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While the sheer length of the Saudi Scholar’s Fatwa makes its difficult for the JUS Arabic team to translate at this time on top of daily news and projects already the works, al-Fajr Information Center has published a statement by Al-Qaeda author Lewis Attiyaullah regarding this important Fatwa that highlights its core message. Attiyatullah is a well known Al-Qaeda intellectual and strategist who frequently makes regular contributions to the Sawt Al-Jihad magazine.

We are pleased to bring you his statement, published here uncut and uncensored, as translated by JUS.

We remind our viewers that the opinions and points of view expressed in this statement are those of the author and shall not be deemed to mean that they are necessarily those of JUS, the publisher, editor, writers, contributors or staff

In The Name Of Allah The Most Gracious The Most Merciful

Giving Glad Tiding To Muwahhideen (People of Tawheed) On The Clemency Of The Scholars And The Mujahideen

All praise and true gratitude to Allah, may peace and blessings be upon the servants of Allah and His prophet, Muhammad, his household, companions and army.

To proceed;

Indeed the explanation coming from a group of scholars has made us happy. Among them are highly respected scholars, like Sheikh Abdurrahman Al-Barak and Sheikh Abdullah Al-Gunaiman, may Allah help and protect them all. This declaration was on Thursday 16 Dhul-Qa’dah, 1427H and was published on Sunday 19th Dhul-Qa’adah.

The scholars explained the dangers of “Rafidah” (infidels), may Allah disgrace them, and invited all Sunni Muslims to help their brothers in Iraq in their fight against fierce enemies who are surrounding them, wanting to get at them to extinguish the light of revelation that is with them.

May Allah reward our scholars for this. We ask Allah to help them, strengthen them in truth and the religion and to affirm us and them in this world and in the Hereafter. This declaration is a good step, by the will of Allah, even though it came late. We verily acknowledge and understand the situations of the scholars, the environment, the movement and others. We ask Allah to help them and us and make us right, for He is All-Hearing, All-Answering. We ask the scholars – may Allah make them right, to increase their sacrifice and motivation. There is no time to waste; the enemy is highly equipped and the situation calls for intelligent and effective work, night and day. It also requires great army that won’t tire or give up.

I cautioned my brothers, the people of Jihad, and their helpers, may Allah help them, from falling into belittlement or difficulty or negation of the Scholars, with statements like, “these Scholars did not speak up except with the permission of these Idols,” This is not allowed for anyone to utter, except from among those working, then we do not object his action in consideration of other nobilities. But these statements are not allowed and we must silence anyone saying these things or spreading them. We shall not be affected by the blame of the blamers and we truly know that among the scholars are righteous ones, about whom, this cannot be thought of! We enjoin justice and kindness, encourage every good work, extend our hands to good people, love forgiveness, give and receive glad tidings, and we will, upon all that, be alert in ourselves and to other people.

Allah, the Exalted said:

“And among them are men who hurt the prophet and say: “He is (lending his) ears (to every news).” Say: He listens to what is best for you; he believes in Allah; has faith in the believers; and is a mercy to those of you who believe.”

We should then find excuses for good people and know that perhaps the scholars only see now as befitting and road clear for them to continue to uplift the banner of truth and help in ways like this declaration and others. This is an opinion that stands on point, by the will of Allah. We should then be straight and be close.

Allah, the Exalted said:

“Show forgiveness, enjoin what is good, and turn away from the foolish.”

The explanation given by the Scholars included the dangers and enmity of the “infidels” on Sunnah and Sunnis. It includes explanation on the obligation of fighting them and helping our Sunni brothers in Iraq. It also include a call on the Mujahideen, may Allah help them, to build a strong force of fighters in Iraq by uniting and forming one row, like a solid structure. It highlighted that we gain victory over our enemies by our deeds and piety and also warned against eroded at by our own selves, which is inclined to evils.

The declaration also includes good words of love and affection from the scholars to the Mujahideen despite the difficult situation and the injustice and fear our Ummah is going through and from the scholars – may Allah protect them, came:

“We call on all Mujahideen to join hands with their scholars and do not take any decision without them”.

