Speakers: Thomas Small & Aimen Dean
Thomas: Well, Aimen, I think we did it again. Honestly, Conflicted can't keep up with the headlines, they're coming thick and fast. We didn't talk about the infamous Salman Rushdie Fatwa in our episode, on the Ayatollah Khomeini and the Iranian Revolution.
And yet, you can't escape the echoes of that revolution and of the Islamic Republic of Iran, because last week, in a shocking episode, probably especially shocking to you, Aimen, given the conditions under which you live, Salman Rushdie was stabbed in the neck several times and is clinging to life I think, as we record this.
Aimen: Well, yes. He is clinging to life, but poor Salman Rushdie, because he gained that notoriety because of this fatwa — and the fatwa of course, came from Ayatollah Khomeini himself.
Thomas: Way back in 1989, was it? 1989, I think. One of the last things that the Ayatollah did.
Aimen: Indeed, yes. And in my opinion, that fatwa kept carrying on. In fact, I even tweeted about a clip by Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah who, as you know, like in a part of the Wilayat Al-Faqih system, which we talked about in the last episode.
And he said in 2005, that if anyone would have carried out the Imam Khomeini’s fatwa in 1989 to kill Salman Rushdie, then none of the cartoonists in Denmark would have assaulted the Prophet Muhammad with their cartoons.
So, you see, they never forgot it. Even in 2005, Hassan Nasrallah echoed that fatwa again. So, this is why there was no expiration on that fatwa.
And that is why I think if really, the United States was serious about curbing Iran's ambitions when it come to spreading terrorism in the region, they need to tell them to stop ushering fatwas like this. And in fact, just revoke them altogether.
Thomas: Well, I'm not sure if the Iranian regime or its proxies would listen to the United States, if it made that demand.
But this episode of Conflicted is not about Shia Islamism and its excesses. We're going to talk more about the Sunni world today. That's right, dear listener, we're back in Afghanistan; Soviets versus Mujahideen, let's get into it.
[Music playing 00:02:08]
It wasn't just Salman Rushdie's assassination attempt, Aimen, that keeps Conflicted in sync with the headlines. As we talked about last time, Ayman al-Zawahiri now, the former leader of al-Qaeda was assassinated two weeks ago by a U.S. drone in Afghanistan.
And last week, as of this recording, Anas Haqqani, an infamous member of a kind of, (what do you want to call it) criminal jihadist Mujahideen Afghan power broking family, The Haqqani Network. He was killed by assassination, but by the Islamic state in Afghanistan.
So, Afghanistan remains at the top of the headlines, but the main point is, is that these two characters, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Anas Haqqani, or at least Anas Haqqani’s father will be players in today's episode of Conflicted, which is all about the anti-Soviet Jihad of the late seventies and of the 1980s. The Soviet-Afghan War.
This is where the global jihadist movement began. This is where everything starts. Everything we've been discussing in Conflicted, not only this season, but really all three seasons so far, it all leads up to this moment, this topic, the anti-Soviet Jihad.
If you remember dear listener, in the first season, we covered Aimen's experiences in Afghanistan in the late nineties. And then 9/11, which of course, was organized from Afghanistan by al-Qaeda, and then the subsequent American invasion of the country.
And then before series three, we had a bonus episode, which talked about the ancient history of Afghanistan. So, we've already covered that, all the way up to the rise of the Taliban in the late nineties.
And then episode one of this series, we talked about the American occupation of the country, its failure and the chaos of its withdrawal.
So, if you haven't listened to those three episodes, I really recommend go back, listen to them. We're going to try not to cover things in this episode that we've already covered.
So, I think we need to remind everyone, Aimen, that as this series has progressed, our thinking about the theme of this season, which we've called The Clash of Civilizations; our thinking about this theme has evolved away from Samuel Huntington's ideas, which we talked about in episode two of this season, and towards something more like a kind of conflict between tradition and modernity.
And as we reach the end of this season — we've only got three more episodes to go. Can you believe it? We're here in Afghanistan, which I think can be understood almost symbolically as the heartland of tradition.
What do you think, Aimen? There's something uniquely resistant within the country of Afghanistan within that land almost, resistant to conforming to modernity.
Aimen: I would say the Afghan people are not shying away from using modern tools, it’s just modern ideas that they are resisting.
I've never met any people like the Afghans when it comes to the fact that they are happy to use modern tools. They are happy to use cars, they're happy to use radios, TVs, mobile phones, whatever that modern technology could offer.
However, they are resisting modern ideas. They don't like the idea that women can go out and be a university professor. They still have that patriarchal structure of the society because why, they are still tribal, no matter how much you try to tell them that the world has moved on beyond the tribal unit. No, they will never abandon the tribal unit.
And this is mostly down, not only to tradition, but also to geography because the tribal Afghanistan is based on zones. Every part of Afghanistan is zoned by their tribes, and therefore, the population don't stray away from their tribal comfort zone.
For example, in Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia is such a tribal society, but because of King Abdulaziz, the founder king, making sure that the bad ones are settled. And also, the fact that oil was discovered in certain part of the country.
And there is the economic centers in certain part of the country in the West. And then you have the critical center, migration happens so much within Saudi Arabia, not so much within Afghanistan.
And Afghanistan, the populations remained static and they remained very close to their tribal comfort zone. That led to the preservation of tribal customs and traditions.
Thomas: Yeah. The thing about, as you say, geography, and the thing about Afghanistan's geography is it's incredibly mountainous; high mountains, low valleys, easily subdividing the people of the country into these zones as you call them.
And also, it's a reminder that we often associate tribalism with nomadism. By no means is that the case. A lot of tribal societies are pretty much settled. Afghanistan is one of those societies.
In addition to tribalism, Afghanistan is also very religious. And I think this is an important factor of their resistance to modernity. Obviously, it's not the main factor or the only factor because a lot of religious societies have accommodated modernity.
But in Afghanistan, religion is practiced in a far more (what you want to call it), pure, total, austere; it's practiced in a way that is informed by total conviction. And that I think makes Afghanistan very unique and therefore, the perfect place to show that when the march of modernity hits the dam of tradition, conflict breaks out.
You said that you've never known a people more than the Afghans to like the tools of modernity, but they resist the ideas of modernity.
Well, as I said, a few episodes ago in one of our little debates, Aimen, I don't think you can separate the tools of modernity from the ideas of modernity. I think that the tools of man, using a tool conforms you to the logic of its creation.
And the irony of Afghanistan is sure, they might like cars, they might like tanks, they might like dams, they might like roads, but because they resist the ideas, conflict breaks out. And to the end of those periods of conflict, the cars are bombed, the roads are bombed, the dams are gone.
You can't have the tools without the ideas. And I think this is what any person who resists modernity or is equivocal about its benefits would be best to avoid using these modern tools if they want to live a traditional way of life.
Aimen: But still, a traditional way of life is what they lead. And they still use modern tools and modern technology. I still disagree with you that you can't incorporate modern technology without incorporating modern ideas. I would say no. Afghanistan is in fact the proof that you can.
Thomas: Well, Aimen, I think our debate will go on and on and on. But let's move on now to the heart of the matter.
So, the anti-Soviet Jihad, it involves a lot of actors, but this episode is going to focus on two; the Afghans themselves and even more so, those who are called Afghan Arabs. By which I mean, mainly Arab jihadists from outside Afghanistan, who answered the call to help their Muslim brethren in Afghanistan, throw off the invading infidel.
I want to focus on the Afghan Arabs because it was the legacy of the Afghan Arabs and their ideology of global jihadism, which has left the largest mark on the world in the decades following the anti-Soviet Jihad.
So, the story has these two sides, and we're going to start with that side of the story; the Afghan Arab side, by talking about an absolutely monumental figure in the history of global jihadism, its development, its genesis, and really, a monumental figure in modern Middle Eastern history. And I'm talking about Abdullah Azzam.
Aimen: Ah, Abdullah Azzam, goodness. His books were everywhere in Saudi Arabia during the middle eighties and the late eighties. In particular, there was a book called Ayyat al-Rahman fi Jihad al-Afghan, which translates to God's miracles manifested in the Afghan Jihad. And oh my God, what a wonderful work of fiction that was. Yes, it was.
Thomas: You're starting the episode off with a bombshell. Now, listen, we're going to get to that book down the line.
I would like you to talk about a different book right now. Because both of us are really indebted to the work and the research and the scholarship, and the analysis of an of a really excellent thinker and academic whose work in the history of global jihadism is unparalleled in my view. His name is Thomas Hegghammer.
Aimen: Oh yes. And I wholeheartedly recommend any writings by him, but in particular, I know what you're going to say, Thomas, the book that he's written about Abdullah Azzam.
Thomas: The Caravan; a biography of Abdullah Azzam, but more than that, it's a monumental epic tour de force history of the entire global jihadist movement in its infancy, through the prism of the life of Abdullah Azzam, whose life is amazing. And it intersects and resonates with everything we've talked about in this series of Conflicted.
So, Abdullah Azzam was a Palestinian who was born in 1941. So, he's born during the mandate period when the British controlled Palestine.
