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| Terror Networks & Islam |
| Salafi disagreements over macabre killings |
| 2005-10-07 |
| From Baghdad to Bali, suicide attacks on civilians are dividing ideologues of global jihad, some of whom worry that the carnage is alienating even Muslims once sympathetic to the militant cause. Militants such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, with his declaration of all-out war on Shi'ite Muslims and willingness to slaughter Iraqi civilians in Allah's name, have dismayed even their own original religious mentors. Most jihadists support suicide attacks on U.S.-led forces "occupying" Iraq, but for some, those targeting their Iraqi collaborators fall into a grey area. Others have deep qualms about attacks on civilians in Iraq and elsewhere. "Martyrdom operations related to civilians, whatever their nationality, can cause big divisions," said Egyptian lawyer Muntasser Zayat, who has represented Islamist defendants. "They do not have majority approval in Islamic and jihadi groups." There is no such debate among global jihadists over Palestinian suicide bombings against Israeli civilians. "In Palestine, there is almost consensus that the Zionist project is a military project and all Israeli civilians are military in one way or another," said Kamal Habib, an Egyptian expert on Islamist groups who is close to Egypt's Islamic Jihad. Some jihadist clerics have spoken out in recent months to condemn the actions of those whom they may have inspired, incurring bitter criticism from more radical voices. Jailed Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, believed to be the spiritual leader of the al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiah network, condemned Saturday's suicide bombings in Bali. "I am sorry for the bombing victims, who essentially know nothing, especially the Muslims," he said in a statement. Indonesian investigators say they suspect Jemaah Islamiah of being behind the blasts that killed 22 people. Bashir is in jail for conspiracy to carry out the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings. Two days after the July 7 bombings in London, an influential London-based Syrian jihadi scholar named Abu Basir al-Tartusi described the attacks that killed 52 people as "a disgraceful and shameful act, with no manhood, bravery or morality". His assertion that Islam has no place for the "symmetry of revenge" attracted a counter-blast from an anonymous scholar whose booklet argued that the West has killed thousands of Muslim civilians so Western civilians are fair game for Muslims. Another Islamist ideologue, Abu Mohammed al-Maqdissi, whose teachings inspired Zarqawi while they were in jail in Jordan in the 1990s, has attacked his protege for giving jihad a bad name. Briefly freed from prison, he criticised Zarqawi in July for violence that fails to distinguish civilians from U.S. forces and which aims at Shi'ite mosques, churches and holy places. "Such action in Iraq or in any other Muslim country distorts the image of the blessed jihad. Jihadists should not aim their wars and explosives at Muslims," said Maqdissi, a Jordanian of Palestinian origin who first met Zarqawi in Afghanistan in 1991. Zarqawi, also a Jordanian, has ignored the advice, redoubling his attacks on Iraqi civilians and security forces. In Saudi Arabia, however, widespread revulsion at al Qaeda suicide attacks on housing compounds in Riyadh in May and November 2003, when many of the victims were Muslims, does appear to have prompted militants to avoid repeating the tactic. Several Saudi clerics once seen as close to the jihadists now condemn violence aimed at Muslim or non-Muslim civilians. "Islam prohibits targeting innocent people...even when there is actually a war being waged between the Muslims and the disbelievers," Sheikh Salman al-Awdah writes on his website, adding that disbelief alone does not justify killing someone. The debate over violence is argued out in theological terms, citing the Koran, sayings of the Prophet Mohammad and examples from Islam's early years, which Salafis, a purist group among Sunni Muslims, seek to emulate as literally as possible. Bernard Haykel, a Lebanese-American scholar at New York University, says his research shows that suicide attacks are turning many Muslims, including Salafis, against the jihadis. "The Salafis are not a homogeneous religious community, but are split on issues of politics and militant action. Not all Salafis advocate al Qaeda's militant jihad, and a majority is politically silent," he wrote for London's Chatham House. It is not clear if the splits among jihadis, perhaps partly generational, will weaken them or prompt changes in tactics. Haykel says some al Qaeda figures have urged jihadis to focus less on Iraq, where their main victims have been Shi'ites not Americans, and focus on launching spectacular attacks in the West such as those of Sept. 11, 2001, in the United States. Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, while he has acknowledged Zarqawi as his man in Iraq, may have scant control over him, says Abdul-Bari Atwan, editor of London-based Al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper. Atwan said divisions among jihadis were nothing new. "When bin Laden issued his 1998 fatwa ordering the killing of Crusaders and Jews, there were protests even inside al Qaeda from some who said, 'What's this? We can't kill everyone'." |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |