Hi Pisano,
Thank you for raising a very important issue to consider.
After the public relations of Luxor, these considerations you raise were all hotly debated by the IG and EIJ senior leaders in telephone conference calls intercepted by the FBI. Thus, there is no need to make assumptions. The transcripts were made exhibits in the trial of the post office worker. Respectively, the transcripts show you are mistaken — there was great concern about the wisest approach, one calculated to win public support while gaining the release of thousands imprisoned in Egypt.
Apart from that, there was a requirement under the hadiths to provide warning before the use of nonconventional weapons. At the time there was no fatwa authorizing the use of a biological weapons against civilians. The islamic jurisprudence was of the utmost importance to the militants as their very souls were at stake.
Moreover, there was the small matter that they were well-integrated US-based operatives. They certainly would not want to drop it on their head or kill people they knew.
Finally, they were capable only of small scale production. As it was, they caused $6 billion in damage with a few grams.
As for WMD in Iraq, proper analysis at the time would have led to the conclusion the Salafists being responsible, not Saddam. VP Cheney pointed to Al Qaeda in a PBS interview with Lehrer. See CHENEY, at 356-359 (2007) His analysis was sound from the start.
Under your logic, the militants were not responsible for the 1997 al Hayat letter bombs to DC and NYC newspapers and people in symbolic positions because they could have instead blown up the buildings.
The specifics of the true crime or intelligence analysis are provided in outline form at:
http://www.anthraxandalqaeda.com
Pisano, as an example of strict adherence to hadiths revealed in the transcripts, Post office employee and blind sheik spokesman Abdel Sattar, explained in his 2004 trial testimony that in an interview, Mustafa Hamza, who took over from Taha as Islamic Group leader after the Luxor debacle in which in 58 tourists were murdered, was asked how can you explain killing tourists, raiding jewelry stores in such operations. Mustafa Hamza answered in every moment and action, the group starts off by consulting with the righteous Olama. No action is initiated without fatwas from our trusted Olama — meaning scholars in the plural In other words, before carrying out an operation, they get a fatwa. He confirmed that fatwas are important because they are authoritative statements by religious leaders declaring what is and is not Islamically permissible. Sattar had a copy of the book written by former Islamic Group leader Taha justifying the attacks that had been committeed, to include Luxor that was uploaded at the website maintained by London-based Vanguards of Conquest publicist Al-Sirri.
The Koran and hadiths provide extensive guidance on the honorable conduct of warfare. One of the leading non-muslim expert on the subject was Princeton’s Bernard Lewis. For years, Princeton University Middle Eastern history Professor Emeritus Bernard Lewis’ writing on the clash between islam and the west would be translated by the Muslim brotherhood and handed out as pamphlets outside of mosques. After the 1998 “Crusaders” statement by Bin Laden and Zawahiri, Lewis wrote an article “License to Kill, Usama Bin Ladin’s Declaration of Jihad,” in Foreign Affairs: “Obviously, the West must defend itself by whatever means will be effective. But in devising strategies to fight the terrorists, it would surely be useful to understand the forces that drive them.” After 9/11, Lewis, a professor emeritus at Princeton University, admonished the Pentagon Defence Policy Board to consider how much worse the devastation could have been on Sept. 11 if the terrorists had used a weapon of mass destruction —such as Iraq was said to possess.
In a September 27, 2001, in an Op Ed in the Wall Street Journal, the 87 year-old historian explained the use of biochemical weapons by Al Qaeda: “the laws of jihad categorically preclude wanton and indiscriminate slaughter. The warriors in the holy war are urged not to harm noncombatants, women and children, ‘unless they attack you first.’ Even such questions as missile and chemical warfare are addressed, the first in relation to mangonels and catapults, the other to the use of poison-tipped arrows and poisoning enemy water supplies. Here the jurists differ— some permit, some restrict, some forbid these forms of warfare. A point on which they insist is the need for a clear declaration of war before beginning hostilities, and for proper warning before resuming hostilities after a truce. As Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman once said in the context of criticizing Sadat’s peace with Israel: “Believers govern according to God’s laws and do not change or replace a single letter or word of them.”