And then when he was seven, when the Israeli War of Independence breaks out in 1948, his family loses their agricultural land to the new state. And the new Israeli border is erected right beside their village.
So, you can imagine this is a kid growing up with a border between his own village and what used to be his family's agricultural land. A symbol really for that dividing line, between tradition and modernity, the old and the new, and he's growing up with it right under his nose.
Aimen: His writings in the future, and his actions are always shaped by that struggle between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Thomas: When he was 12 years old, he joined the Muslim Brotherhood. And I have a question for you, Aimen, because when I read that, I was a little bit not shocked, but I was bewildered because according to every report, Abdullah Azzam was legitimately very pious from a very young age.
He would pray all the prayers of Islam, including the extra nighttime prayer from the age of four, five, six; he was legitimately pious. And he continued to be so throughout his life.
If, as you say, the Muslim Brotherhood really does represent a deviation from proper Islam in many respects, how could it have ensnared him at such a young age?
Aimen: Well, remember, that the Muslim Brotherhood is not a deviation from proper Islam when it comes to the question of creed, worship and jurisprudence.
We're talking here about deviation from proper Islam in terms of political activism that Islam suddenly like takes on a political framework as an activist resistant religion, rather than a religion in a position of power.
So, he however, found himself in the middle of a struggle between him as a Palestinian and the Israelis, the newcomers who are coming into this land and taking over what he believed to be his ancestral homeland.
So, he adopted the ideas of resistance from an Islamic point of view, who was offering that in the Middle East, only one ideology, offering the resistance under an Islamic framework, the Muslim Brotherhood.
Thomas: That makes a lot of sense. And he stayed a member of the Muslim Brotherhood until he died. Although his relations with them were a bit strained towards the end, but the point is he remained an Ikhwani his whole life.
When he grew up, he became a teacher and then he studied Islamic law at Damascus University, remotely. He actually stayed in Palestine and did remote learning.
But he chose Damascus because it was the global headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood at the time, just to show the extent of his devotion to the movement.
In the mid-sixties, Sayyid Qutb so, the infamous Muslim Brotherhood ideologue who influenced the whole generation of global jihadists, became a particular inspiration to Abdullah Azzam, especially after his trial in 1965 and his execution by Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1966.
Aimen: Many of the famous quotes by Sayyid Qutb, that I've come to admire in my youth, actually in a way popularized by Abdullah Azzam himself.
There are so many clips of Abdullah Azzam, inspirational clips that some of them call them like within the Jihadi circles where he is repeating those deep and inspiring words of Sayyid Qutb, where he is talking about sacrifice, where he is talking about devotion, where he is talking about the need for blood to be spilled; not just the enemy's blood, but ours too, in order to irrigate this tree that will rise and will become the greatest Islamic state.
So, there was no doubt in my mind that Abdullah Azzam was heavily influenced by Sayyid Qutb, more than any other Muslim Brotherhood figure. More than Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood itself.
Thomas: The other great influence on Abdullah Azzam, though as you say, yes, not as much as Sayyid Qutb was what I'm going to call here, and this might make you bristle Aimen, Wahhabi Salafism.
We've talked about in Conflicted a lot, how there are three major kinds of Wahhabism. And so, you have to be careful when you talk about Wahhabism — most people aren't careful.
But at the end of the sixties, Abdullah Azzam spent a year in Saudi Arabia teaching. And while he was there, he was exposed to that form of Islam, the form that's practiced there in all three varieties; Wahhabi Salafism, and in some important respects, Salafism deviates or is in disagreement with Muslim Brotherhood ideas.
And to some extent, in those disagreements, Abdullah Azzam would side with the Salafi interpretation. And through this process where the Muslim Brotherhood ideas mix, mingle and sort of engage with Wahhabi Salafist ideas, this process is going to in time, give rise to what is called global jihadism, a mixture of the two.
And Abdullah Azzam really is the foremost ideologue of that mixture. Would you agree with that Aimen?
Aimen: Yes. Salafism is split into three, for the benefit of the dear listener. You have the quietest or the royalist Salafism, which we see practiced by the Saudi state right now, and the official religious institutions there.
Then you have the Salafist jihadism where the militant wing of the Muslim Brotherhood merged with Salafism and Wahhabism and formed that hybrid.
And then you have the moderate wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, the political activist wing of the Muslim Brotherhood emerging and forming that hybrid connection with Salafism and creating what I call the activist political Salafism.
So, these are the three strands and, in my opinion, Abdullah Azzam in his own person, in his own form was one of the earliest convert to the idea of Jihadi Salafism.
But it wouldn't really come out to the open until the outlet is there, until the arena is there, until he can go and shine somewhere. And that would come in the form of Afghanistan.
Thomas: Ah, you're racing ahead as you always. I know you're always championing at the bit to get to the main topic, but I like to provide the context.
So, in 1967, a very famous event happened, which we covered extensively in this series, the Six-Day War. So, in the Six-Day War Israel trounces the Arabs, the West Bank is absorbed into the Israeli political sphere of influence. Jordan loses it.
And Abdullah Azzam decides to leave. He does not live any longer in Palestine and he moves to Jordan. And then I said, he only spent a year in Saudi Arabia, but after that year, he returned to Amman and he participated in that movement whereby Palestinian activists and militants began to resist the Israeli occupation of the West Bank from Jordan.
We talked about this on the episode, on the Lebanese Civil War, because obviously, the most powerful player amongst these Palestinian Fedayeen, as they were known, was the PLO and Fatah, and Yasser Arafat.
But there was a smaller subsection of the Fedayeen in Jordan, that is the Palestinians who were fighting Israel from Jordan, and they were members of the Muslim Brotherhood. They weren't really associated with Fatah or the PLO, which were Marxist leftist. They didn't actually like them at all.
And Abdullah Azzam was part of this Muslim Brotherhood brigade within the Fedayeen movement.
Aimen: In fact, I remember I've heard one of his lectures, it was a video lecture and I watched it in its entirety and in the entire content of the lecture was actually about that period of 1969 and how he was part of that Muslim Brotherhood unit fighting alongside the PLO and Fatah.
And my God, how he was lamenting the fact that he almost considered the Palestinians, his fellow Palestinians from Fatah, PLO who were fighting the Israelis as kuffar.
He really regarded them as non-Muslims, because he said they were drinking, they were engaging in acts that were completely contrary to Islam. And they were even having a language that was almost blasphemous.
So, he was talking about it and saying, “And this is when I realized why the Palestinian cause is lost, because only a proper Muslim army could liberate Palestine.”
And this is when he withdrew from it completely. He said, “I can't fight alongside people who are not proper Muslims.”
Thomas: Yeah, that period when he was with the Fedayeen was so seminal in his life. On the one hand, as you say, he realized that leftist Muslims or Arabs who were leftist were betraying Islam. And so, he developed a tremendous antipathy to leftism. This would feed into the anti-Soviet Jihad, obviously.
But he also saw how the Arab governments, especially in this case, the Jordanian government were not working in support of the common interests of Muslims and Arabs as Abdullah Azzam saw it.
So, in 1970, as we talked about in that episode on the Lebanese Civil War, Black September happened, the Jordanian government turned against the Palestinian Fedayeen, kicked them out. Most of them went to Lebanon. And from there, fomented the civil war.
Whereas Abdullah Azzam, as you say, yes, he did not because he was not associated with the left-wing Fedayeen. He stayed in Amman, distanced him himself from the Fedayeen.
But not only did he remain a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, but he became a very prominent member of the Muslim Brotherhood at that point, especially as a cleric, as an Islamic thinker, as a jurist. And in fact, he's known as the Sayyid Qutb of Jordan.
Aimen: So, by 1978, we are talking here about Abdullah Azzam who now hold a PhD in Islamic studies. And he is really teaching in Amman University, Sharia. And he is revered by the Muslim Brotherhood circles in Jordan. And even beyond as the Sayyid Qutb of Jordan, his writings, his lectures were well-received.
And he was always going to The Hajj, in Saudi Arabia every year, he would meet with many prominent Muslim Brotherhood figures, including the one who was living in Saudi Arabia at the time, the brother of Sayyid Qutb, Muhammad Qutb, who used to teach at Umm al-Qura University in Mecca.
So, they would travel together then to the United States in tours because they were touring many countries. By the way, one of the countries that really had a close position in Abdullah Azzam’s heart was actually Kuwait.
He used to meet with many of the Kuwaiti Muslim Brotherhood figures in Mecca also. And this is when the relationship was strengthened. And this would be important later for the story of Jihad, which would lead all the way to the story of 9/11.
We will talk now about how he and Muhammad Qutb traveled all the way to the United States. And they were going from one university campus to another, from one Islamic center to another, touring and talking to Muslims there in order to first, strengthen the Muslim Brotherhood network there in the United States.
But also, what happened there, they met a prominent member of a wealthy Saudi family, a young and up and coming star of that family. His name was Osama bin Laden.
Thomas: Ooh, Osama bin Laden. Well, he'll have a role to play, won't he?
Aimen: A minor role, but still, we have to mention him. We have to give him some like relevance here.
