Ask Jane Corbin and Dr Saad Al Fagih
A Panorama Special reports on Osama Bin Laden, the world's most wanted man. Reporter Jane Corbin, who first investigated Bin Laden in 1998, and Dr Saad Al Fagih of the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia answered your questions on the issues raised in the programme.
Click here to watch the forum.
Transcript:
Newshost:
Hello and welcome to Panorama interactive. The Panorama special last night was made literally in the wake of last Tuesday's terrorist outrages in the USA.
Its title, as you know, was America's Most Wanted, following President
Bush's statement that the Saudi-born Osama Bin Laden was the prime suspect behind the attacks on New York, which destroyed the World Trade Center, and on Washington, upon the Pentagon.
The film consisted of two chronologies - the timetable of the attack itself and interleaved with that the biography of Osama Bin Laden himself, the story of the formation of a terrorist leader. With me to deal with your e-mails on last night's programme are the reporter, Jane Corbin, and Dr Saad Al Fagih of the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia, whom you'll have seen in the programme.
Jane the first one's to you. It's from Siraj in Hendon: "Are you
aware of the BBC or any other media organisation on this planet having seen an iota of evidence from the USA to connect Bin Laden to these atrocities?"
Jane Corbin:
I think the Americans have been careful to say that he's the prime suspect, not that they have incontrovertible evidence. If you saw the programme you will see that we traced the type of network that he has and at the end of the programme we received the first indications that three individuals who are known to be part of his network had actually been traced to the killings. Two Yemenis who'd been associated with the downing of the USS Cole - the American warship - and also one other individual, a Saudi I believe, who is known to have been trained in a Bin Laden camp within the last year or so.
Newshost:
Jane knows but people watching this internet broadcast mayn't realise that all we're doing here is passing on, as we get them, the e-mails that we have received.
Tehseen Khan Barakzai from the UK says: Why does the US insist that
Bin Laden is the prime suspect? And he says: "If they have concrete
evidence they should give it to the Taleban who are then willing to
extradite Bin Laden." Would you like to comment on that?
Dr Saad Al Fagih:
This is a comment about an American decision, it's not a comment about
Arabic mentality or Islamic mentality. Well I assume that the Americans are very far away from considering taking permission from the Taleban. They are not in the mood of waiting for the Taleban to approve or not approve their evidence.
They are very much in the mood of decision to do something regarding this action rather than even wait until this evidence to materialise and become so solid - trial and action on it.
Newshost:
Jane, Ursula McLean from Manchester says: "Why was there no
analysis of Bin Laden's likely guilt or innocence?" I'm quoting the e-mail,
I'm not asserting this. "Bin Laden's guilt was taken as a given and the assertion was reinforced by association not analysis." What would you like to say to her?
Jane Corbin:
I don't think we did say that he was definitely guilty, we said he was a prime suspect and we traced the things that have happened in the past. At the moment it's only, what, five days on from the events and there is a lot of information out there and what we're trying to do at this point is process it.
All that we had in the programme last night were the facts that we had
managed to check out. So when you say there was no analysis of his guilt or innocence that is something I think that's going to come in the next few weeks or even months.
You know, the very nature of al-Qaeda and the network is it's underground, it's hidden, that's why he's been so successful. It is not something that one can analyse within five days of something like this happening.
Newshost:
Let's just pause Jane, for a minute, and see once again the moment, in the film, and in Osama Bin Laden's life which Jane assesses as being absolutely critical.
Film clip:
Osama Bin Laden's view of America hardened into hatred when the Gulf War brought US troops into Saudi Arabia in 1991. Bin Laden was now living back in Saudi. His homeland was the site of Islam's holy places. Angry already at America's support of Israel, Bin Laden's fury boiled over at what he saw as occupation by the infidel.
Newshost:
This point - do you agree that from this point on - from the Gulf War - that the die is cast, that the die does lead, effectively, to what happened last week?
