RIYADH, 26 November — A former Saudi associate of Osama Bin Laden and Abdullah Azzam, Hasan Al-Seraihi claimed that he was present in Osama Bin Laden’s camp in Peshawar when Al-Qaeda organization was founded. In an interview to Asharq Al-Awsat, Al-Seraihi, one of the early Afghan Arab Mujahedeen, narrated the circumstances in which he joined the jihad in Afghanistan in 1986.
This former imam at the Ibn Baz Mosque in Makkah was released from a Riyadh jail after six years of imprisonment following Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Fahd’s amnesty to hundreds of prisoners to mark the beginning of this year’s Ramadan. His first meeting with the Mujahedeen leaders took place at the insistence of the renowned Islamic scholar the late Sheikh Muhammad Al-Othaimeen, who sent him to Afghanistan in 1986 to verify the genuineness of the calls for jihad from Afghanistan.
The sheikh was concerned about the large number of Saudi youths responding to the jihad call made by Abdullah Azzam urging Muslims to join the holy war against the Russians. After meetings with Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani and several other leaders in Afghanistan, Al-Seraihi returned home being convinced that the Afghans needed only material and financial support and not additional fighting hands in their battle against the Soviets.
However, several overzealous youths, who wanted to join the Mujahedeen forces, challenged Al-Seraihi’s recommendations to his teacher Sheikh Othaimeen. Some people disliked Al-Seraihi’s views so much that they even refused to greet him. He told the sheikh about his difficulties with people as a result of his stand against the jihad and expressed his desire to join the Afghan Mujahedeen so that his friends would not think him that he was averse to jihad. The sheikh consented and Al-Seraihi again left for Afghanistan where he met with Bin Laden. Al-Seraihi was respected by other Saudi mujahideen and became an associate of Bin Laden and other prominent leaders of the Afghan Arabs.
Al-Seraihi is one of the four people who attended the secret meeting in which Al-Qaeda was founded. The other three were the Egyptian Jihad leaders Abu Obaida Al-Banshiri and Abu Hafs Al-Misri, who was killed in the US strikes on Kandahar, in addition to Bin Laden.
The idea of Al-Qaeda was, in fact, conceived by Al-Banshari and Al-Misri with the basic objective of creating an international army to fight for the Islamic cause.
"One day when I visited Bin Laden’s camp I found with him Al-Banshari and Al-Misri in the company of some journalists. After the visitors left, there remained only Al-Banshari, Al-Misri, Bin Laden and myself. The calm-looking Al-Banshari turned to me and started speaking in a quiet voice: You know that Brother Osama has spent a lot of money to train and buy weapons for the Arab Mujahedeen. We should not waste this investment after the jihad against the Russians. We should reorganize them under an Islamic army with the name Al-Qaeda. The army should be always ready to uphold the cause of Islam and Muslims in any part of the world. Its members should be thoroughly trained," he said.
Al-Seraihi objected to the scheme and said he did not want to be involved in it. The other three apparently wanted his cooperation because his words were respected by all other Saudi members in the Mujahedeen camp. At last he agreed not to oppose their move.
Speaking about the recruitment and training of Al-Qaeda, Al-Seraihi said Al-Qaeda recruited unquestioningly obedient and zealous youths at an early age. If the organization was fully pleased with a new recruit he would be asked to go to his parents and relatives to bid them farewell for good. Then he would be subjected to rigorous training to make him qualified for the suicide force.
Speaking about Bin Laden’s health, Al-Seraihi said Al-Qaeda’s founder always carried with him some kind of salt to keep his low blood pressure under control. He also suffered from kidney complaints and diabetes. Al-Seraihi, who is married to three women — two Pakistanis and a Frenchwoman - acknowledged that it was a gross mistake to leave his earlier career of propagating Islam and regretted his joining the jihad and spending his youth with a movement which resorted to violence.
"No one else might have suffered like me from the deep mental agony over wasting the prime years of my life with young men who did not know the value of their lives. They will, no doubt, be answerable on the Day of Judgment for the innocent people they have killed," the repentant terrorist said.