Thomas: It's amazing when you realize just how freely Muslim Brotherhood ideologues and other Islamist thinkers were able to travel throughout the United States at the time.
And there was absolutely no barrier to their coming to the United States, visiting various universities to their Islamic societies there, and beginning the process of radicalization and recruitment to their particular spin on political Islam. It is really amazing.
Aimen: Yeah. But remember, like first of all, with hindsight, we can always say, “Oh, this is how it all started.” But in fact, at that time, the American decision makers were concerned with what? Communism. These Islams seemed as the obvious allies against the godless communists.
Thomas: As we saw in the episode on the Iranian Revolution, Jimmy Carter, the president spineless, Jimmy Carter, as you'd like to call him, actually with his advisors in the White House, decided to say to the Ayatollah Khomeini, “Look, if you want to go to Iran and sort things out there, we're not going to stand in your way.”
So, you're absolutely right. The idea that political Islam would be a threat wasn't really on anyone's radar. And so, in the late seventies, as all of this churning, as we said, apocalyptic, fomenting change is happening, Abdullah Azzam is getting more and more excited.
He does react enthusiastically to the Iranian Revolution as many Muslim Brotherhood members did, because here was a Shia movement, yes. But nonetheless, one inspired by the writings of Hassan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb. They've taken over control of a very powerful Islamic state and they were going to spread. At least that's what they said they were going to do.
So, Abdullah Azzam is very excited. Apocalypse is in the air. And then in December, 1979, what happens?
Aimen: The Soviet Union, the Empire of Evil as Reagan would call them a few years later, amassed an army on the borders of Afghanistan, and then crossed the river into Afghanistan and occupied Kabul, and started the process of pacifying Afghanistan as a whole country under occupation.
Thomas: The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan. So, we're going to park Abdullah Azzam right there, and we're going to flash back to the 1920s, the Afghan half of the story.
So, very quickly, dear listener, you will remember the Durrani Empire of the 18th century, Aimen’s ancestors, the Durranis, who established an empire based in Kabul that took over a large chunk of Central Asia.
The Durrani Empire sort of evolved later into the Emirates of Afghanistan, which eventually had to concede to British oversight. And then in 1919, it signed what's called the Anglo-Afghan Treaty and received full independence under a king; King Amanullah Khan.
King Amanullah was a reformer, he was a modernizer. He believed in equal rights. He believed in constitutional law under the Sharia. He was a passionate advocate for economic development.
Basically, Ataturk was his model, as Ataturk was the model for so many of the modernizers Royal or otherwise that we've talked about in this season of Conflicted.
But he sort of had a problem. What was that Aimen?
Aimen: Oh, yeah. The problem with the British, always the British, I don’t know why, but it's always the British. As you know, of course, the kingdom of Afghanistan was bordering the British Raj. Remember 1919, we are still next to the British Raj, it’s still there.
And so, there was a teeny tiny problem of the fact that many of the Pashtun tribes were still actually across the border, into the British Raj, living under their control in what is now known as the FATA or the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. That area which include Waziristan, Swat Valley, Chitral, all of these places, and Peshawar too.
Thomas: Yeah. Peshawar is the sort of main city of that region.
Aimen: Indeed. All of these places are in fact, inhabited by Pashtuns to this day, they are the majority population there.
And so, those Pashtun tribes and they include tribes like the Mohmands and the Afridis and others, they were more happier if they were to be included in the kingdom of Afghanistan.
And this is, I think when the beginning of the dispute that is still going on to this day, which Pakistan inherited between the government of Amanullah Khan and the British over the fate of those tribes and the areas they inhabit, do they belong to Afghanistan or not?
Thomas: And you mentioned these tribes in our episode on Kashmir because it was these Pashtun tribes that the new Pakistani government sent in to Kashmir when they feared that Kashmir was going to join India.
So, if you remember that dear listener, Pashtuns invaded Kashmir, caused all sorts of problems there. These were the Pashtuns, the ones that now live in Northwest Pakistan.
They also are the tribes that would ally with fleeing Afghan Mujahideen in 1979 after the Soviet Invasion. And speaking of the Soviets, King Amanullah, this is another thing he did, which was provocative. He signed a treaty of friendship with the newly formed Soviet Union in 1921.
Now, this is all part of his anti-Raj policy, because the Soviet Union was very much opposed to the British empire and vice versa. So, he allied himself more with the Soviet Union.
And really on and off for decades, the Soviets would try to woo Afghan governments as much as they could, both to wrong foot the British, and then the Americans during the Cold War, and also, to help the Soviets control Central Asian Muslims.
They dominated Central Asia; the Soviet Union had all these republics there. Most of the population were Muslims. And so, if they could get the Afghan government more onsite, it would help them control central Asian Muslims.
Aimen: Indeed. You remember that Afghanistan, there are minorities there that actually have a lot of kinship with three of these republics.
The Republic of Turkmenistan, there are Turkmen minority inside of Afghanistan. The Republic of Uzbekistan, there is a really sizable Uzbek minority in Afghanistan. And the Republic of Tajikistan, huge. You're talking about 25% of the Afghan population are Tajiks.
So, it was in the interest of the Soviet Union, which controlled all of these republics to have a friendly relationship with Afghanistan to make sure there are no separatist movements in any of these republics that is fermented from Afghanistan.
Thomas: King Amanullah had no love for the Soviet Union. In fact, what he wanted to do was to get back the Durrani Empire. He was hoping that if he could keep the Soviet suite and build up his own networks amongst the Muslims of those stands of the Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and the Turkmenistan, that he might be able to conquer them and recreate the Durrani Empire.
So, as we say, this is Afghanistan in the 1920s. King Amanullah a modernizer in the Ataturk mode, but of course, as is always the case in Afghanistan after this period of modernization, a reactionary backlash happened and Civil War broke out in 1928. It lasted a year.
And just as you would expect, it was an alliance of religious clerics, the traditional upper middle class who were Tajik in Afghanistan mainly, that's the sort of Persian speaking Afghans, and anti-Turkish military officers. So, traditional Afghan Pashtun military men who did not like at Ataturk, did not like Turkey in the modernization that Amanullah was imposing on the country.
So, this alliance rallied around a movement called Saqqawists who were basically brigands, they were thieves. They were not really upstanding citizens.
But the Saqqawists managed to conquer Kabul, King Amanullah fled to India. He never returned to Afghanistan. And for that year, there was this traditional backlash government in power.
So, you see, Aimen, the heartland of tradition, the software of modernization enters the hardware of Afghanistan and eventually, does not compute and they throw it out. They control-alt-delete, get rid of it.
Aimen: Well, this is exactly the story that we talked about actually in Iran in the last episode, when we talked about the fact that modernization sometime could actually, if it was accelerated beyond endurance of the local population and how much modernity they can take, yes, this is the reaction you're going to get.
Thomas: Well, the Saqqawists as I say, they were brigands, they were basically incompetent. They quickly alienated everyone. They remind me in their incompetence, a little bit of the Taliban in the late nineties.
So, everyone eventually turned against them and having alienated the population, it allowed an exiled Durrani, former minister of war, Mohammed Nadir to return to the country and with a pan tribal army to conquer the country back for the Durrani.
So, he restores the Durrani dynasty, but under a new branch, his own. So, he becomes king. He is Mohammed Nadir Shah.
Aimen: Yes. Which means there is still hope for me.
Thomas: One day, Aimen, you will sit on the throne of Kabul and you'll think my whole life has been leading up to this moment.
Aimen: Absolutely. And I will never accept any American ambassador there, unless if their name is Thomas Small.
Thomas: Right. Well, I better join the state department quick then.
So, Mohammed Nadir Shah, he's king for only four years. In 1933, he is assassinated by a 17-year-old boy during a high school ceremony. The kid was drawn and quartered, how's that for tradition?
Aimen: Indeed.
Thomas: And after his father is assassinated, the King's son, Mohammed Zahir, he becomes king; Mohammed Zahir Shah.
Now Aimen. You love this guy.
Aimen: Oh yes.
Thomas: Like you love all young kings. He was only 19 years old
Aimen: Indeed. But nonetheless, he was the best thing that ever happened to Afghanistan. He was, I think one of the long-lasting kings. His reign lasted something like 40 years. He gave Afghanistan stability. He gave Afghanistan modernity, but in drip, drip doses, not shock therapy. He really understood his people.
Thomas: I love and admire your love for Mohammed Zahir Shah, Aimen. And I don't disrespect it, but I'm going to add a little bit of nuance to this, to the picture.
So, because he was only 19-years-old, the new king didn't fully reign. He didn't really fully reign for a long time. First, two of his uncles reigned in effect as prime ministers and their goal was to maintain independence because Afghanistan had only won its independence from the British a couple of decades before. And it was all very fragile.
So, maintaining independence was key. And so, in the Second World War, Afghanistan was neutral, but actually, it was closer to the Axis Powers than to the allies.
This was a political calculation. I don't really think Nazi ideas had much traction inside Afghanistan. But because the Soviet Union and the British were allied against Hitler, Afghanistan thought, well, if we lean towards the access, then we are going to wrong foot both of these allies, both of our big neighbors to the north and south, that was a risky strategy.