Saad Al Fagih:
Very much so. Before the presence of the military forces inside the Arabian peninsular there was a good element of suspicion, a good element of dislike to the Americans in the mind of Bin Laden but to be turned against Americans as they are enemy number one and to plan some sort of operations against them that have started from this moment because he said to himself - I am going to Afghanistan, a foreign country, another country, to expel invading infidel forces. Then what I'm facing now - an invading infidel force inside my own holy country - so that was a strong argument for himself - if I am to
be sincere with myself I have to do the same in this case.
Newshost:
As the film brought out, you know this man, we're asked this in another
e-mail: "Why can't steps be taken to prevent Bin Laden from accessing his allegedly vast fortune?" This question comes from New York. "Where does he keep it?" Do we have any answers to that?
It was said in the film that he'd inherited money and that he'd used his money and goes on using his money to finance these operations - how does he keep the money, can we get at the money?
Dr Saad Al Fagih:
This is - this is over-simplification of the story of Bin Laden activity.
It's also part of the big misunderstanding by the Americans of the Bin Laden
phenomena.
Bin Laden money, which was part of his company, he almost lost all of them
by confiscation or by freezing by the Saudi authorities - so they are
useless for him, they've already been useless. He lost also a big fortune
in Sudan because they failed to pay him anything.
So he started after he went back to Afghanistan, when he left Sudan, started
almost from scratch. So it's over-simplification to talk about him as using
money as everybody does in the West.
Newshost:
So whose resources then, Jane, are backing these operations if, as the film
generally asserted, Bin Laden is in someway controlling the cash behind
these operations?
Jane Corbin:
It's true that a lot of the money was confiscated but what he has seen is an
injection of new funds from sympathisers, many of them wealthy merchants in
Saudi. I think what's not generally understood is that the sympathy that is
with him for his cause, if not necessarily the methods - because there
certainly have been disputes in the Islamic world about whether what he's
done is acceptable to the tenets of the Koran - but certainly I think
there's a lot of funding going on and money given from a number of sources.
Newshost:
A similar question comes from Lesley Welch from Bristol who says:
"Surely we have the resource to track his financial dealings and stop them,
why don't we do this, why is the only talk about the military response?"
Well if the sourcing of the funds is as you say is there any way - is there
any way that the funds can be dried up?
Jane Corbin:
Well I think one to say is that it's not necessarily - we're not talking
about millions to organise these operations. I think that one of the law
enforcement agencies calculated that the bombing of the World Trade Centre
in 1993, which was the first attempt, probably cost something like $18,000.
Now obviously that's a lot of money but in terms of whether you're expecting
to be spending millions on an operation, it's very low-tech, it's using
people, infiltrating them - we're not talking about military hardware here,
we're talking about quite cheap operations in the terms of these things.
Newshost:
Dr Saad two questions which we've received - one from Wales from Pauline
Winchester and one from Saj from Birmingham, which one asked and
the other one asserts that at one point the Americans, partly through the
CIA, financed Osama Bin Laden themselves, presumably when they saw it in
their interests when the Russians were in Afghanistan. Is that correct in
your view?
Dr Saad Al Fagih:
Not financing him directly. They have been in line, the same line, as Bin
Laden was doing in Afghanistan but there has never been any direct link
between him and the CIA.
Interestingly there has never been any direct link between him and the Saudi
government. So he has been fully independent since the days of Afghanistan.
Newshost:
Ok, well that's a very straight answer to that straight question. Michael Curry from London says: "I've read that Bin Laden uses the Islamic equivalent of the Old Testament. How accepted is this interpretation in the
Islamic world and what are its tenets?" Though that's a much larger
question. Is Bin Laden relying on an accepted interpretation of the holy book?
Dr Saad Al Fagih:
Well most, if not all, Muslim scholars say that killing civilians,
especially children and women, is prohibited blankly. But if it is
collateral damage it is allowed - if it is in a state of war or deterring an
enemy then collateral damage is allowed.
