Abdul Rasul Sayyaf

Infobox Military Person
name= Ustad Abdul Rabi Rasul Sayyaf


caption= Abdul Rasul Sayyaf (left) during anti-Soviet struggle in Jaji, Paktia Province, Afghanistan in August 1984
born= birth year and age|1946
died=
placeofbirth= Afghanistan
placeofdeath=
nickname= Abdul Rasul Sayyafcite book | last = John Lee Anderson | authorlink = John Lee Anderson | title = The Lion's Grave|edition= November 26, 2002|pages= 224 | publisher = Atlantic Books| isbn= 1843541181]
Abd-i-Rab Rasoul Sayaf
Abdul Rabb Rasoul Sayyaf
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rank= Commander
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laterwork=Sayyaf is as of 2007 an influential lawmaker and has called for an amnesty of former mujahideen.cite web |date= February 23, 2007 |url = http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/23/AR2007022300251.html|title = Former Mujahedeen Stage Rally in Kabul|format = HTML |publisher = The Associated Press| accessdate = 2008-04-21 | last=AMIR SHAH |quote="Whoever is against mujahedeen is against Islam and they are the enemies of this country," Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, an influential lawmaker and former mujahedeen leader, told the rally.]

Ustad Abdul Rabi Rasul Sayyafcite web |date=Page last modified: 27-04-2005 17:30:56 Zulu|url = http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/afghanistan/sayyaf.htm|title = Ustad Abdul Rasul Sayyaf|format = HTML |publisher = GlobalSecurity.org| accessdate = 2008-04-21 | last= |quote=] ( _ar. عبد رب الرسول سیاف, b. 1946, Paghman Valley, Afghanistan) is an Afghan Islamist politician. He took part in the war against the PDPA government in the 1980s, leading the Mujahedin faction Islamic Union for the Liberation of Afghanistan.

During the war, he received patronage from Arab sources and mobilized Arab volunteers for the Mujahedin forces. Sayyaf is said to have been the one who first invited Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan.Fact|date=August 2008 In 2005 the Islamic Union was convertered into the political party Islamic Dawah Organisation of Afghanistan. He has been considered a member of the Northern Alliance,Layden-Stevenson, Justice. "Hassan Almrei and the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration and Solicitor General for Canada", "Reasons for Order and Order", December 5 2005] despite his close relationship with militant groups that opposed it. He has also been accused of betraying its leader, Ahmed Shah Massoud, by having knowingly assisted two assassins in killing him.

Biography

Sayyaf is fluent in Arabic and holds a degree in religion from Kabul University and a masters from Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt. He has been described as "a big, beefy man with fair skin and a thick gray beard." Approximately six feet three, 250 pounds. "He usually wears a white skullcap or a large turban, and a traditional Afghan shalwar kameez, a tunic with loose pants."

Sayyaf was a member of the Afghan-based Akhwan-ul-Muslimeen, founded in 1969 by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Dr. Burhanuddin Rabbani and having strong links to the original and much larger Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Ustad (Professor) Abdul was a professor at a small Islamic university called The Shariat in Kabul until 1973 when he plotted with Burhanuddin Rabbani, Ahmed Shah Massoud and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar to overthrow President Daoud Khan from the Panjshir Valley. The coup failed and he was forced to flee to Pakistan but was arrested when he returned.Fact|date=April 2008

Being imprisoned by the Communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) in April, 1978, he was freed in controversial circumstances by the second PDPA leader Hafizullah Amin, who, coincidentally, happened to be Sayyaf's distant relative.Fact|date=April 2008 Although, by virtue of him being incarcerated, and, consequently not arriving in Peshawar until 1980, until after the actual Soviet intervention, he was recognized by the Pakistanis as the leader of the Islamic Union for the Liberation of Afghanistan ("Ittihad-i-Islami Baraye Azadi Afghanistan"), a coalition of several parties fighting the Soviet and Afghan government forces. The Islamic Union soon imploded, and Sayyaf retained the name as the title of his own organization.

Sayyaf fought against Soviet occupying forces in Afghanistan during the 1980s, and was generously financed by the kindred conservative Wahhabi in Saudi Arabia. With his Wahhabi brand of Islam he was unable to win many ideological supporters amongst the Afghan population, instead buying support with the extensive funding and armaments he received from his wealthy Saudi benefactors, including Osama bin LadenFact|date=April 2008. During jihad against Soviets he formed a close relationship with Osama bin Laden.cite web |date=12:01am GMT 03/12/2001|url = http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/12/03/wbonn103.xml|title = Former bin Laden mentor warns the West|format = HTML |publisher = The Telegraph| accessdate = 2008-04-21 | last= |quote=THE Islamic scholar who was once a father figure to Osama bin Laden is a quietly spoken old gentleman with the white bushy beard of a Father Christmas.
"At that time I did not see anything particular about him. He was not outstanding in any way, just one person among many ... I found that he was a simple man. I don't know how the media have made such a thing out of him."] Together in the Jalalabad area they established a training camp network, later used by Al-Qaeda personnel, with bunkers and emplacements.Fact|date=April 2008 In 1981 Sayyaf formed and headed the "Ittihad-i-Islami Baraye Azadi Afghanistan ", or Islamic Union for the Liberation of Afghanistan. In 1985 he founded a university in an Afghan refugee camp near Peshawar called "Dawa'a al-Jihad", (Convert and Struggle), which has been described the "preeminent school for terrorism." Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, who masterminded the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, attended it.