Reza Shah in Iran adopted the same strategy and ended up being invaded by the Soviets and the British in order to keep control of his oil. But Afghanistan having no oil, it got away with it.
Aimen: Yeah. And also, because it was mountainous and difficult to invade, but also, because the British had a very bad memory of invading Afghanistan. Sometime entire armies could be annihilated there by the locals, as the British found to their own sad realization in the 1800s.
But also, there was another strange reason for the Iranian Afghan sympathies towards the Germans and the Axis Power in the 1940s, which is the idea that both the Iranians and the Afghans are in fact Aryans and they really were mesmerized by some of Hitler's propaganda about them being part of this Aryan race.
Thomas: Yeah, they were easily seduced by Hitler because he could flatter them as being Aryans. Although, I'm sure Hitler actually didn't regard them as anything but Untermensch.
But because of this, during the Nazi period, development happened in Afghanistan to some extent funded by Germany, and this German connection would continue after the war. And the West German government would continue having a role to play in the development of Afghanistan.
So, in the Second World War, Afghanistan, having maintained its neutrality remains independent. And in 1953, the King's cousin, Mohamed Daoud Khan was appointed Prime Minister.
Now, this guy is very important to this story. He held the post of Prime Minister for a decade. He was very autocratic in his style and totally sidelined the king.
Now, let's really talk about the King's character, Aimen, because the king of Afghanistan was meek and mild. For example, I was interested to find out he never executed anyone in 40 years for political reasons.
Aimen: Well, why would he? He's a decent person. So, like I wouldn't execute anyone for political reasons. I promise from now.
Thomas: I actually don't believe that dear listener.
Aimen: We'll see about that, anyway. I’ll make some exceptions. However, Mohammed Zahir Shah, I wouldn't call him meek or weak. I would say basically that he was someone who was God fearing. He did not want to spill blood unnecessarily and without any just cause.
So, I think in my opinion, he wanted to rule by consensus. He did not want to exercise and unnecessarily cruel power over his people. And he did not also want to clash with his cousin Mohammed Daoud Khan in order not to split the Royal Family and cause a civil war.
Thomas: To this extent Aimen, I think that he reminds me of King Idris of Libya. Do you remember dear listener, when we talked about the Senussi dynasty of Libya and King Idris, the very pious God-fearing king of Libya, who it proved wasn't so great an administrator of the state. But yet, in retrospect, seems like a pretty good guy. Mohammed Zahir Shah is very much like that.
Aimen: Oh yeah, I definitely agree with this analysis.
Thomas: I think he was also very weak.
Aimen: No, he wasn't.
Thomas: No, I think he was weak. Was it wise to allow his cousin Mohammed Daoud Khan to become so powerful? Was it wise to allow him to draw so close to the Soviet Union, which is what happened? I think that the king was weak and it wasn't until the sixties that he decided to do something about it.
Aimen: Well, he decided to do something about it when the time was right.
Thomas: Alright, maybe. That's a very convenient argument. Let's keep going with the history. So, in the 1950s, Afghanistan found itself between the two new Cold War superpowers; the Soviet Union with whom it had already had a relationship and the United States.
Now, the United States did offer some economic assistance, most prominently, the Helmand Valley Authority, which built a magnificently huge dam in Afghanistan that really powered modernization for the country.
Aimen: One of the advantages of Afghan geography, rivers; water that could actually generate enough electricity to power the entire country if it was used effectively.
Thomas: So, the Americans were the ones behind this effort and other things; they granted loans and grants. They supplied agricultural commodities to aid the country's modernization.
They did all sorts of things, but it must be said the Soviet Union did a lot more. Over the course of the fifties and sixties, it was the Soviet Union that funded Afghan development five times more than the Americans.
And this is important to keep in mind because the Soviet Invasion of 1979 doesn't come out of nowhere. The relationship was long and deep and lasting, especially during the period of the premiership of Mohammed Daoud Khan.
Aimen: Unfortunately, one of the ironies of history is that the Afghan government wanted actually to turn to the United States in order to modernize its armed forces.
So, to build the Afghan army, the Afghans wanted arms from the U.S. However, the U.S. refused. Why Thomas? Why they refused because of the fact that Pakistan at the time, neighboring country, was being armed by the United States, in order to counter India, which was armed by the Soviet Union.
Thomas: And remember, dear listener, we talked all about this in the episode on Kashmir.
Aimen: Indeed. After the partition, the Indians build their army with the help of the Soviets, while the Pakistanis build their army with the help of the Americans.
So, the Americans were fearing something here that the Afghans never forgot their Pashtun brethrens across the Durand Line in Pakistan, in the tribal areas of Pakistan, from Peshawar, Miran Shah, Quetta and all these places.
So, they fear that if they build an Afghan army, if the U.S. participate in building it, that the Afghans could be emboldened enough to invade and regain back the lost territories of the Pashtunistan or the Pashtun land in Pakistan.
So, the Americans refused to help build the Afghan army. So, who did the Afghans turn to in order to build the army? The Soviet Union.
Thomas: Now, it's important, dear listener that the U.S. fears in this regard were not unrealistic.
In 1960 and 1961, the Afghan army did in fact, invade Pakistan on the orders of Prime Minister, Mohammed Daoud Khan because he dreamed of uniting all Pashtuns under Kabul’s rule. He was a sort of Pashtun nationalist.
So, the U.S. were entirely right to fear that if the Afghan army was strengthened, it would invade Pakistan.
Aimen: I think the consequences of the Afghans turning to the Soviet Union in order to build their army would have a far more damaging and lasting effects than anyone would anticipate, because this is how communism and communist ideals started to really infiltrate Afghan society and Afghan elite offices and take hold.
Thomas: Afghanistan drew even closer to the Soviets after 1962, when — and remember this dear listener from the Kashmir episode; when China defeated India in a war over Kashmir, and then allied with Pakistan. Do you remember this?
China invaded Kashmir, took off a chunk and then allied with Pakistan against India. When that happened, Afghanistan, enemy of Pakistan, allied even more with the Soviets.
So, the Soviet Afghanistan relationship is very strong in the mid-sixties. But as we said before, eventually, the king of Afghanistan, Mohammed Zahir Shah, decided to act.
And in 1963, fed up with his cousin’s autocratic style, fed up with his cousin’s close relationship with the Soviets, he sacks him from the prime-ministership and he decides not only to reign, but to rule.
And the following year in ‘64, he oversees the drafting of a new modern constitution, which he hopes will lay the ground for democracy and constitutional monarchy in the country.
Aimen: Well, don't forget, there is another reason for the fact that he deposed his cousin as a Prime Minister. And that is because Mohammed Zahir Shah with some wisdom and foresight was worried about the communist infiltration of Afghanistan through the military and through the close association with the Soviet Union. His actions will be vindicated in later years.
Thomas: Well, I don't know if it was wisdom or foresight, but in 1964, the king did sponsor this new constitution, which he hoped would lay the groundwork for real democracy.
And to that end, the constitution stipulated something pivotal and important, which is that members of the ruling dynasty were forbidden from being in government. He was the king, but the government ministers, government actors, politicians could no longer be royal. This really pissed off his cousin, Mohammed Daoud Khan.
Aimen: Indeed, which he would come back with vengeance.
Thomas: Yes. In 1973, when the king was in Italy, Mohammed Daoud Khan launched a coup, a very, very easy quite bloodless coup overthrowing the king and formally, announcing effectively, Aimen — and I know the very idea of this breaks your heart; he announced the end of what was effectively the Durrani Empire, and established the republic of Afghanistan.
Aimen: And just Thomas, just as King Idris of Libya, King Farouk of Egypt, and King Faisal of 2nd of Iraq who paid the price with his blood, none of them wanted to fight back and get back their thrones.
King Mohammed Zahir Shah, while he was there in Italy, decided to abdicate rather than cause bloodshed. This is why the nobility of kings is what could fix our broken politics these days.
Thomas: Oh well, Aimen, I don't entirely disagree with you as you know, but sticking with the story of Afghanistan, the Republic of Afghanistan with Mohammed Daoud Khan as its president was now a thing. As we said, Daoud Khan was a left wing or left sympathizing, let's say, Pashtun nationalist.
And the Republic he founded was a one-party state. He abolished parliament. He became the head of state, the head of government, and the head of the army. He was really a modern dictator, like so many of these men who had overthrown monarchies in the Middle East were.
The first thing he did, and this is very important to understand dear listener, because often people get this the wrong way around. The first thing he did was he launched a proxy war with Pakistan, aided by the Soviets.
So, the Afghan government reached out to Pashtuns in Pakistan and encouraged them to revolt. And the Soviets helped them. And this is when the Pakistani intelligence agency, the ISI began creating networks among Afghans.
So, often Pakistan, is considered the bad guy in the Afghan/Soviet/Pakistan kind of dance. But in this case, the Afghan government under Mohammed Daoud Khan was the instigator of conflict.
Aimen: Oh yes, indeed. There is no question that the government of Mohammed Daoud Khan caused some sort of insurgency to start to emerge in the Pashtun tribal areas of Pakistan.
And that is why the Pakistani intelligence services began to reach out to disaffected Islamist Pashtun elements within the universities, within the tribal societies of Afghanistan, to see if there is a possibility of alliance with them, especially against the leftwing socialist and communist parties in Afghanistan.
Thomas: So, this so-called Mujahideen, this is what the is Islamist opposition of Afghanistan were called, were granted a safe Haven by the Pakistani government in Peshawar, this very important tribal city in Pakistan, but mainly Pashtun.
And this relationship between the ISI and the Mujahideen fermented rebellions inside Afghanistan, which spooked Daoud Khan, the president of Afghanistan, and convinced him to change his policy toward Pakistan.
So, he withdrew his support for the Pashtun separatists inside Pakistan. He developed a more friendly relationship with Islamabad, and this in turn, spooked his communist supporters inside Afghanistan and the Soviet Union.
Aimen: So, the fact that Mohammed Daoud Khan decided for the sake of the stability of his country, that he would do 180 degrees U-turn regarding Pakistan and regarding the relationship with Pakistan, and to abandon the dream of incorporating Pashtunistan into Afghanistan, the communists, however, in Afghanistan were thinking, “Wait a minute here, he is betraying us.”
Because by then, remember, we're talking here since 1963, the Soviets been patiently building infrastructure for the communist in Afghanistan, because over 15 years period, they've been infiltrating the army, the security services, the civil society, the universities, because the Americans were not there.
This is the problem. They let the Soviets run amok in Afghanistan. And so, when they sense that Mohammed Daoud Khan is about to make some sort of reproachment with the Pakistanis, which could in turn means reproachment with the Americans, that is when they decided, “You know what, Mohammed Daoud Khan must go.”
So, Nur Muhammad Taraki, one of the most senior communist party members of Afghanistan, along with many military officers launched their coup, which was known as the Saur Revolution
Thomas: In April, 1978, the Saur Revolution was launched inside Afghanistan and Afghan communists overthrew the government of Mohammed Daoud Khan.
This man, Nur Muhammad Taraki, as you said, he becomes, well not president, actually. He becomes the chairman of the Revolutionary Council, which sounds like bloody Gaddafi again.
Aimen: Yes.
Thomas: They created a communist state in Kabul, which was extremely radical. We mustn't sort of mince words here. The communist government of Kabul in 1978 was disgusting.
Aimen: Absolutely. They started enacting laws against private property. They started enacting laws against Islamic traditions, including dress codes for men and women. They were really trying to interfere with that.
Thomas: It's just like you Aimen, to say that the disgusting things were private property rights being violated and dress codes being violated. What about the 100,000 Afghans who were “disappeared” in the first year? The radical regime of Taraki has been called the Pol Pot of Central Asia. It was a really terrible regime.
Aimen: Well, yeah, because of course they went after, who they called the landed gentry, tribal leaders, Islamic scholars. They went after the traditional pillars of society.
Thomas: Only three months after the coup, after the revolution that brought the communist government to power in Kabul, armed resistance began inside Afghanistan. The Mujahideen began fighting back.
They created chaos, more and more chaos over the next year or so. So, that on Christmas Eve, 1979, to prevent their communist ally inside Kabul from being toppled, the Soviet Union decided to invade.
As you said, Aimen before they amassed a huge number of troops, it was a proper invasion, whole scale, 300,000 troops at the height of the deployment. And their military strategy was (surprise, surprise these are the Russians after all) extremely brutal.
Aimen: Well, the brutality that the Soviet troops inflicted on Afghanistan is for everyone to see. I went there. I spent three years of my life in Afghanistan, and I've seen the scars of war that the Soviets inflicted on that country.
I've seen grave sites sometime as far as I could see; hundreds of thousands of people were killed. And I've seen with my own eyes, the legacy of the landmines, the millions and millions and millions of landmines that the Soviets scattered all over the landscape.
And I've seen the thousands upon thousands of young kids amputated, with amputated arms and amputated legs, because some of these landmines looked like toys.
I'm sorry to say, but the nine years of the Soviet presence in Afghanistan were nine years of pure hell.
Thomas: As you can imagine, dear listener, the Soviet Invasion given its brutality, did not convince the Mujahideen to stop their resistance of communism in Afghanistan.
And as soon as the Soviets were there, Afghanistan became the major fault line in Cold War. After the invasion, the Mujahideen were suddenly supported by a wide range of international power players.
Obviously, the West, the Western Alliance, the United States, especially, supported the Mujahideen because of anti-communism. The international left actually, who were not allied with the Soviet Union, that part of the left in general found the Mujahideen to be sympathetic because of an anti-imperialistic idea they were resisting an evil empire from trying to conquer them.
So, the Gulf state, Saudi Arabia and its allies in the Gulf, they were sympathetic to the Mujahideen for religious reasons really. A Muslim country was being invaded by an atheist superpower.
And another big player of course, was Pakistan. As we've said, Pakistan was already involved in Afghan politics to a great degree. And really for real politic reasons, Pakistan became the major player supporting, organizing, and funding the Mujahideen resistance to the Soviets.
I want to make this clear, Aimen. Because often people think of it the wrong way around. They sort of think that the major player was the United States and then Saudi Arabia, and they sort of forget Pakistan.
But Pakistan was the major foreign power working to expel the Soviets. To that end, they were cooperating with the United States to a huge degree. They were cooperating with Saudi Arabia, and money from the Gulf. But they were the brains behind the Mujahideen resistance to the communist. Would you agree with that Aimen?
Aimen: Oh, yes, there is no question. Without Pakistan the Mujahideen wouldn't have functioned whatsoever.
But we have to understand something else. I always meet, unfortunately, some naive political commentators, they keep saying, “Oh, if it wasn't for the Americans, al-Qaeda wouldn't have existed. If it wasn't for the Saudis supporting the Afghan Mujahideen, all of this radicalism wouldn't have existed.”
And they don't understand that nations mostly react to events in the now. You don't have crystal balls to see 20 years ahead. You have to take yourself back all the way to 1979. Remember, the Iranian Revolution just happened. The fact that Saddam Hussein just purged the Ba’ath Party in Iraq and took over power.
And many other events happened in that year, including the takeover of the Grand Mosque in Mecca and the siege that happened there, as well as the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. It was a tumultuous year.
And so, for many people, when they see that Afghanistan being invaded by the Soviet Union, it was apocalyptic and people were scared, especially in the Middle East and beyond. And alarm bells were ringing in Western capitals from Bonn in Germany, Paris, and London, and in DC.
The greatest fear, especially among Saudis and Pakistanis that the Soviet Union, then once they consolidate power in Afghanistan, they would move to occupy the very sparsely populated region of Balochistan in Pakistan. What does that mean for the world and global security?
It means that the Soviets will finally achieve what the Russian Empire were seeking for 400 years; a warm water port, because in Balochistan, in Pakistan, you have the port of Gwadar, which sits right on the Pakistani-Iranian border on the Arabian Sea, on the mouth of the Gulf of Amman and the Persian Gulf.
And you end up with a situation here, where the Soviet Union could, in theory, have a naval base at the mouth of the Gulf, where a lot of the world energy exports is coming from; oil and gas.
Therefore, there was genuine fear. I remember a Saudi intelligence officer; a senior officer was talking to me years ago. He was saying, “We were fearing that there could be a nuclear war in the Northwest of the Indian ocean because of the clash between America and the Soviet Union at our doorstep.”
So, this is why Pakistan was fighting for its life when they were supporting the Mujahideen. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Kuwait, and everyone were fighting for their lives when they were supporting the Mujahideen.
And America was trying to prevent that horrible scenario from happening when they wanted to stop the Soviets just there in Afghanistan. So, if there was no support for the Mujahideen and Balochistan fell to the Soviets, we could have seen a nuclear clash in the Indian Ocean in the 1980s.
Thomas: That's fascinating, Aimen. And what it brings to mind is the idea that often people have – and in fact, I usually in a kind of unthinking way, assume this as well, which is that the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, because the Americans lured them in.
That it was some master strategy of America to convince the Soviet Union, to invade Afghanistan, to give the Soviet Union its own Vietnam. Now, in retrospect, the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan was indeed the Vietnam of the Soviet Union. And it played a huge role in the dissolution of that empire.
But is it right to say that the Americans lured the Soviets in? This is known as the Afghan Trap theory?
Aimen: No, I don't believe it whatsoever, and for very good reason. First of all, the American action in Afghanistan prior to the Soviet Invasion, we're talking here about really from July, 1979, all the way until December, we're talking about five months.
Yes, they were supporting the anti-communist subversive elements, Islamists basically within Afghanistan, but it wasn't for the explicit purpose of luring the Soviets to invade Afghanistan.
It was in order to make sure that the communist hold on power in Kabul will be shaken and they don't have enough time to consolidate. That's all.
It wasn't really aimed at lowering the Soviets to invade Afghanistan, because even the Americans were feeling that this was an apocalyptic event and it needed a proper response.
