A rchive Date
[ 20-02-2005 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Pakistan ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/fisher_oct16.html
'Star of the Islamic world'
Bin Linden pal tells of his rise to infamy
By MATTHEW FISHER -- Sun Columnist at Large
October 16, 2001
PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- Tuuruuli Hemat's wife gave birth to a son over the weekend. As has happened many times recently in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Hemat named their son Osama.
Most Afghans who have done this do so because to them Osama bin Laden is a hero. Hemat did so because the world's most wanted man was a treasured friend from the long years that Afghan and Arab mujihadeen fought the Soviet Red Army.
"Osama came to us in 1983 as one of the first seven Arabs to join our fight," Hemat said, rhyming off the names of the others including Abu Haffas, an Egyptian who is still believed to be with bin Laden in Afghanistan.
"Osama was introduced to me as an important leader who wanted to be with good fighters. When he came to us he had no meat, only bones," said Hemat, who was only 20 at the time, but already a legendary commander. "He sometimes smiled and joked and would sing religious songs.
"The reason he was placed with me is that I had the advantage of speaking Arabic. Our first operation was attacking a Russian convoy travelling from Khost to Kabul."
Bin Laden never left Hemat's side for the next month. After that they fought side by side occasionally for the next nine years in Afghanistan or met at the office that bin Laden kept in Peshawar. The last time they saw each other was when they visited Mecca together in 1992.
Bin Laden's office was in a pleasant house with lots of palm trees hidden behind a concrete wall at 40C Abdul Quam St. in tony University Town. It was only a few blocks away from the place where Hemat spoke about his infamous friend.
When they were introduced, bin Laden used the alias Sheikh Abdu Abdullah, Hemat said. Years later bin Laden switched to the pseudonym, Rajul Alwal.
"When we first met it was January and very cold, but Osama was very religious. He would get up in the middle of night to pray. He was very brave and willing to go to the front line.
"Once near Jalalabad, many of the Arabs, including close friends of his, died in a battle, but Osama was undisturbed. This had no effect on his mind. By then he was very famous and popular among the Arab mujihadeen. He always told the mujihadeen to never fight with each other. He always ate with common soldiers, never apart."
If not for bin Laden's infamy, Hemat would be a fascinating subject in his own right. A small, animated man in a lavender cotton pajama-like suit, he was missing his right thumb and a fair chunk of his upper right arm. He asked visitors to feel three of the seven bullets that were still lodged in his lower right leg, his back and his right shoulder.
Now a religious teacher in a mosque, he joked that he weighed 60 kilos, or 61 kilos when the bullets were counted. He added that whenever he went through metal detectors at airports he always triggered their alarms.
Hemat boasted that his unit "had killed 4,021 Russians and communists while losing 157 men" between 1979 and 1992. He thought it unlikely that bin Laden was responsible for the terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon because he remembered bin Laden refusing to launch attacks on Jalalabad and Kabul when civilians would have been hurt.
Hemat also doubted that bin Laden would be found any time soon. Switching from Pushto to Farsi, he used an expression that roughly translated as "it takes a crazy man to find a crazy man."
When away from the fighting Hemat and bin Laden often found refuge in the tribal areas of northern Pakistan. On their first trip together there, the slight 39-year-old self-described Islamic scholar remembered bin Laden bought out all the clothing in the shops for his soldiers. On another trip he distributed 5,000 rupees each to hundreds of women fleeing a Russian attack.
"We asked him how he could do this but he said, 'Don't worry about it,' " Hemat said. "We didn't know at the time that he was rich."
Bin Laden's mother, who had remarried when his father died, came from Saudi Arabia with her second husband in 1989 to try to persuade her son to come home. Hemat said that bin Laden refused, saying that "Almighty Allah has written a day for my death."
"This is a great opportunity for Osama," Hemat said. "If he dies, he goes to paradise. If he lives, he is the star of the Islamic world."
Matthew can be e-mailed at 74511.357@CompuServe.com or visit his home page.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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