from: TIME Special Report: Inside AL-QAEDA November 12, 2001
...On one matter, however, European investigators are clear: there is something
truly ruthless about the suspected terrorists they are finding. After six
Algerians were picked up in Spain in September, police found videotapes in
the apartment of one of the men. One tape showed four Algerian soldiers,
with their throats cut, dying in a burning jeep.
For experts in terrorism, such incidents are suggestive. In Egypt in the
1960s, the Islamic ideology Takfir wal Hijra began to win adherents among
extremist groups. One of them, the Society of Muslims, was led by Shukri
Mustafa, an agricultural engineer. Mustafa denounced other Muslims as
unbelievers and preached a "withdrawal" into a purity of the kind practiced
by the Prophet Muhammad when he withdrew from Mecca to Medina. The ideology
is particularly dangerous because it provides a religious justification for
slaughtering not just unbelievers but also those who think of themselves as
Muslim. Intensely undemocratic -- for to accept the authority of anyone but
God would be a blasphemy -- Takfir wal Hijra is a sort of Islamic fascism.
European analysts now believe that Takfir thinking has won converts among
terrorist groups. Beghal is Takfiri, and Daoudi is thought to be. Roland
Jacquard, one of the world's leading scholars on Islamic terrorism, says
flatly, "Atta was Takfiri." It is not just soldiers of al-Qaeda who may be
following the Takfir line. Mustafa was executed in 1978, but his ideas lived
on; the beliefs of al-Zawahiri's Al Jihad were dominated by Takfiri themes.
Azzam Tamimi, director of the Institute of Islamic Political Thought in
London, says of Zawahiri, "He is their ideologue now...His ideas negate the
existence of common ground with others."
Bin Laden and al-Qaeda may have learned, by violent experience, to pre-empt
and harness the new fanaticism. In late 1995, bin Laden's compound in
Khartoum was attacked by gunmen believed to be Takfiri. A Sudanese friend of
bin Laden's who questioned the surviving attacker said, "He was like a
maniac, more or less like the students in the U.S.A. who shoot other
students. They don't have very clear objectives." By the time al-Qaeda had
resettled in Afghanistan, ideological training was an integral part of the
curriculum, according to a former recruit who went on to bomb the U.S.
embassy in Nairobi. Students were asked to learn all about demolition,
artillery and light-weapon use, but they were also expected to be familiar
with the fatwas of al-Qaeda, including those that called for violence
against Muslim rulers who contradicted Islam--a basic Takfiri tenet. French
terrorism expert Jacquard describes Takfiri indoctrination this way: "Takfir
is like a sect: once you're in, you never get out. The Takfir rely on
brainwashing and an extreme regime of discipline to weed out the weak links
and ensure loyalty and obedience from those taken as members."
The results of the boot camps are die-hard but undetectable soldiers of the
movement. "The Takfir," says Jacquard, "are the hard core of the hard core:
they are the ones who will be called upon to organize and execute the really
big attacks." French officials think that Takfiri beliefs have bred a
distinct form of terrorism. "The goal of Takfir," says one, "is to blend
into corrupt societies in order to plot attacks against them better. Members
live together, will drink alcohol, eat during Ramadan, become smart dressers
and ladies' men to show just how integrated they are."
For law-enforcement officials, the Takfiri connection is terrible news. By
assimilating into host societies--some won't even worship with other
Muslims--it's easy for Takfiris to escape detection. Those stories of the
Sept. 11 hijackers drinking in bars and carousing in Las Vegas may now have
an explanation. Jarrah's cousin Salim, who lives in the German town of
Greifswald, claims that they "used to go to church more than to the mosque."
Jarrah, says Salim, loved discos--"We didn't need veiled women and all
that"--and sneaked shots of whiskey during a family wedding. He makes Jarrah
sound like a normal guy, and normal guys aren't easy to catch.