Thomas: This reminds me of an idea that's very prevalent today about the Ukraine crisis that's ongoing, where a lot of people will say that America, in fact lured Russia into invading the Ukraine.
Whereas America will say, “Well, no, actually we knew that Russia had plans to invade a year before they did so. And we were trying to warn people and we were trying to prevent it.”
Something similar happened in the seventies in Afghanistan because the United States government uncovered through its intelligence networks, the Soviet plans to invade Afghanistan as early as 1977.
Aimen: Indeed. There was no question that the Soviets always had a plan in place in order to incorporate Afghanistan. And at some point, in the future go all the way through the Pakistani border, all the way to the sea, to the Arabian Sea, into the port of Gwadar.
The Soviet Union always had their eyes on that port as the most suitable, warm water port they could control. And the irony is, in the end, the Soviets never had it despite spending, I don't know, how many 30,000 lives and $300 billion. In the end, they never got it. Who got it in the end? The Chinese.
Thomas: Another thing that sort of mitigates against the idea of the Afghan Trap theory is, is that at the time the prevailing geo-strategic model within American circles was the domino effect theory. They assumed that if the Soviet Union conquered a country, then like a stack of dominoes, many countries would follow in the region.
I mean, you've said Pakistan for sure might have been one of them, but also Iran, which had just had a revolution, which was very unstable as a result. So, the idea that the Americans would lure the Soviets into invading a country rather goes against this idea of the domino effect. They were trying to prevent it.
Furthermore, Jimmy Carter, you could say a lot of things about Jimmy Carter, but he wasn't a war-mongerer. I mean, he wasn't someone to sort of try to foment war. He had an election coming up in 1980, one which he would lose to Ronald Reagan.
But in the context of an upcoming presidential election, the last thing Jimmy Carter wants is to be seen to have allowed the Soviet Union to invade a country.
Aimen: Indeed. And that is why I would say that the Afghan Trap theory, as well as the fact that many people saying, well, the American-Saudi Pakistani support of the Afghan Mujahideen created the terrorism that we are living in right now on purpose, is also naive thinking.
People were living in the now and they were reacting to events as they unfold. They do not have crystal balls to see what the consequences of their current actions would be in 20, 30 years’ time.
Thomas: What those critics of American policy are talking about is what's known as Operation Cyclone, the infamous operation, which the CIA launched to support the Mujahideen in Pakistan.
So, these are Pashtuns from Afghanistan who have fled to Pakistan and have combined with native Pashtuns of Pakistan to create the Mujahideen movement, which was trying to push the Soviets out of Afghanistan. The CIA worked with these people, but actually, more to the point, the CIA worked with the Pakistani ISI.
Aimen: So, the Pakistani ISI worked as the conduit through which the CIA, as well as the Saudis, would pour funding and weapons in order to support the Afghan Mujahideen factions.
So, at the time, the Afghan Mujahideen factions were split mostly among seven factions. So, famous among them of course, you have Ahmad Shah Massoud and his leader, Borhan Rabbani, they are the Muslim Brotherhood leaning Tajiks. To the north, they were mostly based in the Panjshir Valley, north of Kabul.
And then you have Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the Hezb-e-Islami, and he is based mostly in the eastern part of the country. And then you have Jalaluddin Haqqani, the famous Haqqani Network, and his leader Yunus Khalis, they were based in the Afghan provinces bordering Pakistan like Gardez, Paktia and Khost.
And then you have Abdul Bharoso Zaeef who was mainly from Wardak, north of Kabul, as well as from other places. He was based in Nangarhar and based in the mountains of Tora Bora, Jaji.
All of these figures, all of these factions were supported by the ISI, and also, by the CIA. They were allied together, and they were supporting them according to how the Pakistanis deemed them to be more cooperative with their aims.
Because they were worried about some of the factions that once the Afghan war is over and these people become the new government of Afghanistan, that they will be asking for the Pashtunistan land again. So, the Pakistanis also were supporting them, but also, on conditions.
Thomas: So, I think it's important to point out that the Mujahideen weren't just passive recipients of aid from the United States and other players via the ISI. They had their own fundraising networks.
I mean, these Mujahideen were at the top, sophisticated people with international networks, very rich people. These had been political players inside Afghanistan.
So Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, for example, your old friend, Aimen, he had his own fundraising network, recruitment network, propaganda network, focused largely on Germany, interestingly enough, but also the United States of America.
Jalaluddin Haqqani, as you mentioned, the Haqqani Network, he was a powerful military commander. He's been called the Ho Chi Minh of Islam because he was so good at rallying the troops. He was an effective military commander.
But as early as 1978, he sent representatives to the Gulf to solicit financial support on his own back. So, the Mujahideen in Afghanistan were also independent actors. Interestingly, it was his son, Anas, who was recently assassinated by Islamic state in Afghanistan.
A really important thing about Jalaluddin Haqqani in this context is that he called on Arabs to join the fight. He was the first one really who did this. And to this extent, he would become a very close ally of Abdullah Azzam.
Aimen: Finally, we come back to Abdullah Azzam.
Thomas: Yes, Abdullah Azzam, we're back. Remember dear listener, we left him in 1979 in Amman, Jordan, with his mouth wide open as the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. And now, we're back to Abdullah Azzam and we will tell the rest of the story of the anti-Soviet jihad through his eyes, really, although many players will also come up; bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and others.
So, in October, 1980 Abdullah Azzam was expelled from Jordan. So, his work with the Muslim Brotherhood and his effectiveness as a Sayyid Qutb inflected ideolog for them finally off the Jordanian government enough that they expelled him from the country.
And so, he moved to Mecca. It turns out actually, that the local Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood had been collaborating with the Jordanian government to get rid of him. And this is a sign of what you were talking about, Aimen, the split within the Muslim Brotherhood, between militants and activists. And Azzam was really on the side of the militants.
Anyway, he moves to Mecca. He gets a job teaching at a university there and in late 1981, he travels to Pakistan for the first time and goes to Peshawar and looks across the border into Afghanistan. And the experience was very, very life-changing for him.
Aimen: So, this is 1981. He is going there across the Khyber Pass and looking across the mountains into the heroic deeds of the Afghan Mujahideen against the Soviet Union and against the overwhelming might of the Soviet empire.
So, what does he do? Remember dear listener, in 1969, when he said that Palestine is not going to be liberated by an army of people who have no belief in God whatsoever.
So, he looked at the Mujahideen, invoking God in their fight against the godless communists, and he thought God is with these people. Not with those Palestinian leftwing militants, the Marxist, he despised so much.
He thought of these people as more his fellow brothers than his fellow Palestinians, who were fighting the Israelis within the ranks of the EPLO and Fatah.
So, this moment propelled them into this idea of Islamic militant solidarity, and that no matter where you fight, whether it's in Afghanistan or Palestine or whatever — at the end of the day, it is Islamic jihad and the principles and the theology and the ideology of jihad is going to prevail over any other ideology. And so, he decided I want to be part of this.
Thomas: He looked at the Mujahideen fighters and realized that they were Muslim warriors and that inspired him, sure. But he also looked at them and like the Muslim World League was looking at them, like the Muslim Brotherhood was looking at them, other players who had also gone to Pakistan to try to help provide charity, to provide services for the Mujahideen.
He looked at them and realized that they were totally disunited. There was a shocking level of disunity among the Afghan Mujahideen, and Azzam moved to Pakistan, and participated in the attempts to negotiate a political union between all of these squabbling war Lords.
And he eventually becomes really the most prominent person trying to do that, to create some framework, whereby all the different Mujahideen groups, all their militants could work together.
And though this process failed, it did have the effect of putting him in touch with all the top commanders. He networked very assiduously amongst all the Mujahideen during this time, which would serve him down the line.
Aimen: Well, Thomas, apart from encountering top commanders of the Afghan jihad, he was encountering the local commanders of the Afghan jihad, the foot soldiers and goodness, they were telling him wonderful fairy tales. Sorry, wonderful stories about-
Thomas: Aimen, don't just jump to dismissing them as fiction. Let me do that. I'm the Christian here. You're the Muslim. You're supposed to believe in these miracles. Aren't you?
Aimen: Look, man, I believe in miracles, but not in the manners in which they are narrated by Afghan jihadists, unfortunately, so.
Thomas: Tell us about these miracles, Aimen, they're called Karaamaatin Arabic. Battlefield miracles, what are they like?
Aimen: Well, I mean, unfortunately Abdullah Azzam was prone to believe stories and the narrations of these Afghan jihads. So, were telling him about an Afghan boy, he run out of munitions and he has nothing else to do, but to throw stone at the tank and the tank exploded
Or when Soviet Aircrafts are coming low down in order to throw their bombs at the Mujahideen, birds come under the jets in order to prevent the jets from dropping their bombs. These miracles where they throw fire at one tank, it explode, and then every other tank like dominoes exploding behind it. Wow. What a load of BS.
Thomas: These miracles, which Abdullah Azzam was hearing from foot soldiers and commanders in Afghanistan, he strung together into a narrative and published a book in 1983, which you mentioned earlier, Aimen.
