Posted on 10/25/2001 8:30:14 AM PDT by Travis McGee
I have come up with what I think is going to happen next in the ongoing drama. Forgive this vanity post, but I think the idea demands discussion in advance of the possible event.
I think OBL is heading for Karachi or Islamabad.
He will stay in Pakistan because it has nukes and medium range rockets, is unstable and ready to blow up like Iran in 79, and of course is closest to Afghanistan for covert travel ease. He wants to be seen as the Mahdi, (Moslem messiah, the next Prophet of Allah) and to do that he needs the adoring masses, and proof that he has humiliated and beaten the Great Satan (and the lackey sell-out government of Musharraf). His "miraculous" escape from under the Amriki bombers and his secret journey to Pakistan will "prove" that the Hand of Allah is protecting and guiding him.
To ensure his safety he will at all times be surrounded by millions of fanatics in densely packed slums where we can not bomb him or send in troops. The micro-model for this will be "Blackhawk Down", the Battle of Mogadishu where (in the Moslem view) they won a great victory and drove the USA out of Somalia. Al Q'aida was instrumental in that battle, particularly by introducing modified anti-helicopter time-fused air-bursting RPGs, and the tactics which led to the shootdowns of several US helicopters, which caused the simple half hour Delta/Ranger "snatch" raid to spin out of control into a furious day and night long battle.
Every day that OBL is loose, appearing like a Super Pope on balconies in front of 100s of thousands of adoring jihadists, his power and influence worldwide will soar like a moon rocket. He will have the 24/7 attention of the entire world media for his every pronouncement, and then he can "ascend" into heaven proving he is truly the Mahdi. Even if we drop a smart bomb on his balcony, he "ascends to heaven" and wins.
If we dare to risk a helicopter/ground attack into the teeming slums to capture or kill him, he will get his "super battle of Mogadishu", which will suit his purpose by killing countless thousands of Moslem noncombatants, driving the entire Moslem world instantly into a world war on America.
And of course any smart bomb we dared to use to kill OBL will kill hundreds of adoring moslem children, proving what bloodthirsty butchers the infidels are.
Even if snipers or or precision fired Hellfire rockets "take him out" on his balcony, we may only kill an OBL double, allowing "the Mahdi" to be "resurrected from the dead" for new appearances, driving his power and influence still higher into the stratosphere.
This scenario has been his ultimate goal all along I believe. I wonder if anyone at the NSC, CIA , NSA or DOS has prepared a counter move to this very possible, even likely, scenario?
I agree.
History has a place in all this, as does Islamic prophecy. Osama bin Laden did not choose to hide out in Afghanistan because he necessarily liked that part of the world. Nor was it because he kind of nominally fought the Russians there. In fact the Arabs, like bin Laden, did little fighting against the Russians. Even now many Afghani fighters look on them as interlopers.
BUT Osama bin Laden understands that, as one historian related, "dying by the thousands to defend the only nation in the world that is actually run by some form of Islamic law (the Shari'ah) they will come and they will die. Not just from Afghanistan and Pakistan but as far afield as Indonesia, Malaysia, the Gulf, Central Asia, Northwest Africa, etc. They did it once before, they will do it again."
Afghanistan has special significance to the world of militant Islam. It was once called Khurasan, along with parts of Iran and Pakistan. Muhammad said: "If you see the black flags coming from Khurasan, join that army, even if you have to crawl over ice, for that is the army of the Imam al-Mahdi and no one can stop that army until it reaches Jerusalem." That is one reason Osama bin Laden chose it as his base, or al-Qaida.
The fundamentalists in the Muslim world are waiting for the prophecy of Muhammad to be fulfilled. Muslims will come and fight because Khurasan (Afghanistan) cannot fall. Whether Shi'a or Sunni, just as certain millennial Christians await the coming of Christ the Muslim world of a certain bent believes it is on the verge of the return of the a precursor of the end times, and that is Imam al-Mahdi.
Now, anyone got a source on Diane Alden's quotation?
Post it here, and on this companion thread...
This also sits in the backs of the minds of many so called moderate Muslims. A Pakistani I once worked with mentioned that one day a leader will come from what is now Pakistan or afganistan and unite all the world. this was at least ten years ago.
Stay well - stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktown
Much of his organization is not in Afghanistan and will not be affected either way. If OBL chooses to be thought of as dead, and he is still alive, he will be able to carry on with less activity focused on him. If he's actually dead, the organization can decide either to make it seem like he's alive and has outfoxed the US, it can declare he's dead and let everyone get complacent, or it can say nothing.
But the types of weapons we're using don't make forensic identification easy so we may never know for sure, and will just have to keep guessing. In other parts of the world this will keep his legend alive.
Only after passing the last signpost and finding themselves in the midst of Mordor will they begin to recognize where they are. Look how many signs have been blithely ignored since Lebanon.
Free nations have the choice of beginning WWIII on top or winding up on the bottom.
Their present actions are not encouraging.
Why in heaven's name is Powell talking of rebuilding Afghanistan ? Another attempt to mollify our coalition "friends" before even one objective of the "war on terrorism" has yet to be achieved ? Bush was not joking when he said this would be like no other war we've ever seen.
Stay well - Stay safe - stay armed - Yorktown
He wants to be seen as the MahdiTHIS is what one of CNN's questions should have been.
Are you the Mahdi?
He would never answer it. Either a yes or no answer would be a death sentence for him.
Ummm ... the Wahhabis already control Saudi Arabia and Saudi Arabia is already Talibanesque. In fact, Saudi Arabia created the Taliban through Pakistan. They are our "friends" because they are afraid of Iraq, not because they truly like us. OBL's beef is that they've let us running dog infidels hang about Mohammed's Holy Peninsula a little too long.
OBL? I prefer "Sammi", but that's personal preference.
Make that a "head wound" and you and Travis have just written the emergence of the Anti-Christ.
The notion that Osama could suddenly appear in Rawalpindi, Lahore or Karachi, proclaim himself Mahdi, and trigger a revolution is fantasy. He would immediately disappear into the clutches of the Pak police. And they don't believe in due process or Miranda rights.
Read down for the quotes about the Black Flag Army, Khurusan, Imam Mahdi, etc.
"Taliban infiltrators are quietly colonising Pakistani border areas and setting up a logistics base which is being boosted by volunteers, medical treatment, cash and food.US warplanes roar overhead on their way to Afghanistan but they cannot touch the Taliban networkers who are successfully tapping religious, tribal and family ties, making the wild, sun-baked plains of Baluchistan province a sanctuary from the bombing.
Several times a week ambulances deposit wounded fighters at hospitals in Quetta, the province's biggest city, and in the opposite direction new recruits and former veterans, including doctors, make the six-hour car drive to Kandahar, the Taliban's spiritual stronghold in southern Afghanistan.
Daily donations collected at mosques, bazaars, homes and offices now exceed £10,000, according to Said Sanan, a Taliban officer who defected to Pakistan two weeks ago. "Baluchistan is important to the Taliban. They are soaking up the support."
In an ominous development for the allies, two US helicopters came under fire in Pakistan earlier this week as they tried to retrieve the wreckage of another helicopter which crashed during a raid.
Some analysts say Baluchistan could become a rallying point from which militants could launch a guerrilla campaign against a post-Taliban government should they be ousted from Afghanistan."
The Taliban's popularity grows as the bombing continues. "My God, it is terrible, the Taliban's support is increasing by the day," said Maudir Bakht, a political scientist at Quetta's university. "Before the bombing they were disliked by a majority of Pakistanis but now there is a level of moral and humanitarian support which may start turning military."
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