Now some minority of people, including those Jihadic groups, say that if the
aggressor is big enemy and it's difficult to deter him - they use same
argument like the Americans - so to stop the Japanese we have to kill
300,000 Japanese, civilian Japanese, by a nuclear bomb - this is the only
way to deter the Japanese.
The same comment used by Madame Albright, when she justified killing Iraqi
children she said it is a price worth paying - killing 500 children every
day. So they use the same argument that to deter an enemy you are allowed
to widen the meaning of collateral damage. So they say that we hit the
World Trade Centre, those civilians are dead are collateral damages.
Newshost:
I understand. That's a clear and uncomfortable answer to a clear and
uncomfortable question. Let's go on now to the prospective response, as
well as to the action itself and the question of whether America will feel
itself impelled to take military action swiftly, to be seen to be doing
something powerful to avenge the shock the country has suffered. The
programme, Panorama, ended with a New York paramedic - Mike McMahon -
who was talking about his feelings.
Clip from Panorama:
I don't know how the city's ever going to recover from this. So many lives
are going to be touched and lost - it's going to be incredible. Just this
shame of these people thinking that they're going to go to heaven and all
that stuff that are killing us - killing people for no reason, for whatever
their reasons are - senseless.
Newshost:
Can you go any further enlightening Hugh from Warwick on the Muslim
perspective of preventative solutions to these morbid acts - what can you do
now, from a Muslim perspective what can and should be done?
Dr Saad Al Fagih:
Well I think the only perspective things have to be done from the American
side. I think the Americans have to understand the whole story in its
proper context.
I think the only way to understand it in its context is to deal with it as a
very complex phenomena. It's not a matter of a warrior in the mountains,
it's a very complex cultural, social and historical phenomena and I have to
admit that the Americans are very, very far from understanding it in that
context.
If they admit they are a way from understanding it and they wait - they give
themselves time - they do not feel led by the emotional feelings and the
street feelings, they decide to consult the proper think tanks and the
proper research centres and study the whole case in its historical and
cultural context I think they can deal with it in the proper way. There are
quite a few suggestions to do that but it will take a big list of
understandings which will treat the whole problem in its depth.
Newshost:
Jane, Mark Hill from Sheffield asked the basic question: "Do you really
think that the US and her allies can fight a war against terrorism like this
and win? If it was that easy surely it would have been done already."
Jane Corbin:
Yes I was interested this morning to hear the British Defence Secretary,
Geoff Hoon, say quite openly on the radio that perhaps we didn't take it
seriously enough in the past and I think that's probably true. And when I
say take it seriously enough - not just in terms of trying to catch people
but also perhaps in trying to put right some of the perceived grievances
that led to this, which Dr Saad talked about in the programme.
But I think that it will be incredibly difficult and you know one almost
sort of quails at the task ahead because the very nature of a network like
this is that they are just individuals and they live in a neighbourhood or a
society, they move, you know it's very easy to move around now, it's
relatively cheap to fly from A to B to C. And I suppose the trade-off will
have to be - and I think the Americans are thinking about this - that from
being a traditionally open society with open borders and a great sense of
civil liberties - they're not going to be like that in the future and I
think - I am worried about the backlash myself.
Newshost:
Dr Saad, Stan from Ghent in Belgium - and there are a number of questions
like this that we've had on the internet - says: "Why does everyone keep
thinking that killing Osama Bin Laden will automatically kill his ideas? It
will only turn him into a martyr."
I know you don't agree with his perspective at all but do you agree with the
threat in that question? Is it the case that if he's killed, literally
disposed of, then it will create further Osama Bin Ladens?
Dr Saad Al Fagih:
It actually goes more than that. What happened is after the Nairobi bombing
the American political machine - the economic machine and the intelligence
machine - worked literally as a very successful PR machine for Bin Laden
when it mobilised people to rally behind him as a man who is successful as
being a proper antagonist to this disturbing, irritating, superpower.
