The brigades are named after Abdullah Azzam, Osama bin Laden’s Palestinian mentor whose charisma and oratory drew thousands of foreign fighters to Afghanistan to fight the Soviet invasion in the mid-’80s, creating the core of al-Qaeda. He also helped found Hamas. Azzam was assassinated in a bomb attack in Peshawar in 1989. Though no one knows for certain who was behind the assassination, many blame Ayman al-Zawahiri, the current leader of al-Qaeda. The two men argued frequently over the meaning and goals of jihad. Azzam’s son-in-law and confidant, the Algerian mujahid Abdullah Anas, told TIME in 2009 that his father-in-law would be appalled by the current justifications of jihad practiced by groups similar to the Abdullah Azzam Brigades. “He called people to fight in Afghanistan because it was occupied by the Soviets. If he saw what happened in Iraq and what is happening in Palestine he would say the same thing. But what is going on in the name of jihad, killing civilians, kidnapping, hijacking airplanes, explosions in the public places — that is not what Abdullah Azzam called a jihad.” Read more: The Abdullah Azzam Brigades: Behind the Terrorist Group That Bombed Iran’s Beirut Embassy | TIME world.time/2013/11/20/the-abdullah-azzam-brigades-behind-the-group-that-bombed-irans-beirut-embassy/#ixzz2lLLizNvv
Posted on: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 03:57:57 +0000
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