The Mother of Mohammed by Neighbour Sally

Author:Neighbour, Sally [Neighbour, Sally]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780522859553
Publisher: Melbourne University Publishing
Published: 2010-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

A familiar figure in the dusty streets of Pabbi was a tall, aristocratic-looking Saudi in his early thirties, who was fast becoming an icon among the Afghan-Arabs. Osama bin Laden had left his homeland of Saudi Arabia to join the jihad against the Russians after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. The devoutly religious seventeenth son of a billionaire construction tycoon, bin Laden had been eager to make his mark by volunteering his services and wealth to support the Afghan cause. Arriving in Peshawar he teamed up with the Palestinian scholar Abdullah Azzam, who had been a professor at the Jeddah University where bin Laden studied business administration. By this time Azzam was heading up the Islamic Co-ordination Council in Peshawar, which united twenty organisations there to support the Afghan struggle. It was Azzam who established MAK to co-ordinate the influx of foreign fighters, and bin Laden who provided the funds to cover accommodation, living expenses and a monthly khafalla, or stipend, for every foreign volunteer. Together in 1988 they formed a new organisation to keep the jihad alive after the Russians had gone, which they called simply ‘the base’—in Arabic, al Qaeda.

After Abdullah Azzam’s death in 1989, bin Laden had taken over the mantle of emir (leader) of the Afghan-Arabs and their new organisation, al Qaeda. He worked closely with Pabbi’s supremo, Sayyaf, who shared his Wahhabi creed and close working relationship with the Saudi establishment. Bin Laden provided the funding for Sayyaf’s military academy at Camp Sadda and his University of Dawah and Jihad in Pabbi. In return Sayyaf provided military training for the majority of the foreign volunteers, until bin Laden began to set up his own network of training camps under Sayyaf’s protection and in his territory.

After the defeat of the Soviets, bin Laden had left Peshawar and returned to Saudi Arabia, where he was at first lauded as a minor hero for his role in the Afghan struggle, but later had a bitter falling out with the House of Saud when he opposed the arrival of US troops to defend the Saudi peninsula after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Bin Laden’s passport would soon be seized by the Saudi authorities, his citizenship cancelled and his assets frozen. But for now he maintained a guesthouse and office in Peshawar from where payments were dispensed to the foreign volunteers and continued to visit Pabbi, the stronghold of his comrade Sayyaf.

Rabiah remembers bin Laden’s visits, when he would leave his wives at home in Jeddah and stay in the modest quarters reserved for the shabab (young men) in Sayyaf’s compound where he was much admired. ‘Osama would stay at the shabab house all the time when he came to Pabbi. He was known because he was rich. He was someone who had sacrificed his wealth, his lifestyle, his family connections and stood up for what he believes in.’ Bin Laden was not yet a major leader in the jihad movement; at this stage he was principally a

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