In the Graveyard of Empires: America's War in Afghanistan

a legal system that was untainted by Western influence or modernity.⁴⁵ As al Qa’ida members chanted at one training camp in Afghanistan:

We challenge with our Qur’an,

We challenge with our Qur’an.

Our men are in revolt, our men are in revolt.

We will not regain our homeland,

Nor will our shame be erased except through blood and fire.

On and on and on it goes.

On and on and on it goes.

We defend our religion with blood, with blood.

We defend our religion with blood, with blood.

Our Qur’an is in our hands.⁴⁶

Suicide operations could also be advantageous, even though the Qur’an prohibits suicide.⁴⁷ For some disillusioned bombers, martyrdom offered several attractions: honor and fame; the joys of seventy-two virgins; and paradise in “gardens of bliss” for seventy members of the suicide bomber’s household, who might be spared the fires of hell.⁴⁸ Yet many Muslims, including in Afghanistan, believed that suicide attacks were never justified.⁴⁹ Zawahiri had to overcome this taboo. Suicide bombers, he claimed, represented “a generation of mujahideen that has decided to sacrifice itself and its property in the cause of God. That is because the way of death and martyrdom is a weapon that tyrants and their helpers, who worship their salaries instead of God, do not have.”⁵⁰ In addition, Zawahiri regarded suicide bombing as effective: “Suicide operations are the most successful in inflicting damage on the opponent and the least costly in terms of casualties among the fundamentalists.”⁵¹

The United States was the most significant “far” enemy. “The white man” in America is the primary enemy, Qutb wrote. “The white man crushes us underfoot while we teach our children about his civilization, his universal principles and noble objectives…. We are endowing our children with amazement and respect for the master who tramples our honor and enslaves us.” The response to this enslavement, Qutb argued, had to be anger and violence. “Let us instead plant the seeds of hatred, disgust, and revenge in the souls of these children. Let us teach these children from the time their nails are soft that the white man is the enemy of humanity, and that they should destroy him at the first opportunity.”⁵²

Most jihadist leaders had long advocated attacking Arab regimes, not the United States or other Western regimes. Zawahiri had made this point in his 1995 essay “The Road to Jerusalem Goes through Cairo,” published in al-Mujahidin.⁵³ But after their defeat in Egypt, Algeria, and other Arab countries in the 1990s, jihadists began to focus on the West. For such leaders as Zawahiri, then, the United States only knew “the language of interests backed by brute military force. Therefore, if we wish to have a dialogue with them and make them aware of our rights, we must talk to them in the language they understand.” This language was violence and force.⁵⁴ Osama bin Laden repeated this message regularly. On the eve of the sixth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, for example, he released a video clip in which he said that the goal of the United States was to wipe out Islam across the globe, and that he was left with no other recourse than to “continue to escalate the killing and fighting against you.”⁵⁵

The United States, and the West more broadly, was a corrupting influence on Islam. For Abdullah Azzam, this meant “expelling the Kuffar [infidels] from our land, and it is Fard Ayn, a compulsory duty upon all.”⁵⁶ In an article in Jihad magazine, Azzam wrote that “jihad in God’s will means killing the infidels in the name of God and raising the banner of His name.”⁵⁷ This was especially true when Western or other non-Muslim armies invaded Islamic lands such as Afghanistan.

Al Qa’ida leaders also accused the United States of propping up apostate Arab countries. Consequently, in order to reestablish the Caliphate, al Qa’ida had to target these countries’ primary backers.⁵⁸ The conflict with the United States, then, was a “battle of ideologies, a struggle for survival, and a war with no truce.”⁵⁹ This language was remarkably similar to Harvard University Professor Samuel Huntington’s argument in The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. Of particular concern, Huntington argued, was a growing rift between the Judeo-Christian West and Islamic countries, which was becoming pronounced and violent.⁶⁰ In an early publication, Loyalty to Islam and Disavowal to its Enemies, Zawahiri argued that Muslims must make a choice between Islam and its enemies, including the West.⁶¹ In Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner, Zawahiri similarly wrote that the overthrow of governments in such countries as Egypt would become a rallying point for the rest of the Islamic world, leading it in a jihad against the West. “Then history would make a new turn, God willing,” he noted, “in the opposite direction against the empire of the United States and the world’s Jewish government.”⁶² In his mind, and in the minds of several of his followers, the United States was primarily interested in “removing Islam from power.”⁶³

In the early 1990s, the Saudi government’s decision to allow U.S. military forces on its soil following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait had been a major blow to the jihadists. In the late 1990s, Osama bin Laden’s statements began to legitimize violence against the United States. In August 1996, bin Laden issued the Declaration of Jihad against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places. This long-winded eleven- page tract was crammed with quotations from the Qur’an, hadiths of the Prophet, and references to Ibn Taymiyya. Then, in February 1998, bin Laden, Zawahiri, and others published a fatwa to kill Americans: “The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies—civilians and military—is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim.”⁶⁴ The fatwa cited three main grievances against the United States. One was the presence of American troops in the Arabian Peninsula, the second was America’s intention to destroy the Muslim people of Iraq through sanctions, and the third was the U.S. goal of incapacitating the Arab states and propping up Israel. Bin Laden accused the United States of plundering Muslim riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning U.S. bases into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples.

A Dangerous Alliance

Of particular concern to U.S. policymakers in the late 1990s was the growing collaboration between al Qa’ida and the Taliban. In response to bin Laden’s involvement in the August 1998 attacks against the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, the Clinton administration launched a series of cruise-missile strikes against al Qa’ida bases in eastern Afghanistan. But some classified U.S. assessments suggest that the attacks brought al Qa’ida and the Taliban closer together.⁶⁵ One State Department cable reported: “Taliban leader Mullah Omar lashed out at the U.S., asserting that the Taliban will continue to provide a safe haven to bin Laden.”⁶⁶ After all, bin Laden sometimes stayed at Mullah Omar’s residence in Kandahar.⁶⁷

In July 1999, U.S. President Bill Clinton issued Executive Order 13129, which found that “the actions and policies of the Taliban in Afghanistan, in allowing territory under its control in Afghanistan to be used as a safe haven and base of operations for Usama bin Ladin and the Al-Qa’ida organization…constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”⁶⁸ The Taliban’s military structure included al Qa’ida members such as the elite Brigade 055, which consisted of foreign fighters.⁶⁹ The Taliban’s alliance with al Qa’ida took a toll on its relations with several countries, especially Saudi Arabia, which had initially provided support to the Taliban through its intelligence service.⁷⁰