Despite his growing wealth, he continued to live a spartan life, avoiding modern conveniences like mattresses and air conditioning; although he enjoyed a nightly game of tennis.cite book |title= Guantanamo's Child |last=Shephard |first=Michelle |authorlink=Michelle Shephard |year= 2008 |publisher= John Wiley & Sons|isbn= |pages= ]

During the post-war period, Sayyaf retained his training camps, using them for militarily training and indoctrinating new recruits to fight in Islamic-backed conflicts such as Chechnya, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and in the Southern Philippines, where his name inspired the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group.Also, in these camps, Sayyaf trained and mentored the soon-to-be-infamous, Kuwaiti-born, future Al-Qaeda operative and senior commander, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, after being introduced by the latter's brother, Zahid, during the Afghan Jihad in 1987.

Afghan Civil war

After the forced withdrawal of the demoralised Soviet forces in 1989, and the overthrow of the Mohammad Najibullah regime in 1992, Sayyaf's organization's human rights record became noticeably worse, underlined by their involvement in the infamous massacres and rampages in the Hazara Kabul neighbourhood of Afshar.cite web |date=2006 |url = http://hrw.org/reports/2005/afghanistan0605/5.htm#_Toc105552365|title = Ittihad|format = HTML |publisher = Human Rights Watch| accessdate = 2008-04-21 | last= |quote=] Sayyaf is known to be a vituperative opponent of the like-minded Taliban movement, which is the reason he joined the Northern Alliance, despite his aforementioned religious and ideological affinities with them.

In 1993 during the Afghan civil war in Sayyaf's faction was responsible for, "repeated human butchery", when his faction of Mujahideen turned on the Shi'ite Muslim minority groups. Amnesty International reported that Sayyaf's forces rampaged through Afshar, murdering, raping and burning homes.cite web |date= 2 December, 2001 |url = http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/correspondent/1682466.stm|title = A personal account|format = HTML |publisher = BBC News| accessdate = 2008-04-21 | last= Phil Rees |quote=]

Constitutional Loya Jirga

In 2003 Sayyaf was elected one of 502 representatives at the Constitutional Loya Jirga in Kabul, chairing one of the working groups. Originally wanted Loya Jirga intended to divide the 502 delegates randomly among 10 working groups, but Sayyaf objected, suggesting delegates be divided among the groups to ensure equal distribution of professional expertise, provincial origin, gender and other criteria. "Those who know the constitution, the ulema [Islamic scholars] , and the lawyers should be split into different groups so that the results of the discussion and debate will be positive, and closer to each other," said Sayyaf.

Abdul Sayyaf's influence in the convention was felt further when his ally Fazal Hadi Shinwari was appointed by Hamid Karzai as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, in violation of the constitution, as Fazal was over the age limit and trained only in religious, not secular, law. Shinwari packed the Supreme Court with sympathetic mullahs, called for Taliban-style punishments and renewed Taliban's dreaded Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, renamed the Ministry of Haj and Religious Affairs. It deployed squads to prevent public displays of "un-Islamic" behavior among Afghan women.Fact|date=April 2008

9/11 Commission Report

The 9/11 Commission Report mentions that Sayyaf was a mentor to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, chief manager of the "planes operation" which culminated in the quadruple hijackings of September 11, 2001. page 146cite web |date=November 26, 2002 |url = http://www.gpoaccess.gov/911/pdf/fullreport.pdf|title = 9/11 Commission Report|format = HTML |publisher = American government| accessdate = 2008-04-21 | last= |quote=he traveled to Peshawar,where his brother Zahid introduced him to the famous Afghan mujahid Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, head of the Hizbul-Ittihad El-Islami (Islamic Union Party).Sayyaf became KSM’s mentor and pro-vided KSM with military training at Sayyaf ’s Sada camp.] Somewhat ironically, the report also mentions on page 149 that "Sayyaf was close to Ahmed Shah Massoud, leader of the Afghan Northern Alliance. Therefore working with him might [have been] a problem for KSM because bin Laden was building ties to the rival Taliban." Sayyaf allegedly arranged the interview in which Ahmad Shah Massoud was assassinated raising suspicion he was involved in killing Ahmad Shah Massoud.

Abu Sayyaf group

In Kathy Gannon's "I is for Infidel, From Holy War to Holy Terror: 18 Years in Afghanistan". Mrs. Gannon mentions the Abu Sayyaf group, a Philippine terrorist organization, "was named for him by its founder Abdurajak Janjalani. Janjalani was a student and a disciple of his who received military training from him." Jon Lee Anderson of "The New Yorker" also mentions that "when the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989 and many of the foreign jihadis moved on, a group of Ittihad members--some of them native Filipinos and some of them Arabs--formed the Abu Sayyaf terrorist organization in the Philippines".

Presently

As of 2007, Sayyaf is an influential lawmaker and has called for an amnesty for former mujahideen, as well as pushing for a bill that would prevent warlords from being charged with war crimes, upsetting groups that hold him responsible for thousands of civilian deaths himself.

References