The book is called in English Signs of the Merciful, and it was a huge hit across the Islamic world. It was translated into almost every language and Muslims were reading it avidly, reading about these miracles that were happening in Afghanistan.
One category of which fascinates me, and this is that following martyrs, so-called martyrs death on the battlefield, their corpse would exude a sort of perfume, a heavenly perfume.
Aimen: This type of miracle being repeated, I think two dozen times in this book, talking about how Mujahideen warriors, once they die in the fight against the Soviets, that some beautiful smell comes out of them as if like in, I mean, the smell of heaven descending down on them.
And so, he was actually intoxicating the young minds of people all around the world that heaven and the gates of heaven are open Afghanistan. All you have to do; buy a ticket, board an aircraft, because the gates of heaven are open and you can enter through into heaven through these doors in Afghanistan.
You see, this is why I always used to say, Afghanistan is the land of drugs. There is heroin, there is marijuana, but also, there are miracles and prophecies.
Thomas: So, the description of these miracles is so outrageous to the average reader (including myself), that I have to believe Azzam was frankly lying in this book. I mean, to manipulate naive believers, is this what I'm supposed to think? Abdullah Azzam lied.
Aimen: Most likely, I would say that Abdullah Azzam was a gullible believer. He believed everything he was told by those Afghan warriors and their accounts of blowing up tanks with pebbles.
But nonetheless, I think he was a gullible believer who decided nice stories, like it doesn't matter whether I believed them or not. The average gullible will believe it. Let's put it this way; you know the Lonely Planet books, what I mean?
Thomas: Yeah. The idiots guide to the jihad.
Aimen: Exactly. So, it was the idiot gullible guide to the jihad; come, die, go to heaven. That's it like because it's a land of miracles.
The only miracle in my opinion that this book elicited was how many idiots believed it from all over the Muslim world and how many people just came flooding in from everywhere in order to fight because the gates of heaven are open in Afghanistan, according to Abdullah Azzam.
Thomas: So, yes, having written this book, published it; having created enthusiasm amongst non-Afghan Muslims, especially Arabs for the battlefield, Abdullah Azzam grew frustrated.
So, in 1984, he's looking around, he's frustrated by the Afghan Mujahideen in fighting. They're nowhere closer to any real union. And he was frustrated by the fact that the Arabs who were now coming in greater numbers, I mean, not huge numbers really.
We have to be honest, never huge numbers, but their numbers were increasing and they would arrive in Peshawar in Pakistan, really hoping to do something to help their Afghan brethren.
But they wouldn't stay long because there was no organization to help them. They would show up and they'd want to fight in the jihad, but there would be no way really to do that. And these Arabs had been there from the beginning in trickles.
Ayman al-Zawahiri, for example, who would go on to lead Al-Qaeda after bin Laden's death, he came to Afghanistan as early as 1980, initially as a doctor helping in a hospital charity though he was an Islamic radical.
The point is Abdullah Azzam looked around in 1984 and realized there was a need, a demand for an organization to help organize these Arab volunteers to the jihad. So, that summer in 1984, he founds the Mujahideen Services Bureau.
Aimen: The Mujahideen Services Bureau was in fact, trying to organize the Arab Mujahideen who were arriving as volunteers, send them to training camps, make sure that they have organization when they arrive from their countries. They are vetted and then they are sent to training camps, and then they are sent to join whatever Afghan Mujahideen factions they want to join.
Whether they go to the north with Ahmad Shah Massoud, to the south with Haqqani, or to the east with Hekmatyar, it was all about really organizing the effort. And that's it.
It wasn't about organizing them into a separate Mujahideen faction. It was just to organize them into small units so they can be embedded with other Afghan Mujahideen factions.
Thomas: There were two important aspects to founding the Services Bureau. The first was money, okay. So obviously you're going to found a new organization, you need money, you need finance. And to that end, Abdullah Azzam met up with a certain Osama bin Laden.
Aimen: Well, Osama bin Laden since the beginning actually, since 1979, since the beginning of the invasion, that is when he went to Lahore and met with the Jamaat-e-Islami, Qazi Hussain Ahmad people, and donated money in order to organize the beginning of some resistance against the Soviets invasion.
However, however — his visits were on and off. However, in 1984, when Abdullah Azzam established the Mujahideen Services Bureau, this is when Osama bin Laden started to spend more time in Pakistan/Afghanistan than in Saudi Arabia.
And this is when he started to devote the majority of his time and effort towards helping the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. His finance was essential for the early success of the Mujahideen Services Bureau that Abdullah Azzam started.
Thomas: If you remember dear listener, earlier in the episode, we said that Abdullah Azzam had met Osama bin Laden in 1978 in the United States, of all places. And they had an immediate connection because (and this is key) Osama bin Laden was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, just like Abdullah Azzam.
So, this was a link between them, which Abdullah Azzam was able to call upon in 1984 when he needed finance for the Services Bureau. So, finance secured, the services bureau then did one other very important thing and this is propaganda. You can only recruit young Arabs to join your fight if you convince them to do so.
And so, Abdullah Azzam, who was already a published author, many times over and a very brilliant mind, he starts to write books. He founds a magazine called al-Jihad Magazine, which is published in every country under the sun and he publishes most famously a book, very infamous book called the Defense of Muslim Lands.
This book comes out in 1985 and in it, Abdullah Azzam, a respected cleric with a PhD in Sharia law, he declares a very important fatwa.
Aimen: Generally, jihad and Islam is not an obligation. It is a voluntary act. However, Abdullah Azzam was saying in this fatwa, that Afghanistan is in dire need in order to perform defensive jihad. And therefore, it's no longer just a voluntary act. It's a mandatory obligation on all Muslims until Afghanistan is free.
So, of course, it's preposterous, but nonetheless, he put out this fatwa and then he followed it with an entire book to support it.
Thomas: Two important aspects of this fatwa, really; as you said, Aimen, he made the jihad mandatory for all able-bodied Muslims.
Previously and traditionally, jihad was mandatory if you were a citizen of a country that had been invaded by an infidel. Then it was mandatory upon you. But if you weren't from that country, it wasn't mandatory. It was voluntary.
But Abdullah Azzam said no, all Muslims must come to Afghanistan and fight the Soviets. The other thing this fatwa did was it removed the requirement that a jihad be declared by a government. This is very important, wouldn't you say, Aimen?
Aimen: This is exactly what I've been preaching for the past, goodness, like 15 years. That the reason why jihad has been hijacked and corrupted as a concept in the past three, four decades is because it’s no longer a prerogative of the state. It became, unfortunately, something like a game in the hands of individuals and small non-state actors in order to deploy wherever they find fit.
Jihad is part of Islam and I'm never ashamed of that whatsoever. Jihad is an important tool of the state, and should always be deployed by the state for the benefit of the state. And that's it. It's not up to individuals to practice it. It's up to the state to deploy it.
Abdullah Azzam, however, with this fatwa, decided there and then, that the state no longer control the concept of jihad. Is no longer is prerogative to deploy jihad wherever they see fit.
In fact, individuals can declare jihad on their own. Small groups can declare jihad on their own without it being sanctioned by a government, by a state or by a head of a state.
Thomas: Well, this book and the fatwa it contained sent shockwaves across the world and encouraged Arabs especially, but Muslims everywhere to come from every corner of the globe. Because most of them were Arabs, they're known as Afghan-Arabs, and this is how we're going to refer to them.
They weren't Afghans, they were Arabs, but they came to Pakistan to fight in Afghanistan and they're known as Afghan-Arabs. This was a global pan ethnic movement, at least 40 countries sent fighters. So, it was truly global, this recruitment drive.
And this is interesting because as you said, Aimen, Azzam was obsessed with the idea that in order for a jihad to win, the jihadists needed to be really properly Islamic, properly religious, properly pious.
He actually prioritized recruiting preachers and religious scholars from the Islamic world over fighters. He was interested in seeding among the Afghan Mujahideen, Arabs who were well-versed in Islamic law, according to his Muslim Brotherhood lights, and could teach the Pashtuns how to be better Muslims.
Aimen: However, he was disappointed in how many people were responding to his call. Most of those who are actually coming were young, not well-educated in Islamic theology, and many so-called Muslim scholars never showed up at all. And so, he had to do with whatever happened.
In fact, other undesirables shown up. Who? We're talking about al-Jama'a al-Islamiyya from Egypt and Egyptian Islamic jihad, and radicals from Algeria, radicals from Tunisia, radicals from Libya, Muslim Brotherhood refugees from all over the Muslim world coming. In other words, political activists were coming, but not proper jihadists.
Thomas: Not just political activists, we're talking about proper militants; young men, desperate to see battle. This caused tensions to arise within the Afghan-Arab community because Azzam, he was a religious person before anything else.
Yes, he was a militant. Yes, he wanted to wage jihad, but he was religious, he was spiritual, and he was pragmatic. But most of the people, as you Aimen, answering his call were young Arabs desperate for military action and martyrdom.
He'd convince them through his books, through his writings, to yearn for martyrdom and then they showed up and they want to go to the battlefield. And he was saying, “Well, actually that's not what I have in mind.”