I am sure, by the will of Allah, that our brothers, the Mujahideen, lent their hands of unity, love, friendship and respect to their Scholars – may Allah protect them, and will continue to do so, in obedience to Allah and His messenger and the party of the believers, especially the righteous scholars who rise and defend the affairs of the religion according to their abilities. Verily dear scholars, the Mujahideen are your sons, young brothers, students, helpers and lovers for Allah’s sake. They, on the other hand, want to see the scholars participate in the Jihad with their hands, tongues, etc; and in carrying out the obligation of the present time, and uphold of truth with sound judgment and defense of sincere people and detest of liars! We are indeed sure that this hardship and difficultly our Ummah is going through, is nothing but tests and trials, some will pass while others will fail, Allah will choose from it those to be honored with martyrdom and cleanse with it the sins of many of His believing servants. The good end will surely be for the Muslims, the Sunnis and true followers of prophet Muhammad may peace and blessing be upon him. We do not doubt this, a bit…

Verily, victory and success has means of being achieved as explained by Allah in His book and as relayed by our Prophet, may peace and blessing be upon him. Victory will surely come but before then, there must be patience, hurts, injuries and pains and all praise be to Allah, the Lord of all that exists. The most important means of achieving victory, after piety, is a strong bond, unity, togetherness, love and consensus between the Scholars and the Mujahideen. These two, in our present day, are the drivers of the affairs of the Ummah and its spokesmen and advocates. If they unite, love each other and help one another, then give our Ummah good news of victory and success and a clear opening by the will of Allah. The enemies of Allah, try their utmost, by day and by night, through different methods of casting fear or terror and other means at their disposal, to ignite trouble between them. Allah only lets off the one exempted from among them.

Verily, a key from the sources of “Tawheed” is between Scholars and the Mujahideen, the strengthening of their rows, the unification of their voice, the binding of their hearts with love, so they will be like one, merciful, helping the complete hand in unity not division, teaching goodness and preaching the truth with what Allah bestowed on them of knowledge, love and respect for all.

Other key points to be added to what the scholars said are:

• We are advising our Sunni brothers to join their brother fighting in the Islamic Nation of Iraq and other righteous fighters also in Iraq.

• We strongly oppose and warn the Sunnis from sending their sons and daughters to schools and universities or other working places and mixed places outside their safe territories and it is not allowed for them to go near danger places and mixed places like Baghdad and others, so as to avoid being harmed with the bombing of the disbelieving infidels.

• We call on all Sunnis to arm themselves and put their trust in Allah and to organize themselves in their homes, towns and cities and defend themselves, night and day, and keep contact with the Mujahideen.

• By Allah, oh our Sunni brothers, nothing will help you aside putting your trust in Allah, than participating in Jihad, forsaking the weak cowards, forsaking the world and preparing either for honorable death or good living. And know that indeed you are in serious battle. By Allah, if we are to suppose that the infidels are able to win and occupy your land, then surely the living among you would wish he is dead!

• We advise the all Sunnis in every Muslim land to prepare for what is coming in Syria and the Peninsula and all Muslim Nations. And to also prepare themselves with alms and weapons and whatever means of power they can and to be alert and be of good understanding while following up on current events.

“And Allah has control of All affairs but many men know not.”

“And power belongs to Allah, His messenger and the believers but the hypocrites know not”.

We ask Allah to bind the hearts of the Mujahideen in love and gather their affairs on faith, and to help the Mijahideen for His sake, in Iraq and other places. May He destroy the enemies of religion; the Infidels, Crusaders and their helpers… Ameen.

And all praise be to Allah, the Lord of all that exists and may peace and blessing be upon our Prophet Muhammad, his household and all of his companions.

Deng Xiaoping, who turned China away from Maoist revolution, believed that the country should “bide time” and keep a low profile in international affairs. Deng wanted Beijing to “seek cooperation and avoid confrontation,” especially with the U.S. China, after a series of disastrous episodes like the Cultural Revolution and the Tiananmen massacre, needed a peaceful environment and the help of outsiders to rebuild its shattered economy.

Deng’s successor, Jiang Zemin, followed this general approach even though he wanted Beijing to pursue his “big country” ambitions. Mr. Jiang desired recognition for China’s growing status, but he saw his nation working cooperatively with the U.S. and its allies as partners.

Current President Hu Jintao has shifted China in a new direction. Like Mr. Jiang, he believes that the country should assert itself. But unlike his predecessor, he seems to think that China should actively work to restructure the international system to be more to Beijing’s liking. In short, the current leader appears to see his country mostly working against the U.S.

The shape of China’s grand strategy became apparent after a series of meetings in Beijing in the second half of 2006. In August, the Communist Party convened its Central Work Conference on Foreign Affairs. The meeting, the culmination of a half-year, top-to-bottom review of the country’s external policies, brought together for the first time all members of the Politburo, provincial governors and Party secretaries, the State Council and central government ministers, about 60 ambassadors and 30 other diplomats, and key military officers with foreign affairs responsibilities.

