5 September 2004The Observer
Heads of security services and governments around the world have something in common with Osama bin Laden. They all stand to benefit from exaggerating the capabilities of al-Qaeda.
The idea that bin Laden is a global terrorist mastermind, able to engender violence worldwide, flatters him and helps in the competition with other terrorist outfits for recruits and funds. The benefits of myth-making are also clear to the Russians (and the Uzbeks, Filipinos and Algerians, to name but three serial human-rights abusing governments who constantly claim, disingenuously, that the insurgents that they are fighting in their respective lands are linked to 'al-Qaeda').
Active participation in the 'war against terror' triggers a flood of material and moral support from Washington as well as legitimising tactics the West otherwise wouldn't approve of. It means long-term grudges underpinning any insurgency - discrimination, economic mismanagement, repression - can be ignored and the 'al-Qaeda bogeyman' blamed instead.
So it is unsurprising Russian security services have, on the basis of 10 'citizens of the Arab world' being among 20 militants killed in the hostage siege last week, decided that the operation was the work of 'al-Qaeda'.
We must be wary. It is true that Chechen warlord Khattab, a Jordanian-born militant leader killed in 2002, met bin Laden while both men were fighting the 1979-89 Soviet occupation of Afghanistan but there is no evidence that Khattab joined his group.
Thousands of militants fought the Soviets; only a handful established links with al-Qaeda.
A second point is that Chechen militants' main conduit for cash appears to have been a Saudi charity that is part of the royal establishment. Rich Saudis donate huge sums to a whole range of Islamic militants and groups, not just al-Qaeda. A link to Saudi funding is not a link to bin Laden.
And individuals connected to 9/11 were indeed planning to travel to Chechnya. But so were most of the thousands of young men who travelled to Afghanistan to get military training between 1993 and 2001. Chechnya has become - like Kashmir, Palestine and Afghanistan - a rallying call for Muslims worldwide. The violence there is held as evidence that the Islamic world is under attack by belligerent Christians. To believe this does not make you 'al-Qaeda'.
Finally, it is often claimed that hundreds of Chechen militants have fought alongside al-Qaeda and Taliban forces. In fact, most are Uzbeks or Tajiks; very few are from the Caucasus.
Last week's atrocity was not the work of 'al-Qaeda'. It is a result however of the spread of 'al-Qaeda-ism' and, in particular, the ability of the radical new discourse to 'plug into' existing insurgencies, many of which were nationalist or ethnic to start with but have become Islamicised. By misrepresenting the problem, we make the solution harder to find.
The greatest hope is the horrified reaction of the world's moderate Muslims - the vast majority. The increasing brutality of the militants will undercut their support and eventually isolate them. But this is a long process and the West is doing precious little to expedite it.
Jason Burke's Al-Qaeda: The True Story of Radical Islam was published in paperback by Penguin last month.
