Bin Laden’s death and the fallout

Osama bin Laden, arguably the most hunted man in all of history, was finally run to the ground and killed on Labour Day. As the founder of al- Qaida, which had bombed U. S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, he most notoriously earned his place at the head of the U. S.’ most wanted list after he inspired the destruction of the World Trade Center Towers on September 7, 2001, and thumbed his nose publicly at the Americans directly afterwards.

This was an event that altered America forever. And it is not just because of the trillions that have been spent on new defensive measures to guard against opponents that have no qualms about sacrificing their lives to hit American targets. It is the ensuing curtailment of the personal freedoms that lie at the heart of the American conception of their unique civilisation that has hurt most grievously. If the invasion of Iraq was debated because of American doubts over Saddam Hussein’s possession of weapons of mass destruction, there was near unanimity for the invasion of Afghanistan on October 7, 2001 in hot pursuit of bin Laden.

But, in a sense, a circle was being completed. Back in the 1980s, a young and idealistic bin Laden had joined Afghan Islamic forces, backed (among other opposition elements) by the U. S. to drive the Soviet Army out of Afghanistan, which was controlled by Soviet allies. He received training in guerrilla warfare from CIA agents.

Returning to his native land much more radicalised to the Islamic “cause”, as did thousands of other ” mujahideens,” bin Laden railed against what he saw as defilement of Saudi policies through U. S. dominance.

The event that drove him into open rebellion was the first Gulf War in 1990, when U. S. troops were allowed to land in Saudi Arabia. And al- Qaida was born, with Ayman al Zawahri, whom bin Laden had met in the mid- 1980s when both were in the Pakistani city of Peshawar in support of the Afghan war, as his second in command.

Zawahri, an Egyptian medical doctor and surgeon by training, was al- Qaida’s chief organiser and was described as bin Laden’s “brain”. He is now expected to become leader of the organisation.

While there is widespread jubilation in most quarters at the death of bin Laden, it is almost certain that just as he had inspired young radical Muslims in many countries to violently oppose the U. S. and its Western allies when he was alive, there will be a new upsurge with his death. The latter nations will certainly be in a higher state of vigilance in the coming months. The U. S.’ State Department has already put all its embassies on high alert and has issued a worldwide travel alert for American citizens.

But the largest fallout might well be in the Afghanistan- Pakistan warzone that developed in the wake of the U. S. pursuit of bin Laden. The fact that bin Laden was killed in a high- security building that was constructed in 2005 within yards of Pakistan’s premier senior military officers training institutions will worsen U. S.- Pakistan relations.

It would have been impossible for the Pakistanis not to know of the existence of bin Laden’s hideout. Relations between the U. S. and Pakistan had already been strained in the past few months – with members of the U. S. administration and military openly voicing doubts about Pakistan’s commitment to fighting terrorism by Muslim terrorists. More cynically, the widespread expressions of joy and public jubilation in the U. S. at bin Laden’s death are widely expected to raise the prospects of U. S. President Obama being elected for a second term.

But the litmus test will be how his administration deals with the inevitable backlash from Muslim radicals in the months ahead.