Significantly, the public summary of the meeting did not include references to the invariably cited “bide time” strategy of Deng Xiaoping — an indication of a fundamental change in thinking. Adopting the new tone, that same month Beijing’s top U.N. diplomat in Geneva, Sha Zukang, told the U.S. to “shut up” about China’s military buildup.

Later in the year, senior leaders met one or more times to confirm the new foreign policy direction. As veteran China watcher Willy Lam has noted, Mr. Hu and the leadership decided “to make a clean break with Deng’s cautious axioms and instead, embark on a path of high-profile force projection.”

Mr. Hu’s reorientation of foreign policy is a consequence of his increasing reliance on the People’s Liberation Army as a political base inside the Party. Since the middle of 2004, he stepped up efforts to court senior generals for support of his efforts to assert supremacy over Jiang Zemin, who has been clinging to power and blocking some of his initiatives. The military, for example, appears to have been behind Mr. Hu’s partially successful effort, in the run-up to last year’s 17th Party Congress, to pick his own successor.

It seems that at the massive conclave, held once every five years, Mr. Hu obtained the assistance of the more hawkish officers of the PLA in return for accelerating increases in military spending, promoting some of them to senior positions — especially Gen. Chen Bingde to be the chief of general staff — and steering the country toward a more assertive posture toward other nations in general, and Taiwan in particular.

There are several other incidents consistent with China’s new assertive posture. In October 2006, a Chinese submarine for the first time surfaced in the middle of an American carrier group. This episode, occurring in the Philippine Sea southeast of Okinawa, was an obvious warning to the U.S. Navy to stay away. And in January of last year, the PLA, in an unmistakable display of military power, destroyed one of China’s old weather satellites with a ground-based missile.

Beijing’s military has also started to boast about its new weapons and war-fighting capabilities. Peace Mission 2007, cooperative military exercises in Central Asia in August, was China’s first large-scale foreign military deployment, and recent military maneuvers, apparently rehearsals to take Taiwan and disputed islands in the South China Sea, were remarkable in scope and sophistication.

China’s new ambitions have been confirmed by Hong Yuan, a military strategist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, who noted a significant departure from Beijing’s prior posture. China, he said in October, intended to project force in areas “way beyond the Taiwan Strait.”

China’s military assertiveness has been matched by tougher diplomacy. Last year, a series of high-level meetings showed that Beijing has moved closer to Moscow to cement their “friendship for generations” and confirm their opposition to American initiatives, especially to stop the Iranian nuclear program.

China’s sustained campaign against German Chancellor Angela Merkel for meeting the Dalai Lama in September is also notably intense. China even threatened military and political responses over economic disputes — such as those relating to market barriers and intellectual property piracy — at last month’s session of the “Strategic Economic Dialogue,” the high-level talks between the U.S. and China.

The Kitty Hawk port call fits into this pattern. In the past, this snub would have merely been the product of petulance. Today, it is another indication of a change in China’s approach to the world.

Last month, Washington and Beijing agreed to put the Kitty Hawk and similar incidents behind them. Now, the challenge for the U. S. is to recognize that Chinese attitudes have turned a corner, and to craft new policies in response.

There are indications that the assassination of Benazir Bhutto was anticipated by US officials:

“It has been known for months that the Bush-Cheney administration and its allies have been maneuvering to strengthen their political control of Pakistan, paving the way for the expansion and deepening of the “war on terrorism” across the region.

Various American destabilization plans, known for months by officials and analysts, proposed the toppling of Pakistan’s military…

Political Impasse

“Regime change” with a view to ensuring continuity under military rule is no longer the main thrust of US foreign policy. The regime of Pervez Musharraf cannot prevail. Washington’s foreign policy course is to actively promote the political fragmentation and balkanization of Pakistan as a nation.

A new political leadership is anticipated but in all likelihood it will take on a very different shape, in relation to previous US sponsored regimes. One can expect that Washington will push for a compliant political leadership, with no commitment to the national interest, a leadership which will serve US imperial interests, while concurrently contributing under the disguise of “decentralization”, to the weakening of the central government and the fracture of Pakistan’s fragile federal structure.

The political impasse is deliberate. It is part of an evolving US foreign policy agenda, which favors disruption and disarray in the structures of the Pakistani State. Indirect rule by the Pakistani military and intelligence apparatus is to be replaced by more direct forms of US interference, including an expanded US military presence inside Pakistan.

This expanded military presence is also dictated by the Middle East-Central Asia geopolitical situation and Washington’s ongoing plans to extend the Middle East war to a much broader area.

The US has several military bases in Pakistan. It controls the country’s air space. According to a recent report: “U.S. Special Forces are expected to vastly expand their presence in Pakistan, as part of an effort to train and support indigenous counter-insurgency forces and clandestine counterterrorism units” (William Arkin, Washington Post, December 2007).

