Usama bin Ladin’s “Father Sheikh”:

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words of David Edwards, he was viewed as a “fundamentally decent person.” 123 The new unity party was named simply “the Islamic Party” (Hizb‐e Islami), and the former political organizations were theoretically disbanded with its creation. Unfortunately, this did little to bridge the gaps among the various factions of mujahidin, and Qazi Amin was soon replaced as party head by Mawlawi Sakhidad Faiz. 124 Faiz fared no better, and he submitted his resignation after a week. Whether because of outside pressure or their own determination, mujahidin efforts to unify the fractured movement continued even in the wreckage of the first Hizb‐e Islami. After Faiz’s resignation, Nasrullah Mansur, Hekmatyar and others went to Muhammad Nabi Muhammadi in the hope that he might be willing to lead a new unity party. 125 Nabi Muhammadi accepted, and “the Movement of the Islamic Revolution” (Harakat‐e Inqilab‐e Islami) was formed. It is important to note here that the first Hizb‐e Islami party was formally dissolved with the creation of Harakat. Although Nabi Muhammadi and others appealed to Khalis directly to join Harakat, Khalis apparently had a low opinion of Nabi Muhammadi’s leadership ability, and he never joined the new party. 126 Apparently, even some of those who joined Harakat soon had second thoughts. Before long, the tentative alliance of Rabbani and Hekmatyar under Harakat‐e Inqilab fell apart again when Rabbani took a trip to Saudi Arabia and created “the National Salvation Front” (Jebha‐ye Nejat‐e Milli) with Sibghatullah Mujaddidi. 127 Rabbani himself would soon abandon this Sufi party to resurrect the old Jami’at‐e Islami. By this point, Yunus Khalis was probably already considering forming his own group, and the availability of the well‐known Hizb‐e Islami name must have made this option even more tempting. It seems that he expressed reservations about whether Harakat‐e Inqilab could last much longer, and he disliked the political maneuvering that 123 Edwards (2002), 241. 124 Muhammad (2007), 36. Relatively little is known about Faiz and he only appears briefly in the Khalis biographies. 125 Muhammad (2007), 37; and Edwards (2002), 244. Muhammad Nabi Muhammadi, like Yunus Khalis, was educated at Akora Khattak at the Dar al‐‘Ulum Haqqaniyya. It is not known when Nabi Muhammadi would have graduated, but since Nabi Muhammadi was born in 1937, he almost certainly went to Akora many years after the Dar al‐‘Ulum Haqqaniyya had been established. 126 Edwards (2002), 248. Although the conversation took place much later, Khalis expressed his doubts to David Edwards by saying “I and some of my friends didn’t accept him because he couldn’t lead this union. He is a good scholar and can teach, but he can’t do this work.” 127 Muhammad (2007), 37. 24
distracted the mujahidin from directly engaging the foe. 128 In theory, he could have thrown his support behind Hekmatyar, but David Edwards rightly points to Khalis’s “resentment at being subordinate to younger and less experienced men.” 129 His exact motivations may never be clear, but at some point Khalis created his own Hizb‐e Islami, and Hekmatyar eventually left Harakat and did the same. 130 These parties would become so radically different in structure and membership that it is hard to imagine that Khalis and Hekmatyar could ever have worked in the same chain of command, and it is little more than ironic that their parties bore the same names. Surprisingly enough, even as all these leaders fled Harakat‐e Inqilab, the party persisted. This could be because unlike Qazi Amin, Nabi Muhammadi was a practiced politician who longed for the advantages offered by a prominent leadership position. He had been a member of parliament and had famously come to blows with Babrak Karmal during a parliamentary session. 