Aimen: And in fact, Thomas, the Afghan Mujahideen factions themselves were not interested in having these Arabs with them. They were liability more than asset because they didn't know how to fight, to begin with.
They were poorly trained. And this is I think, where the beginning of the dispute between Osama bin Laden and Abdullah Azzam started to arise, because Osama bin Laden was saying to Abdullah Azzam, “We don't want them to be just educated in religion, we need to train them properly.”
And at that time, there were some properly trained militants from the Egyptian Islamic jihad who were Egyptian army officers in the past, we are happy to start this training. Is just, it needed training facilities and funding. Osama bin Laden was happy to do both.
Thomas: Yes, that's right. So, Osama bin Laden, with Abdullah Azzam’s ascent, often I think the tension between the two of them is exaggerated. They remained allies really throughout, but Osama bin Laden's voice was ultimately heated, and training camps were founded for the Afghan Arabs.
First the Sadr camp, and then the al-Muqtada Sadr camp, and these camps became very popular destinations for the young recruits to go and be trained, especially the al-Muqtada Sadr camp, especially after a battle known as the Battle of Jaji.
Aimen: Oh yeah. It is in the mountains of Tora Bora, the Jaji Mountains, which straddled the border between Nangarhar and Khost provinces. I mean, there was no question. It was one of those fiercest battles between the Russian special forces and the Mujahideen units.
Of course, there is a lot of exaggeration about how many Russians were involved and how many of them were killed, and how many Mujahideen were involved and how many of them were killed.
But in the end, the Russians withdrew. They seeded the ground to the Mujahideen in that battle. And therefore, cementing the legend of Osama bin Laden, the legend of the Mujahideen who fought in that battle, the famous battle of Jaji.
Thomas: What's interesting, and this is another throwback to this season, the man who did more than anyone else to cement this legend of Osama bin Laden in the aftermath of the Battle of Jaji, was no other than a certain Saudi journalist called Jamal Khashoggi.
Aimen: Oh yes, because that magazine, you talk about, al-Jihad Magazine established by the Mujahideen Services Bureau, in fact, Jamal Khashoggi for a few years was the editor of that magazine.
Thomas: The editor of that magazine, the editor of newspapers in Saudi Arabia, which he very famously in Arab news, the English language Saudi newspaper, he wrote this two-page spread with the very famous photographs of Osama bin Laden, the young Osama bin Laden as a Mujahid in Afghanistan, really lionizing the man.
Of course, this isn't a sign of anything malicious or nefarious by Khashoggi, Osama bin Laden seemed like a great hero at the time. The Battle of Jaji was being portrayed as a great victory.
It was also in the aftermath of the Battle of Jaji that many new young Arab recruits were coming into Pakistan to fight in Afghanistan, and Osama bin Laden thought, you know what, we need another organization, one that's going to really turn the best and the brightest of these recruits into a kind of Islamist Special Forces. What was the name of that organization, Aimen?
Aimen: That organization was called Qaedat al-Jihad, which means the Jihadi base, or for short, it was called Al-Qaeda. Qaedat al-Jihad, that was the name of the organization chosen by Osama bin Laden. And he was meeting with his most senior trusted friends.
They included Abu Ubaidah al-Banshiri, Abu Hafs al-Masri, Ayman al-Zawahiri, these three are Egyptians from the Islamic Egyptian jihad.
Now, why using them? Is not because they were the only ones there, but because also they were the most skilled operatives and also got the necessary military experience.
Apart from them also, you have Abdulhadi al-Iraqi, an important Iraqi former officer in the Iraqi military, who was experienced in the Iran-Iraq war, and lent considerable expertise to this new organization.
And [inaudible 01:26:55] was one of those people, a Syrian, former colonel in the Syrian Intelligence Services, specializing in bomb making and sabotage. So, it was a mix of people with a considerable experience in military intelligence and security. And this is how Al-Qaeda was created.
Thomas: That's right. There in the midst of the anti-Soviet jihad, Osama bin Laden founds, Al-Qaeda. We all know what happens next from that point of view.
Of course, we've been focusing on the Afghan-Arabs and Abdullah Azzam, but throughout all of these years, since 1979 and the Soviet invasion, it's really the Mujahideen themselves, the Pashtun and the Afghan fighters who are heroically resisting the Soviet Union.
They're the ones putting their lives on the lines more than anyone else. They're the ones fighting with the weapons received from the Pakistanis and the United States, using money from the Gulf, and they largely succeed in their efforts. So that on the 14th of April, 1988, the Soviet Union, the United States, Pakistan and Afghanistan sign the Geneva Accords.
The Geneva Accords among many other provisions gives a timeline for the Soviet withdrawal. And about 10 months later, on the 15th of February, 1989, the armies of the Soviet Union leave Afghanistan.
Now, the government in Kabul remains communist. It would remain communist for three more years. It would be supported financially by the Soviet Union until the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
And so, in fact, though, the Soviet Union withdrew, Abdullah Azzam and others like him, including the Afghan Mujahideen say the jihad must continue. We must keep fighting the jihad until Kabul is liberated from the communists.
And then everything happens from there. Al-Qaeda founds Farouk camp, more Arabs arrive, more Arabs arrive now than ever before really. This is when the jihad really ramps up and at the same time, following the Battle of Jellalabad, the month after the Soviets withdrawal, the increasingly fractious Afghan Mujahideen begin fighting each other.
More and more radical Islamist elements join the fight. It becomes chaotic. In the midst of this chaos, on the 24th of November, 1989, Abdullah Azzam is assassinated in Peshawar.
Aimen: And to this day, it is a mystery as to who done it.
Thomas: Maybe one day we'll do a whole episode on his assassination. It really is one of the great mysteries of modern jihadist history.
Aimen: Indeed. It could be the Soviets, it could be the ISI, it could be another Mujahideen faction, no one knows.
Thomas: Well, Abdullah Azzam had a brilliant career. Did more than perhaps anyone else to popularize jihad, to make jihad go global, to justify jihad and the waging of jihad in a modern way. And his death was really very, very … wasn't really tragic, because I'm not sure if you could consider him a good guy, but it was momentous.
At his funeral, bin Laden was there, Zawahiri was there, various prominent Mujahideen Afghan commanders were there, members of the Pakistani government were there. He died a martyr, they thought, but somewhat of a kind of is a statesman, the right word? He died a hero in their eyes.
Aimen: How do I judge the legacy of people? Is by looking at the consequences of their actions in life. What were the consequences of Abdullah Azzam popularizing jihad, taking it global, and inviting through means of religious and spiritual deception, tens of thousands of young people from all over the Muslim world to come and fight the jihad in Afghanistan, be radicalized there.
And then once the jihad is over, they are going back to their countries and what will they do? There will be an episode where we will be discussing the Civil War in Algeria, and the roots of the civil war in Algeria, ironically, some of it actually stretch all the way to Afghanistan and the presence of so many of those young Algerians coming to fight the war.
The Civil War in Yemen, we can trace some of the roots back into Afghanistan and the jihad there. We can do a lot of tracing back of many of the problems that are plaguing Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Sudan, Somalia — we can trace many of them back to Afghanistan.
It's not a legacy that I would say that will paint Abdullah Azzam in a positive way, unfortunately.
Thomas: Because of Abdullah Azzam, Afghanistan during the anti-Soviet jihad became an incubator of global jihadism. And yes, as you say, we will explore in the next episode, in fact, the consequences that that had on Algeria.
But to conclude this very long episode of Conflicted, I'd like to return to that idea of Afghanistan as the heartland of tradition, because Afghanistan is often called the Graveyard of Empires, but that's not really true. Afghanistan has been, throughout its history, in fact, the fount of empires, traditional empires, including the Durrani Empire of your ancestors, Aimen.
What Afghanistan has been is the graveyard of modern empires, and the idea of Afghanistan as the fount of empire lives on. And in fact, it lives on in the ideology of Abdullah Azzam.
He was the first to popularize this idea that first, Muslim jihadists needed to grab control of a state from which to expand and re-conquer all the traditional lands of Islam, the whole caliphate at its maximum extent, and from there, to spread Islam globally.
The idea was originally for that place to be Afghanistan. In Abdullah Azzam’s mind, Afghanistan was not the graveyard of empires, it was the nursery of an empire, the great Islamic caliphate that was going to come back.
And of course, a movement today like the Islamic state, definitely trades on the same idea. Grab a hold of a state, create a state, and expand outwards from it. We have Abdullah Azzam to thank for that.
Aimen: Indeed Thomas, indeed. Word of wisdom.
Thomas: So, there you have it. That's the anti-Soviet jihad care of Aimen Dean and Thomas Small. We hope you enjoyed it. We'll be back in two weeks’ time with our 19th episode of this season on Algeria and its brutal jihadist Civil War.
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That's it for this week. Join us again in two weeks’ time for another episode of Conflicted.
Conflicted is a Message Heard production. This episode was produced and edited by B. Duncan. Sandra Ferrari is our Executive Producer. Production support and fact checking by Talia Augustidis. Our theme music is by Matt Huxley.