The official justification and pretext for an increased military presence in Pakistan is to extend the “war on terrorism”. Concurrently, to justify its counterrorism program, Washington is also beefing up its covert support to the “terrorists.”

The Balkanization of Pakistan

Already in 2005, a report by the US National Intelligence Council and the CIA forecast a “Yugoslav-like fate” for Pakistan “in a decade with the country riven by civil war, bloodshed and inter-provincial rivalries, as seen recently in Balochistan.” (Energy Compass, 2 March 2005). According to the NIC-CIA, Pakistan is slated to become a “failed state” by 2015, “as it would be affected by civil war, complete Talibanisation and struggle for control of its nuclear weapons”. (Quoted by former Pakistan High Commissioner to UK, Wajid Shamsul Hasan, Times of India, 13 February 2005):

“Nascent democratic reforms will produce little change in the face of opposition from an entrenched political elite and radical Islamic parties. In a climate of continuing domestic turmoil, the Central government’s control probably will be reduced to the Punjabi heartland and the economic hub of Karachi,” the former diplomat quoted the NIC-CIA report as saying.

Expressing apprehension, Hasan asked, “are our military rulers working on a similar agenda or something that has been laid out for them in the various assessment reports over the years by the National Intelligence Council in joint collaboration with CIA?” (Ibid)

Continuity, characterized by the dominant role of the Pakistani military and intelligence has been scrapped in favor of political breakup and balkanization.

According to the NIC-CIA scenario, which Washington intends to carry out: “Pakistan will not recover easily from decades of political and economic mismanagement, divisive policies, lawlessness, corruption and ethnic friction,” (Ibid) .

The US course consists in fomenting social, ethnic and factional divisions and political fragmentation, including the territorial breakup of Pakistan. This course of action is also dictated by US war plans in relation to both Afghanistan and Iran.

This US agenda for Pakistan is similar to that applied throughout the broader Middle East Central Asian region. US strategy, supported by covert intelligence operations, consists in triggering ethnic and religious strife, abetting and financing secessionist movements while also weakening the institutions of the central government.

The broader objective is to fracture the Nation State and redraw the borders of Iraq, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Pakistan’s Oil and Gas reserves

Pakistan’s extensive oil and gas reserves, largely located in Balochistan province, as well as its pipeline corridors are considered strategic by the Anglo-American alliance, requiring the concurrent militarization of Pakistani territory.

Balochistan comprises more than 40 percent of Pakistan’s land mass, possesses important reserves of oil and natural gas as well as extensive mineral resources.

The Iran-India pipeline corridor is slated to transit through Balochistan. Balochistan also possesses a deap sea port largely financed by China located at Gwadar, on the Arabian Sea, not far from the Straits of Hormuz where 30 % of the world’s daily oil supply moves by ship or pipeline. (Asia News.it, 29 December 2007)

Pakistan has an estimated 25.1 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of proven gas reserves of which 19 trillion are located in Balochistan. Among foreign oil and gas contractors in Balochistan are BP, Italy’s ENI, Austria’s OMV, and Australia’s BHP. It is worth noting that Pakistan’s State oil and gas companies, including PPL which has the largest stake in the Sui oil fields of Balochistan are up for privatization under IMF-World Bank supervision.

Covert Support to Balochistan Separatists

Balochistan’s strategic energy reserves have a bearing on the separatist agenda. Following a familiar pattern, there are indications that the Baloch insurgency is being supported and abetted by Britain and the US.

The Balochi national resistance movement dates back to the late 1940s, when Balochistan was invaded by Pakistan. In the current geopolitical context, the separatist movement is in the process of being hijacked by foreign powers.

It would appear that Britain and the US are supporting both sides. The US is providing American F-16 jets to Pakistan, which are being used to bomb Baloch villages in Balochistan. Meanwhile, British alleged covert support (according to the Pakistani by Senate Committee) contributes to weakening the central government.

The stated purpose of US counter-terrorism is to provide covert support as well as as training to “Liberation Armies” ultimately with a view to destabilizing sovereign governments. In Kosovo, the training of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in the 1990s had been entrusted to a private mercenary company, Military Professional Resources Inc (MPRI), on contract to the Pentagon.

The BLA bears a canny resemblance to Kosovo’s KLA, which was financed by the drug trade and supported by the CIA and Germany’s Bundes Nachrichten Dienst (BND).

The BLA emerged shortly after the 1999 military coup. It has no tangible links to the Baloch resistance movement, which developed since the late 1940s. An aura of mystery surrounds the leadership of the BLA.

