44
OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home
67
OCTOBER 7, 2021
Why Israel is Wary about the Taliban’s Takeover of Afghanistan
THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME
From Kabul to Jenin to Jerusalem BY SHAMMAI SISKIND
A
bdullah Yusuf Azzam was born in the village of Silat Al-Khartiya near Jenin in 1941. As a child, he witnessed the hostilities leading up to Israel’s War of Independence in what was at that time Mandate Palestine. A child prodigy, he spent his teenage and young adult years studying in religious and academic institutions in Syria and the Jordan-controlled West Bank. Following the Six Day War, Azzam followed thousands of his fellow Palestinians in a mass exodus out of the territories captured by Israel. He
ies in Jeddah and was eager to rejoin his mentor. Scion to a prestigious and wealthy Saudi family, Bin Laden was a tremendous asset in Azzam’s efforts to recruit and deploy troops, as well as raise funds for the war. In 1984, Azzam and Bin Laden founded Bait ul-Ansar (House of Helpers) in Peshawar to expand their ability to support “Afghan Arab” jihad volunteers. It was from the Bait ul-Ansar that Bin Laden formed his private militia, a force that became legendary in the Afghan-Soviet War and eventually formed the base of his transnational terror group Al-Qaeda. After ending his hands-on involvement in Afghanistan, Azzam traveled the world inspiring Muslim communities to participate in and otherwise support jihadist wars. His stops included dozens of Western cities in both Europe and the United States. By the late 1980s, Azzam was an international superstar in the world of Islamist militantism, and his influence was only growing. But decades in the world of armed conflict garnered Azzam more than a few enemies. In 1989, Azzam was assassinated in Peshawar when a roadside bomb detonated near his vehicle while he was driving to Friday prayers. The identity of the culprits remains unknown.
I
t is difficult to overstate the influence Azzam’s activities and writings had on the trends of global jihad over the past twoand-a-half decades. He inspired militant movements from central Asia to the West Bank. He
B A LT I M O R E J E W I S H H O M E . C O M
Abdullah Yusuf Azzam
settled in Jordan and joined the local branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. By this time, Azzam had already been identified as a skilled orator and religious preacher, someone who could really rally the troops for the Islamist cause. But Azzam did not just talk the talk. He was himself a devoted jihadist warrior. Shortly after arriving in Jordan, Azzam was participating in terror operations against Israel in the Jordan Valley and elsewhere in collaboration with various Palestinian groups. In the early 1970s, Azzam returned to his studies after being accepted to the prestigious Al Azhar University in Egypt, one of the most respected religious institutions in the Muslim world. With a PhD in Islamic Jurisprudence under his belt, Azzam was offered a professorship at the King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where he would remain until 1979. It was there that Azzam met his future protege, a young and aspiring student by the name of Osama Bin Laden. Following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Azzam decided to abandon his academic career and devoted himself full time to marshlaing – the Muslim world for jihad. He moved to Pakistan and settled in the western province of Peshawar, mere kilometers from the Afghan border. The Maktab al-Khadamat (command center) he established there was instrumental in recruiting and organizing the tens of thousands of volunteers from the Middle East, central Asia, and Europe who came to fight the Soviets. Meanwhile, Bin Laden had completed his stud-
