim immigrant to the Islamic Emirate ofAfghanistan and a guest of the Afghan people, and to expel him orextradite him is contrary to Islam and Afghan tradition. Moreover, ifthe Islamic Emirate and the Afghan people were to alter their stanceregarding Sheikh Osama, many problems would result.”

Omaralso said that bin Laden is “a hero of the war against the Sovietoccupation of our country. He does not operate against anyone from thesoil of Afghanistan. We requested that of him. We have his verbal andwritten pledge that he will abide by it in order that the relationsbetween the Islamic Emirate with other nations are not affected.”
Unspoken,but confirmed by several non-official Afghan sources, bin Laden’sfortune, once reported to be about $300 million (he originallyinherited $80 million from his late father, a Saudi constructiontycoon), has been dissipated in largesse to the Taliban.

ForHashemi, “the fact is that the issue of bin Laden is just a pretextthat America and the United Nations make use of to harm Afghanistan,which they falsely accuse of being a terrorist nation. If that were notthe case, they would have provided the evidence or corroboration fortheir allegations against Osama.”
The last of three proposalsput forward by Afghanistan is in line with a similar idea suggested byMusharraf in his March interview with UPI: a panel of threedistinguished Islamic scholars -- one each from Saudi Arabia,Afghanistan and a neutral Muslim country agreeable to the United States-- would examine the evidence presented by U.S. authorities. The thirdcountry most frequently mentioned is the United Arab Emirates.

Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are the only three countries that recognize Afghanistan’s present government.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE secretly fund the Taliban government by paying Pakistan for its logistical support to Afghanistan.

DespitePakistan’s official denials, Taliban is entirely dependent on Pakistaniaid. This was verified on the ground by UPI. Everything from bottledwater to oil, gasoline and aviation fuel, and from telephone equipmentto military supplies, comes from Pakistan, along the Quetta-Kandaharand Peshawar-Jalalabad roads. Until last month, the Afghan phoneexchange was a Pakistani area code. Afghanistan now has its own areacode (93) but many continue to use the more reliable Pakistaniconnection.
Asked about the U.N. decision to pull itspolitical staff out of Kabul because of the Taliban’s interference withits activities, Hashemi is instructed to respond: “The U.N. wanted torecruit 600 Afghan women to conduct field surveys. That would have beenmore personnel than any of our government ministries. An NGO would havebecome a GO, a government within a government, and we said no.”

Thequestions that are most often asked were fielded by Hashemi, a highlyintelligent high school dropout who toured the United States for sixweeks earlier this year “battling feminists,” as he put it. Omar feelsthese questions have been answered repeatedly in recent months:
--Onthe lack of schools for girls: “We don’t even have enough schools forboys. Everything was destroyed in 20 years of fighting. The sooner U.N.sanctions are lifted, the sooner we can finish building schools forboth boys and girls.”

--On the treatment of women: “”Youforget that America and the rest of the world are centuries ahead ofus. If you introduced your manners and mores suddenly in Afghanistan,society would implode and anarchy would ensue. We don’t interfere withwhat we consider your decadent lifestyle, so please refrain frominterfering with ours. Do you tell your Saudi allies to change thestatus of women and adopt your lifestyle?”
--On thedestruction of TV sets: “Try to imagine what would have happened in18th or even 19th century America or Europe with the overnightintroduction of television and all the sex that is now part of programseverywhere except Iran. We are not against television, but against thefilth that pollutes the air waves. What reaches us from the formerSoviet republics on our northern border, relayed from Moscow, is sexand more sex. The only acceptable programs are broadcast from Iran. Butthere is no way of filtering out the others. And if we had our ownofficial channel, no one would tune in if the others were available.Remember how the Soviet Union tried to break down our resistance justbefore its troops invaded us in 1979? They broadcast tapes of women inmini-skirts that were not even allowed in their country at that time.”

--Ondistinctive patches to be worn by non-Muslims: “Everything we decide isimmediately castigated as worthy of history’s bloodthirsty dictators.This decision was designed to protect Hindus who kept complaining to usthat they were being harassed by the religious police for not going tothe mosque at prayer time.”
Hashemi’s explanation wasconfirmed in man-in-the-street interviews conducted by UPI’sPashto-speaking Pakistani security guard who blended easily into crowdswith his regulation-length beard (one fist below the chin).

--Onthe destruction of the 1,500-year-old giant statues of Buddha lastMarch: “It was an act of defiance against all those nations who caredmore about our statues than about our people whose suffering has beencompounded by cruel and heartless U.N. sanctions. I was in America whenour decision was announced and called home to ask our leadership toreconsider. But I can see why I was overruled.”
Omar is acrack marksman who is credited with a number of Soviet tank killsduring the Afghan jihad. He was wounded five times and lost his righteye to an exploding Soviet artillery shell that left two other shrapnelwounds on his right cheek and forehead. He turned down a Pakistanioffer of an artificial eye. Taliban members say he is proud of havingoffered “this sacrifice to Allah for the sake of Islam.”

Omar resumed fighting after the Soviet pullout because he found the victorious mujahideen militia to be “corrupt and immoral.”
Theson of a poor farmer’s family, he dropped out of a mosque school in theseventh grade in Jowzjan, a province that shares common borders withTurkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Like bin Laden, he is neither a mufti nora mullah. Both titles are awarded to men who have completed 12 years offormal religious education in mosque seminaries.

Omarhimself, his associates say, does not issue fatwas, only “farmans” thatare rulings and orders. Full-fledged mullahs on his 10-man Shoora putfatwa suggestions forward and Omar has the final word. He was declaredamir-ul-mumineen at a congregation of 1,500 mullahs in Kandahar inApril 1996. They all pledged allegiance by kissing his hand.

IsTaliban popular? Hard to gauge. Their official members are an estimated20 percent of the population. Kandahar’s hustle and bustle has thealmost identical appearance of any major town on the Pakistani side ofthe frontier provinces.
In Pakistan, the police carrysidearms. Not in Afghanistan. Gen. Kamal Matinuddin, a Pakistanisoldier diplomat and leading expert on Taliban, says in his recent book“The Taliban Phenomenon,” the Taliban’s sincerity, honesty and thoroughdevotion to their cause has been their main strength.

""Theirability to disarm the various militias and to maintain law and order,with a minimum of force, was their biggest achievement. Rough and readyjustice, in accordance with Koranic injunctions, but mixed with Afghantraditions, and given out immediately without fear or favor, wasappreciated by a people not accustomed to western laws. No talib(student) engaged in looting or forcible occupation of houses or doinganything for personal benefit, and this endeared them to the people.”
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Copyright 2001 by United Press International.
All rights reserved.
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