BEN LADEN: THE AYATOLLAHS HERO
By Navid
TEHRAN 31 Mar. (IPS) The official rhetoric of president Mohammad Khatami’s government condemning the 11 September attacks on the United States and generally speaking, a condemnation of "global terrorism", didn’t hide a deep pro-Al Qa’eda feeling among high-ranking Iranian ayatollahs, who, given the "complexity" of the operations, tend to believe that Mr. Osama Ben Laden, the leader of "Al-Qa’eda", must have been "inspired" by divinity.
Many Muslims, including some Islamist intellectuals and scholars, let alone muftis and ayatollahs, genuinely share this belief, considering the deadly attacks on the World Trade Center as an "act of God" aimed at punishing the United States for its unconditional and one sided support for Israel.
However, some experts on terrorism notes that the 11 September operation was nothing more than a "law-tech, cutter-type" terrorist action carried out by a new brand of highly educated, well-off terrorists, the kind of the Egyptian Mohammad Atta, who piloted the first plane into the twin towers.
A few months before the fall of the Taleban in Afghanistan, former Intelligence Minister Hojjatoleslam Qorbanali Dorri-Najafabadi had described the now defeated Taleban as "a perfect regime that had been able to bring peace and security in Afghanistan" and asked why the Iranian authorities could not do the same nice job? And former president Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani had suggested that Muslims should destroy Israel with Atomic bomb.
This spirit, which is very similar to that of Mr. Ben Laden, the man the American believe is behind the 11 September, has for years motivated the ruling Iranian cleric’s support for terrorism. However, and despite sending very large sums of money and providing logistic help for various terrorist groups in the region and around the world, they had never been able to mount anything like the 11 September operation.
Many in Iran have no doubt that Iranian ayatollahs were dreaming of an 11 September-style attack on the United States, hence their fascination for Ben Laden, as he accomplished what they had dreamt of for years.
That is why they are explaining this event, considered by them as "very complex and complicated, something an ordinary man could not have conceived and achieve" but with the "divine help". Some ayatollahs in Qom, the "cradle" of militant Shi’sm, see Ben Laden as another messenger, or messiah, the one who, according to many Muslims, is supposed to surface to bring rule of God, when the world is full of sin, corruption and disorder.
Take a taxi in Qom or in Tehran and the driver will tell you that blessed by the divinity, Ben Laden had been inspired by the Almighty.
United by their ideology, which goes back to their years of studies at the famous Haqqani Koranic school in the city of Qom, considered as the "cradle" of militant Shi’a, and inspiring themselves from the most extremist Islamic thinkers like Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah Yazdi, nicknamed "Temsah" (crocodile) Yazdi because of his uncompromising views of Islam, they are partisans of a deadly combat against the United States and Israel, referred by them "the great and the little Satan".
Not a long time ago, Ayatollah Mesbah-Yazdi, who is the most influential and respected theologist at the Haqqani School, was quoted as saying that it was a duty for Muslims to kill anyone they saw as endangering Islam.
This is the reason why many Iranians are persuaded that high-ranking mullahs believe it is their duty to protect and help Ben Laden, increasing the doubts that they are actually helping him.
In interviews with the press, high-ranking American officials have hinted that the master terrorist, whose fate and whereabouts is still a mystery, might have fled to Iran immediately after, or shortly before the 11 September.
Tehran confirmed recently American accusations that some members of Taleban regime and the Al Qa’eda were in hiding in Iran.
After months of vehement denials, an unidentified Intelligence official told recently the leader-controlled Iranian Television that 150 Afghans, Arabs and even Europeans, suspected to be supporters of both Taleban and Al Qa’eda terrorist network had been detained in border areas with Pakistan and accused Isamabad for having "dumped" them in Iran.
Thanks to its close links with Ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i, the leader of the Islamic Republic, the most fundamentalist faction in the Iranian theocratic leadership has been able to get its hands on all the un-elected institutions of the country, thus controlling the whole country.
They form the political elite of the system and are at the centre of every strategic decision, ignoring the parliament and the government entirely.
Former Justice Head Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, for example is the head of the powerful Council of Guardians, Ayatollah Ali Meshkini presides over the Assembly of Experts, the only institution that names the leader and has the power to remove him, and former president ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani rules over the Assembly for Discerning the Interests of the State, an arbitration body and the Iraqi-born Ayatollah Mahmood Hashemi-Shahroodi is the Head of the judiciary power. ENDS AYATOLLAHS HERO 31302