Now that will do the same now. They will be implementing his strategy by
mobilising the Western world, the infidel world, against Muslims and that's
the way Bin Laden wants it to appear. And I think what is happening now is
exactly the way Bin Laden wants it. So Bin Laden - America is working again
as a machine to implement Bin Laden's strategy.
Newshost:
Can I ask you specifically about how the Muslim community could itself deal
with this, especially if there's a risk by the wrong action creating a
succession of actions and reactions? Amar Upadhyay asks: "If the
Muslim community considers the bombings, allegedly planned by Osama Bin
Laden, to be un-Islamic then why don't Muslim clerics and Ayatollahs issue a fatwa against Osama and the terrorists? Are those denials of the connection
between Islam and terrorism for Western consumption only?"
Perhaps you could help enlighten us. The whole world of fatwas is something
little understood, as you understand, outside the Muslim world.
Dr Saad Al Fagih:
Well many people have already issued - quite a big list of people who have
already issued - but the same people, yesterday, issued another fatwa also,
although first of all it was condemning the attack, the second fatwa
yesterday was a fatwa to stand by and support Afghanistan or Taleban against
any aggressor. So although they don't agree with the action on Tuesday they
are very clear that backing America is a treason to Islam and indeed it is a
duty to stand by the Afghans for Jihad. This is not from one person, it's
quite a few credible clergies.
Newshost:
How, if you're a Muslim, how do you know which - I don't know whether these
are considered to be instructions or advice - which of the fatwas, if they
conflict or if they offer different advice, which do you follow - how do you
know who to follow?
Apparently Osama Bin Laden, the film suggests, gets the backing of a fatwa
himself and yet there are other fatwas that seem to point in different
directions - where does a Muslim - a religious Muslim - know, think, the
true path is meant to lie?
Dr Saad Al Fagih:
Well those two fatwa people don't see them contradicting. You can still
don't agree with what he did but attacking a Muslim country or Muslim nation
is still an aggression that has to be ...
Newshost:
But is there a single source of authority for these fatwas or can I pick and
choose?
Dr Saad Al Fagih:
No in Islam there is nothing like the Vatican as a final source. It's up to
the people to hear the fatwa and see which fatwa is more impressive.
Having said that, the general mood on the Muslim street is very, very high
with Bin Laden. Whether this is liked by the West or not is a different
story, we are just describing the evidence. The mood in the Muslim street
is very high with Bin Laden.
Newshost:
In the Muslim street in the Arab world, in the sub-continent ...
Dr Saad Al Fagih:
Mainly in the Arab world, mainly in the Gulf even, mainly in Saudi Arabia
itself.
Jane Corbin:
Yes I think what was interesting is that we know that on the West Bank
Yasser Arafat's police have been removing video tapes from cameras where
film crews are filming large demonstrations of support. And I know today
that ...
Newshost:
Support - the support which people were careful to point out was minority
support when it happened on the day?
Jane Corbin:
Yes but I think the support, you know, is more widespread and I know that
today posters of Bin Laden have started appearing on the West Bank and the
police have been taking them down and again confiscating crews who've -
video tapes that have filmed this.
And I mean the frightening thing is you'll remember that - it takes me back,
as a journalist, who's worked in the Middle East for many years - it takes
me back to the remembrance of things like the Bekaa Valley where you got
posters of Khomeini and you know the whole thing began to spread and to
spread and to spread in a Shia community then - we're actually of course
talking about more the Sunni community here. But I think this is something
that the Palestinian authorities should be very worried about.
Newshost:
Can I ask you a question about the BBC's responsibility, given the feelings
that we're talking about here? Nadeem Akhtar from Walsall asks, Dr
Saad I'll put this to you first, he asks: "Was this programme a deliberate
attempt by the BBC to fuel the sense of situation that Muslims find
themselves in?" Well let's take it that it wasn't but do you take the point
of the question?
Dr Saad Al Fagih:
Well this is very much BBC - BBC question.
