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Zonis: What does bin Laden want?

September 21, 2001

BY MARVIN ZONIS

Osama bin Muhammad bin Laden, the son of a wealthy Saudi construction magnate, was born in 1957 and is the 17th of 52 children. His father began as a construction worker, eventually owning the largest construction company in the kingdom, building the most important palaces for its rulers, and being charged with the reconstruction of the three holiest Islamic mosques in the kingdom.

Bin Laden himself was married at 17 to a Syrian girl and studied at King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah, from which he received a degree in public administration in 1981. (Some of his brothers studied at Harvard.)

He went to Pakistan only a few weeks after the Soviet invasion--before he had graduated from college--and returned committed to raising funds for the anti-Soviet struggle. In 1982, he determined to move to Afghanistan and brought with him construction equipment. In 1986, he built his own camps in Afghanistan and called them al-Qaida, the Base. After the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, he returned to Saudi Arabia but was forbidden to travel.

In April 1991, bin Laden fled to Sudan, but pressure on its government by the United States and Saudi Arabia led him to flee to Afghanistan in early 1996. He set up training camps in the mountains and, according to an Algerian terrorist trained by bin Laden who was arrested on the Canadian border in December 1999, the camps offered training in areas such as ''rocket-launching, urban warfare, assassination and sabotage'' and how ''to blow up the infrastructure of a country.''

Here is bin Laden's Fatwa of Feb. 23, 1998, as published in the Arabic newspaper, Al-Quds al'-Arabi, of London, headlined Text of the World Islamic Front Urging Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders:

''No one argues today about three facts. . . .

''First, for over seven years, the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors. . . .

''Second, despite the great devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people by the crusader-Zionist alliance, and despite the huge number of those killed, which has exceeded 1 million . . . despite all this, the Americans are once again trying to repeat the horrific massacres. . . . So here they come to annihilate what is left of this people and to humiliate their Muslim neighbors. . . .

''Third, if the American aims behind these wars are religious and economic, the aim is also to serve the Jews' petty state and divert attention from its occupation of Jerusalem and the murder of Muslims there. . . .

''All these crimes and sins committed by Americans are a clear declaration of war on God, his messenger, and Muslims. . . .

''This ruling to kill the Americans and their allies--civilian and military--is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it. . . . This is in accordance with the words of Almighty God. . . . ''

If these are the ''facts,'' what is bin Laden trying to accomplish? His goal goes far beyond punishing the United States. His goal goes far beyond forcing a change in U.S. policy and getting the United States to pull its troops from Saudi Arabia or its support from Israel. His goal is no less than the destruction of the United States.

Bin Laden was steeled in the Afghan war against the U.S.S.R. The Soviets invaded the country in December of 1979. Ten years of bitter guerrilla warfare followed. In 1989, the Soviets withdrew in defeat and two years after their withdrawal, communism collapsed and the country disintegrated into 15 different states.

Bin Laden seeks nothing less from his terrorist war against the United States. As absurd as this may seem on its face, bin Laden and his terrorist devotees believe that the United States and all that they believe defines it--a repudiation of Islam, exploitation, corruption, and imperialism--can be brought down through terrorism.

Marvin Zonis is an expert on Middle East politics and professor at the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago, where he teaches international political economy. He is chairman of Marvin Zonis + Associates, international risk consultants.

-- Anonymous, September 21, 2001

Answers

"What we have here, gentlemen, is a failure to communicate."

"Soon, we will begin an intensive re-education program, the likes of which Laden has never seen."

-- Anonymous, September 21, 2001