I feel both sadness and anger when I think of "Arab Afghans". They have now become targets of the Northern Alliance’s weapons as well as hatred. Their blood has become so cheap that anybody can spill it. It is gratifying that President Rabbani has promised that clemency and forgiveness would be extended to the foreign Taleban. I am confident that he meant what he said. We just hope his troops share the compassion of the former professor of Islamic Shariah.
Nobody wants the Arab Afghans. Nobody is willing to defend them, not even their own nations. In fact, their countries do not want them to return home, because they might become a source of trouble. And in most cases, if they returned home, they would be imprisoned; and nobody can predict what would happen if they are released from jails.
The Afghans are ready to compromise with other Afghans, but not with the Arabs. There is no guarantee for their safety, if they surrender. This is true of the Pakistanis also who too had gone to Afghanistan and involved themselves in a war they had no business to join.
The long war between the Taleban and the Northern Alliance was more than a conflict over territory; it was also a clash of visions and philosophies. The Taleban wanted to expand their influence in the country and to dominate their opponents. The Northerners, on the other hand, wanted only to defend their land, dignity and freedom. The Arabs and Pakistanis went to Afghanistan as intruders. They were responding to the Taleban’s call for jihad, claiming that they were the sole advocates of truth while all others were opponents of the Amir Al-Mumineen (leader of the faithful). That, according to their interpretation, was treachery and, hence, it was permissible to violate the blood, wealth and honor of their opponents. When misguided religion and takfir — branding others as infidels — are brought into war, there is no room for tolerance.
I have heard some Northerners say that Arabs are the most bloodthirsty of all fighters and that they instigated the Taleban against their Afghan brothers. The Taleban used to believe that the ultimate truth was theirs alone and that all others had to surrender to, and accept the authority of, their Amir Al-Mumineen.
Because of this, they rejected all offers to participate in a broad-based government during the reconciliation talks held in Dushanbe, Jeddah and Germany sponsored by the United Nations, the Organization of the Islamic Conference, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Pakistan.
Once, during the talks, they agreed to sign a peace accord but later changed their word after receiving a call from their leader in Kandahar. They insisted on the same old stand that their opponents should accept the authority of the Amir Al-Mumineen and submit to the Islamic government led by them. Once I asked the late Taleban Prime Minister Mulla Muhammad Rabbani (no relation to President Rabbani) how he imagined that would happen. How could they expect a former Mujahedeen commander like Ahmad Shah Masood — who had played a legendary role in the war against the Russians, was the first to enter Kabul in 1992, and had trained and commanded thousands of Mujahedeen, to surrender to the Taleban? How could a man, a legend in his own lifetime, accept the authority of the Taleban and give up any political or military role in Afghanistan? Mulla Rabbani replied: "It is his duty to surrender and work under the Islamic government and the Amir Al-Mumineen Mulla Muhammad Omar. If the Amir finds anything good in him or any need, he will be given a special assignment. If not, he will return to the Panjshir Valley as an ordinary citizen."
(However, that issue did not have to be settled. The Arabs treacherously killed Masood before the Sept. 11 attacks. That is a coincidence worth inquiring into.)
It was this obstinacy that led to the collapse of the Taleban. They failed to get the support of the people. The Afghans wanted freedom and were eager to get rid of the darkness imposed on them. The way the people of Kabul, Herat and Mazar-e-Sharif celebrated the sudden disappearance of the Taleban is the most eloquent testimony to their "success" in winning hatred.
The Arab fighters, including Osama Bin Laden, returned to Afghanistan after 1996, and chose to join the "Islamic" government of the Taleban. I still wonder how Bin Laden and other Arabs fell into this trap after deciding to leave the country when the Mujahedeen factions, following the fall of the Communist regime in Kabul, began to fight with one another. In fact, a fatwa (Islamic ruling) was issued at the time to the effect that Arabs should not join the inter-Afghan conflict.
Why I am angry at that new breed of Arab Afghans is because they have tarnished the high reputation of their predecessors in the eyes of the Afghan people. But for the terrible record of this new breed, the Afghans would have remembered the honorable stand made by Arab fighters during the war against the Russians. It was such a glowing chapter in the history of human struggle for freedom and dignity that it would have, in all probability, been included in Afghan textbooks for the children to study when they finally went back to school. Instead, they destroyed the greatness of that epic struggle by joining the Taleban’s world of darkness.
In the days of idealism of the eighties, Arab youths, both rich and poor, left their studies and their jobs and went to Afghanistan, a distant country that they knew only from history books. Nobody would have blamed them if they had not gone. Some of them took part in relief work while others were involved in the fight against the Russians. Many of them died in Afghanistan. According to one estimate, there were more than 10,000 Arab fighters. Many of them also fought alongside the Northerners who have become their enemies now.
When I went to Afghanistan as a journalist, I experienced the love and respect the Afghans felt toward the Arabs. They gave me the best place to stay, because I was an Arab who was trying to help them.
How did all this change? How did the Arabs become an unwanted community? Even Arab journalists were forced to seek refuge with the Northern Alliance’s Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah when his forces entered Kabul.
Many people are unaware that only a few of the first generation of Arab fighters remained in Afghanistan. The majority, including those who were close relatives of Osama Bin Laden, returned to their country, Saudi Arabia, in 1992 — soon after the Mujahedeen began fighting among themselves. They returned to their previous jobs and picked up their lives where they had left off. They remembered their days in Afghanistan, sometimes with pride and sometimes with sadness - sadness because all that they had to show for their sacrifices was Afghans killing Afghans.
The only person I saw with Bin Laden in the late 1980s who remained with him until now was Abu Hafs Al-Masry (Muhammad Atef), reported killed in the latest American bombardment. Even Ayman Al-Zawahery, Bin Laden’s right-hand man, joined him only in 1989. The new recruits with extremist views are the faceless people with no understanding, vision or ideals.
Afghanistan in 1996 was not a suitable place for those who were searching for jihad. It was difficult to convince a sane person that what was taking place there - Afghans killing Afghans - was jihad. But that did not matter to these faceless Arab warriors. However, because of these warriors, the Arabs who had gone to Afghanistan to fight the Russians alongside their Muslim brothers have become suspect. They had no agenda other than that of defending their brothers. But they are afraid of making their role public and being punished for the mistakes of others. These unfortunate people were misled.
They have wasted precious years of their lives and God alone knows what awaits them in the hereafter.