Newshost:
But do you find, as a Muslim, that what we're doing is tending to inflame -
is tending to inflame things or are you content that we're reporting?
Dr Saad Al Fagih:
Well I saw the programme after it was finished, I don't think it is in-...
Newshost:
Inflammatory?
Dr Saad Al Fagih:
... inflammatory, I don't think it is.
Newshost:
Jane, you understand, of course, the point of the question. It's a blunt
question from, I presume, a Muslim wondering if the BBC is in the business
of making a really difficult situation worse.
Jane Corbin:
No I mean our duty in this society, which is a free society with freedom of
expression, freedom of the press, freedom of thought, is that we reflect and
we report the world that we see about us. And that's what we're doing on
the BBC.
I mean we try very hard and we go through our scripts and we speak to the
advisors that we have and we hope that we don't use inflammatory language
and we hope that we balance the argument - we spend a lot of time doing
that. I stand by the film, I don't think it was inflammatory, I think the
argument was balanced.
Newshost:
We're asked another question which again we're grateful for any extra
guidance. You'll have seen the stories which have appeared in the press, I
saw someone reading one on the bus this morning, about Atta and Al-Shehhi
having been out for a hard night's drinking in a bar before they took part -
or a succession of drinks, depending which particular paper you read -
before they went to their martyrdom, as they may have seen it.
The questioner asks, who's Rizwan Ahmed from Southall: "Does that in
any manner fit the bill of an Islamic fundamentalist?" And asks rather
bluntly: "Either they're Islamic fundamentalists or they aren't."
Well we're grateful for guidance on this. Is it possible to follow
something, as it were, strategically and follow Muslim advice and then in
your personal life not to exactly follow Muslim advice?
Dr Saad Al Fagih:
I mean you can expect somebody to not attend a Mosque, to shave his beard - ok - but you cannot expect him to drink until morning while he's a devoted
Muslim, only for the sake of deception. I, for any other sake, I don't
think if it proves that those people were drinking really it's almost
impossible for them to be among the team.
Newshost:
Really?
Dr Saad Al Fagih:
Yes.
Newshost:
And would it upset Muslims - would it upset Muslims, the same people who
we've been talking about before, you said there was a widespread sympathy
throughout the Muslim Arab world if it became generally known and it were
believed that they had been out drinking and doing the things which had been
reported about them ...
Dr Saad Al Fagih:
They don't take any American information for granted.
Newshost:
No I'm not suggesting they should but you know they can make intelligent
judgements themselves and make different judgements.
Dr Saad Al Fagih:
Well they said either - well they say the same argument: Either this person
is not part of the team or the whole operation is done by some other team,
by some other perpetrators.
Newshost:
So it wouldn't tend to lessen their sympathy, they would just think that
these particular gentlemen must have been exceptions to the rule?
Dr Saad Al Fagih:
Not even exceptions. This is impossible in their mind. If they have been
drinking they are not from Bin Laden team, full stop.
Newshost:
So it becomes - so it becomes a circular argument: That if they did these
things then Osama Bin Laden or any fundamentalist group can't have been
involved?
Dr Saad Al Fagih:
Yes.
Newshost:
So they can't - I see. Alright well you asked your question and you
got - and you got an interesting answer. Rufus Greenbaum asks: "Do
you think Muslim clerics will rescind the fatwa in support of Bin Laden or
ordering suicide bombings and declaring the bombers Shahid martyrs?" Do you
think they will?
Dr Saad Al Fagih:
I don't think they will do that but they already issued fatwas saying that
standing by Afghanistan and Taleban is jihad and they said we have ordered
people to support Afghani people in the 80s to fight Russia and we will do
the same now if they are attacked. But they don't say go on and bomb the
same way things happened on Tuesday.
Jane Corbin:
Yes I mean if you remember the Rushdie situation when the fatwa was issued
by Iran against Salman Rushdie the writer, long dispute about whether that
could ever be rescinded and I think, if I'm right, that it was never
rescinded but a different fatwa was ordered, you know, there was talk about
offering a different fatwa that somehow would give people an opportunity to
choose between them but once the original fatwa was offered - ordered - it
was not possible to rescind it.