Washington favors the creation of a “Greater Balochistan” which would integrate the Baloch areas of Pakistan with those of Iran and possibly the Southern tip of Afghanistan (See Map above), thereby leading to a process of political fracturing in both Iran and Pakistan.

Military scholar Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters writing in the June 2006 issue of The Armed Forces Journal, suggests, in no uncertain terms that Pakistan should be broken up, leading to the formation of a separate country: “Greater Balochistan” or “Free Balochistan” (see Map below). The latter would incorporate the Pakistani and Iranian Baloch provinces into a single political entity.

In turn, according to Peters, Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP) should be incorporated into Afghanistan “because of its linguistic and ethnic affinity”.

“Lieutenant-Colonel Peters was last posted, before he retired to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, within the U.S. Defence Department, and has been one of the Pentagon’s foremost authors with numerous essays on strategy for military journals and U.S. foreign policy.” (Ibid)

“Strong Economic Medicine”: Weakening Pakistan’s Central Government

Pakistan has a federal structure based on federal provincial transfers. Under a federal fiscal structure, the central government transfers financial resources to the provinces, with a view to supporting provincial based programs. When these transfers are frozen as occurred in Yugoslavia in January 1990, on orders of the IMF, the federal fiscal structure collapses:

In one fell swoop, the reformers had engineered the final collapse of Yugoslavia’s federal fiscal structure and mortally wounded its federal political institutions. By cutting the financial arteries between Belgrade and the republics, the reforms fueled secessionist tendencies that fed on economic factors as well as ethnic divisions, virtually ensuring the de facto secession of the republics. (Michel Chossudovsky, The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order, Second Edition, Global Research, Montreal, 2003, Chapter 17.)

It is by no means accidental that the 2005 National Intelligence Council- CIA report had predicted a “Yugoslav-like fate” for Pakistan pointing to the impacts of “economic mismanagement” as one of the causes of political break-up and balkanization.

“Economic mismanagement” is a term used by the Washington based international financial institutions to describe the chaos which results from not fully abiding by the IMF’s Structural Adjustment Program. In actual fact, the “economic mismanagement” and chaos is the outcome of IMF-World Bank prescriptions, which invariably trigger hyperinflation and precipitate indebted countries into extreme poverty.

Pakistan has been subjected to the same deadly IMF “economic medicine” as Yugoslavia: In 1999, in the immediate wake of the coup d’Etat which brought General Pervez Musharaf to the helm of the military government, an IMF economic package, which included currency devaluation and drastic austerity measures, was imposed on Pakistan. Pakistan’s external debt is of the order of US$40 billion. The IMF’s “debt reduction” under the package was conditional upon the sell-off to foreign capital of the most profitable State owned enterprises (including the oil and gas facilities in Balochistan) at rockbottom prices .

There are obvious similarities in the nature of US covert intelligence operations applied in country after country in different parts of the so-called “developing World”. These covert operation, including the organisation of military coups, are often synchronized with the imposition of IMF-World Bank macro-economic reforms. In this regard, Yugoslavia’s federal fiscal structure collapsed in 1990 leading to mass poverty and heightened ethnic and social divisions. The US and NATO sponsored “civil war” launched in mid-1991 consisted in coveting Islamic groups as well as channeling covert support to separatist paramilitary armies in Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia.

A similar “civil war” scenario has been envisaged for Pakistan by the National Intelligence Council and the CIA: From the point of view of US intelligence, which has a longstanding experience in abetting separatist “liberation armies”, “Greater Albania” is to Kosovo what “Greater Balochistan” is to Pakistan’s Southeastern Balochistan province. Similarly, the KLA is Washington’s chosen model, to be replicated in Balochistan province.

The Assassination of Benazir Bhutto

Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in Rawalpindi, no ordinary city. Rawalpindi is a military city host to the headquarters of the Pakistani Armed Forces and Military Intelligence (ISI). Ironically Bhutto was assassinated in an urban area tightly controlled and guarded by the military police and the country’s elite forces. Rawalpindi is swarming with ISI intelligence officials, which invariably infiltrate political rallies. Her assassination was not a haphazard event.

Without evidence, quoting Pakistan government sources, the Western media in chorus has highlighted the role of Al-Qaeda, while also focusing on the the possible involvement of the ISI.

What these interpretations do not mention is that the ISI continues to play a key role in overseeing Al Qaeda on behalf of US intelligence. The press reports fail to mention two important and well documented facts:

1) the ISI maintains close ties to the CIA. The ISI is virtually an appendage of the CIA.

2) Al Qaeda is a creation of the CIA. The ISI provides covert support to Al Qaeda, acting on behalf of US intelligence.