131 When Harakat began to hemorrhage support, Nabi Muhammadi simply reinvented it as his own political party instead of disbanding it. In the midst of this chaos, Sayyid Ahmed Gailani came to Peshawar and created what was to be the second Sufi party, and sixth party overall; “the National Front” (Mahaz‐e Milli). 132 The seventh and final official mujahidin party was the inadvertent result of a third attempt to unite the mujahidin under the banner of the “Islamic Union for the Liberation of Afghanistan” (Ittihad‐e Islami Baraye Azadi‐ye Afghanistan). 133 This time ‘Abd al‐Rab Rasul Sayyaf was chosen to lead the organization. 134 Like the first Hizb‐e 128 Muhammad (2008), 44. 129 Edwards (2002), 249. 130 Known as Hizb‐e Islami (Khalis), and Hizb‐e Islami (Gulbuddin). 131 Edwards (2002), 244. Babrak Karmal was a well‐known leftist politician and activist who eventually became chairman of the PDPA (People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan) and head of Afghanistan’s communist regime between 1979 and 1986. 132 Din Muhammad gives a concise account of the nearly simultaneous creation of these parties, albeit without much detail. See Muhammad (2007), 44–45. 133 The name of this and the other parties is almost never given in the full form in the Persian or Pashto literature, and we follow that convention here by referring to the party simply as Ittihad-e Islami. 134 Din Muhammad’s account of how Sayyaf came to be the leader of Ittihad‐e Islami is interesting. He claims that when the Russians invaded, Sayyaf was freed from prison and obtained a membership card in Hizb‐e Islami (Khalis). He was then nominated by Khalis to be the leader of a new union of mujahidin 25
Page 1 and 2: Usama bin Ladin’s “Father Sheik
Page 3 and 4: Author’s Acknowledgments This rep
Page 5 and 6: Executive Summary The purpose of th
Page 7 and 8: Three important Nangarhar‐based c
Page 9 and 10: Map of Nangarhar Province and the S
Page 11 and 12: Introduction The year 1996 was a wa
Page 13 and 14: only known primary sources relate t
Page 15 and 16: Qa`ida, which are less likely to ha
Page 17 and 18: violent jihadist organizations such
Page 19 and 20: Unfortunately, this is not quite hi
Page 21 and 22: Khalis’s involvement in print jou
Page 23 and 24: ideological interference, and he qu
Page 25 and 26: thus mirror larger divisions within
Page 27 and 28: founding member of the Hizb al‐Ta
Page 29 and 30: Daoud Khan’s 1973 Coup and the Mo
Page 31 and 32: There are good reasons to be doubtf
Page 33: Events would unfold dramatically ov
Page 37 and 38: Khalis’s Attempts to Cultivate Ji
Page 39 and 40: was shared between three men.” 14
Page 41 and 42: Evaluating Yunus Khalis’s Persona
Page 43 and 44: Taliban. In the absence of more inf
Page 45 and 46: direct contact with Yunus Khalis du
Page 47 and 48: facilitators were killed in late 19
Page 49 and 50: I heard something incredible from Y
Page 51 and 52: Many Western works on al‐Qa`ida e
Page 53 and 54: Khalis’s most important commander
Page 55 and 56: new position. 202 They found an ide
Page 57 and 58: satisfied with the experience than
Page 59 and 60: Khalis and the Afghan Civil War For
Page 61 and 62: Given Din Muhammad’s obvious pro
Page 63 and 64: celebration of Sudanese independenc
Page 65 and 66: initiated project, 254 and there is
Page 67 and 68: It is impossible to discern Khalis
Page 69 and 70: development had relatively little i
Page 71 and 72: the content, if not the tone and ex
Page 73 and 74: Mahmud to avoid acting until “the
Page 75 and 76: commanders like Haji Saz Nur, Jalal
Page 77 and 78: Conclusion As the United States and
Page 79 and 80: other leaders were motivated to end
Page 81 and 82: materials discussed so far are any
Page 83 and 84: wrote a biography of Yunus Khalis t
Page 85 and 86:
Afghan Civil War. Hekmatyar is a pr
Page 87:
since the death of Usama bin Ladin
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