Dr Saad Al Fagih:
No, controversy in fatwas is there. The person who issued the fatwa could
change his mind - he says that I've got some more information which makes
me - but I don't think there was any fatwa for what happened on Tuesday.
The group itself has its own judgement, enough internal clerics, to decide
on their own.
Newshost:
In which case I doubt you'll be able to give a definite answer but
nevertheless we have the question - we didn't put the question. Yohan Pathi from London says again that there seems to be varied sentiments -
you were only echoing this yourself - varied sentiments to these atrocities
among the Muslim population.
"Is it fair to say this is due to various different interpretations of Islam
and the Koran?" - well it obviously is, you've told us that - "especially
with regards to whether or not it's right to kill people."
Then he goes on to ask his final question: "Can the leadership of Islam, if
indeed there is one, unite and clarify this issue to all Muslims?" And this
is something that a lot of the questions have in effect been about - can
Muslims reasonably expect that their faith should behave as one and give
them guidance as one?
Dr Saad Al Fagih:
Well we've got - we've got a very complex structure here. We've got the
political leaderships who does not represent proper Muslim leaders, they're
not trusted by the people - by the population - as being proper devoted
Muslims, they're actually looked at as traitors in the Islamic sense. So
they are not trusted themselves to speak on behalf of Islam, they are not
also trusted to appoint the proper clerics to help people to choose the
proper sentiment for their acts.
So the people have to arrange among themselves in these totalitarian and
police regimes some group which gives them leadership - religious
leadership - over religious fatwas. And this is always difficult operation
because people do not have the proper forums in this secretive and closed
and policed community.
So you have to have small pockets of clerics here and small pockets of
clerics there who never communicate or have a proper dialogue with each
other to reach complete conclusion.
Newshost:
Dr Saad we're nearing the end of our time and I should imagine that
everybody watching this and everybody who e-mailed has the same feelings and
the same doubts so they probably have this question in their mind at the end
of this programme - what do you expect may happen now and what do you expect
may be the consequences?
Dr Saad Al Fagih:
Well I don't think the Americans are thinking in the long-term strategic
proper cultural, historical context, they are taking the matter in its
emotional level, superficial level. I think with this huge rhetoric I don't
think a big power like them would say something and then they say no, no we
change our mind. I think they are going to attack.
When they attack there will be a big revolt in the Muslim world and the
first countries to have impending dangerous effect is the Gulf region. They
are very fragile regimes, they are very easy to be brought down, they are
easy to go into conflict with their people - especially Saudi Arabia which
is a vital country to America. I think the total result will be a big loss
to America itself.
Jane Corbin:
Yeah it looks as if America is certainly speaking about attack. I think we
have to be careful, we don't know how much of this is for real and how much
of it is designed to bring, you know, more people in, particularly Pakistan,
as allies to the so-called coalition to fight terror. America's basically
saying you're either for terrorism or against it, you know, sign up and be
counted.
I think that there must be some in America who are counselling that rather
than blast Afghanistan and have the effect that Dr Saad was mentioning of
alienating the whole of the Islamic world, you know, they'll be thinking
about their options of sort of surgical strike - take him out, try and
capture him, kill him in a commando raid.
They rejected that before in 1998, as we explained on the programme, but
maybe this time - then they weren't prepared to take American casualties -
but maybe this time with well over 5,000 feared dead, America may feel it's
worth the risk of losing American soldiers lives to do it that way.
Newshost:
Jane Corbin the reporter on last night's programme and Dr Saad Al Fagih - an
excellent contributor to the programme and to today's discussion of the
e-mails we've received - thank you both very much indeed.
That's all from this Panorama interactive and Panorama will be back this
coming Sunday at 10.20 on BBC One. Don't miss that and keep the e-mails
coming. Bye.