In an essay “Islam and Terrorism,” Bilal Philips, a key religious mentor of GMU’s microbiology grad Ali Al-Timimi, explained the principles of islamic jurisprudence of islamic warfare:
“Islam opposes any form of indiscriminate violence. The Quran states: “Anyone who has killed another except in retaliation, it is as if he has killed the whole of humankind.” [Quran Surah #32 Verse #5] There are strict rules regulating how war may be conducted. Prophet Muhammad forbade the killing of women, children, and old people and the destruction of Churches and Synagogues or farms. Of course, if women, children or the elderly bear arms they may be killed in self-defense.”
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“Defending Islam and the Muslim community is a primary aspect of the physical jihad which involves taking up arms against an enemy. God states in the Quran “Permission to fight has been given to those who have been attacked because they are wronged. And indeed, Allah is Most Powerful.” [Quran Surah #22 Verse #39] and “Fight in the cause of Allah against those who fight against you, but do not transgress the limits. Indeed Allah does not love transgressors.” [Quran Surah #2 Verse #190]. Muslims are also enjoined to fight against tyranny. The Quran states, “Why shouldn’t you fight in the cause of Allah and for those oppressed because they are weak. Men, women and children who cry out, ‘Our Lord! Rescue us from this town of oppressors’” [Quran Surah #4 Verse #75]”
As Ali Al Timimi once explained: “Modern warfare did not exist during those times when they wrote those classical books of fiqh.” The old principles therefore must be relied upon to guide the issue in new times.
Spokesman al-Kuwaiti was giving a plain warning in the Fall 2001 letter claimed — not disclosed until 2006 — that the green light had been given for US -bio attack (1) from folks that were US-based, (2) above suspicion, and (3) with access to US and UK government and intelligence information. “The Truth about the New Crusade: A Ruling on the Killing of Women and Children of the Non-Believers,” by Ramzi bin al-Shibh, argues that “the sanctity of women, children, and the elderly is not absolute” and concludes that “in killing Americans who are ordinarily off limits, Muslims should not exceed four million noncombatants, or render more than ten million of them homeless.” Spokesman Abu Ghaith used the same figure in June 2002 in arguing in favor of the moral right to use biological or chemical weapons.
A book commemorating the September 11 “raid” was published by Majallat al-Ansar and consisted of four essays. It addresses the importance that any attack comply with the laws of Sharia. “Some people see fit to raise the issue of Islamic principles of warfare. They claim that the raid does not observe those principles and that Sharia errors occurred. Some ‘modern’ legal scholars see the raid as a violation of the Sharia. ..Everyone knows that the groups in the traditionalist mujahid movement are more committed than anyone else to Sharia in their actions. After all, their actions can cost them their dearest possession after their faith — their souls.” While purporting not to want to get entangled in a discussion of the legal technicalities, the author then addressed at length why the attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon was justified under the laws of sharia.
Vince Cannistraro, a former chief of CIA counter-terrorist operations, discussed the requirement of warning under the laws of jihad on NPR in connection with the Al Qaeda audiotape by Bin Laden that aired shortly before the November 2004 election. In the case of anthrax, Ayman Zawahiri likely considers that the warning required under the laws of jihad has been given.
Zawahiri is the grandson of and quite proud of the well-known “Pious Ambassador,” who was President of Cairo University. Dr. Zawahiri is reserving himself a spot in a bad place by reason of his botched analysis of the hadiths and teachings of Mohammed governing warfare (no women, children, noncombatants etc.) The same principles prohibit attacking livestock, crops or wells. Judging by the interpretive texts, it would seem that Al Qaeda and the anthrax mailer has violated the Quran and hadiths by killing noncombatant women and children, and even the aged. It cannot be persuasively argued that those noncombatant women and children and the aged attacked the jihadists first. An infant visiting ABC was infected by the anthrax. Before the military tribunal, KSM says the koran forbids killing children. He noted that warfare is guided by the koran and hadiths. Thus, the harshest judgment may await true believers in another world.
The head of Egyptian Islamic Group, who approved of Sadat’s assassination and was released after a quarter-century in prison, said of 9/11:
“The killing of businessmen is forbidden by Islamic law and the World Trade Center was all businessmen. The killing of women and children and old people is forbidden by Islamic law and many of those were killed in the building. The killing of Muslims is prohibited by Islamic law and there were more than 600 Muslim men and women in the Trade Center among those killed.
These are innocent and intelligent spirits and Bin Laden and those with him will have to account for them...and God knows.”