Papers from bin Laden raid offer insight into his path to radicalisation

▶ CIA releases files recovered from Al Qaeda chief’s compound at time of his death, writes Hassan Hassan

On Wednesday, the Central Intelligence Agency released nearly half a million files recovered from the 2011 raid that led to the death of Osama bin Laden in his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

While researchers are ploughing through the data, some fascinating insights have surfaced about the life of bin Laden and the networks of the organisation he established. These include evidence confirming the that global network maintained ties with the Iranian government down the years.

Details found in a handwritten journal he kept shed light on the ideological origins of the man who globalised jihad in a way that nobody had before.

In the journal, bin Laden offers answers to questions about the ideas and movements that influenced him.

For example, he lists the Muslim Brotherhood as an organisation that shaped some of his thinking in the early days of his radicalisation. He also reveals an unexpected source of inspiration: Necmettin Erbakan, the former prime minister of Turkey who could be regarded as the father of modern Turkish Islamism.

Bin Laden’s membership of the Brotherhood was first confirmed by the current leader of Al Qaeda, Ayman Al Zawahiri, in a video released in 2014.

“Sheikh Osama bin Laden was part of the Muslim Brotherhood organisation in the Arabian Peninsula,” Zawahiri said in the video. “When the Russian invasion of Afghanistan happened, the sheikh travelled immediately to Pakistan, met the mujahideen and started helping them.”

In the documents, bin Laden is asked to list his influences. His responses are concise: “From a religious [or theological] aspect, I was committed within the Muslim Brotherhood. Their curriculum was limited. I read the Sira [Prophet Mohammed’s biography, a reference to old books relating the beginnings of Islam and the Prophet’s life with typical focus on wars]. Once a week, the meetings. The number of pages was limited. The extent of influence by them was not much from a religious aspect.”

He is next asked whether he was influenced by Abdul Al Zindani, a Yemeni and a member of the Brotherhood’s Islah Party in Yemen, known for his work on “the scientific miracles” found in the Quran.

“I was influenced by his specialisation, not in a teacher-student sense,” bin Laden says. He then explains that he grew up in an ordinary family. He was a practising Muslim. On factors that led him to jihad, he says: “It wasn’t one thing. I was looked after [in terms of religious commitment] by family, but no side was guiding me in the way the Brotherhood do. I was normal.”

He also mentions that the first time he travelled to engage in jihad was to Turkey in 1976, and suggests the trip was paid for by the Brotherhood. He then cites Erbakan as the reason for his trip, but it is unclear what the link was between Erbakan and the idea of jihad.

“It was the first time I travelled to a country that I did not know its language,” bin Laden writes. “I carried a pistol and went. The Brotherhood, they had poor knowledge about things. If they knew, I would not have had to travel through Syria to Antakya 12 hours by bus to reach Istanbul. It was easier from Jeddah to Istanbul by plane. Three hours by plane.” Bin Laden revealed that his gravitation towards jihad began during high school. In those years, he travelled to the West and even visited the birthplace of playwright William Shakespeare in Stratford-upon-Avon in Britain.

He stopped travelling, according to the journal, when he became “aware” that Muslims should not travel to the West, apparently while he was a practising member of the Muslim Brotherhood.

In other pages, bin Laden comments on the Arab uprisings in 2011. In one instance, he pins hopes on Yusuf Al Qaradawi, the Islamist cleric based in Doha. He is known for his generally moderate fatwas, but also for those that have sanctioned suicide bombing and jihad in the past two decades.

“Qaradawi, if he talks, that will help confidence that the (Libyan) rebels are right,” bin Laden writes. “Qaradawi’s shift [means that] Qaddafi is over.”

He also commends Al Jazeera’s Arabic channel for its role during the uprisings: “Al Jazeera, thank God, carries the banner of revolutions.”

It wasn’t one thing. I was looked after [in terms of religious commitment] by family, but no side was guiding me in the way the Brotherhood do. OSAMA BIN LADEN On his path to jihad