Ibn-ul-Khattab

Nickname or 'nom de guerre': Ibn-ul-Khattab, also

known as Khattab

Real name: Undisclosed

Position: Ameer (Commander) of the Foreign Mujahideen

Forces in the Caucasus

Born: 1970

Nationality: GCC Member State in the Arabian Gulf

Languages spoken: Arabic, Russian, English, Pushto

Birthplace: Arabian Gulf

Experience in Jihad: 12 years

Lands of Jihad visited: Afghanistan, Tajikistan,

Chechnya

"If you would have told me in Afghanistan that a day

will come when we will be fighting the Russians INSIDE

Russia, I would never have believed you."

[Ibn-ul-Khattab]

Born in the Arabian Gulf, Khattab was brought up in a

relatively wealthy and educated family. He grew up to

be a brave and strong teenager, who was known to be

daring and fearless. After mastering the English

language, he obtained a place in an American High

School in 1987. 1987 was the peak of the Afghan Jihad

against the invading army of the (then) Soviet Union.

Youngsters from all over the Muslim world were

flocking to Afghanistan after responding to the calls

of Jihad made by Islamic personalities such as Sheikh

Abdullah Azzam (assassinated 1989), Sheikh Tamim

Adnani (died 1988) and Usama bin Ladin. Miraculous

accounts of heroic feats and daring displays of valour

against the World Superpower were reaching the ears of

the Muslims. As the time approached for him to leave

for a new life of education in the U.S., Khattab

decided to follow many of his friends and relatives to

Afghanistan for a short visit. Since the day he waved

good-bye to his parents and family, at the end of

1987, he has never returned home since.

One of the Mujahideen describes the young teenage

Khattab who arrived at his first training camp in

Jalalabad, Afghanistan:

"The training camp near Jalalabad was full of brothers

coming and leaving almost every day. We were preparing

for a large operation against the Russians and those

brothers who had completed their training were packing

their bags and leaving the camp to go to the

front-line. As we were preparing to leave for the

front-line, a group of new recruits arrived. It was

then that I noticed a young teenage boy amongst the

new recruits: 16-17 years old, with long hair and a

beard that had not yet begun to grow fully yet.

Immediately, he went to the commanders of the training

camp and starting pleading with them to let him go to

the Front-line. The commanders obviously refused to

send a young untrained boy to the Front without any

training. I went over, greeted him and asked him his

name. He replied, 'Ibn-ul-Khattab'"

Khattab completed his training and then went to the

Front. One of his trainers was Hassan As-Sarehi, the

Commander of the famous Lion's Den operation in Jaji,

Afghanistan, 1987. [Hassan As-Sarehi has been

imprisoned in Ar-Ruwais Concentration Camp, Jeddah,

Saudi Arabia since 1996 on allegations of a crime

whose accusees have already been executed.] Over the

next six years, this young boy was to turn into one of

the bravest and most formidable Mujahideen commanders

that the world has known in the 20th Century. He was

known for his refusal to duck from oncoming fire and

his refusal to show pain after an injury. From

ambushes to operations to raids, he fought the Soviet

Regular and Special Forces, being present in all the

major operations in the Afghan Jihad between 1988 and

1993, including the conquests of Jalalabad, Khost and

Kabul. He escaped death on a number of occasions, as

it his time had not yet arrived.

One of the Mujahideen describes how Khattab was once

shot in the stomach by a 12.7mm Heavy Machine Gun

bullet in Afghanistan. (12.7mm ammunition is used to

pierce armour and to break through fortified

positions: it makes mincemeat out of human flesh, as

any military expert will testify.):

"During one of the operations, we were sitting in the

room of a small house in the Second Line. It was

evening time and the fighting on the Front Line was

very tough. A few moments later, Khattab entered the

room; his face was looking pale, but other than that

he seemed to act normal. He came in, walked very

slowly to the other side of the room and sat down next

to us. Khattab was unusually quiet, so the brothers

sensed that something must be wrong, even though he

did not even flinch once nor show any signs of pain.

We asked him if he had got hurt; he replied that on

the Front, he had received a light injury, nothing

serious. One of the brothers then went over to him to

see the injury. Khattab refused to let him see, adding

that the injury was nothing serious. This brother

forced Khattab to let him see and then felt his hand

on Khattab's abdomen. He saw that his clothes were

soaked with blood and he was bleeding heavily. We then

immediately called a vehicle and rushed him to the

nearest field hospital, during which he was

complaining all the time that the injury was light and

nothing serious."

It was in Afghanistan that Khattab lost two fingers of

his right hand whilst attempting to throw a homemade

grenade. The grenade exploded in his hand and two of

his fingers were severed by the explosion. His fellow

Mujahideen tried to persuade him to go to Peshawar for

medical attention, but Khattab refused, insisting that

putting some honey on the wound (like the Sunnah of

the Prophet Muhammad SAWS) and bandaging it will do

the job and that there is no need to go all the way to

Peshawar. His fingers have remained in a similar

bandage ever since that day.

As the Soviet Army withdrew from Afghanistan and the

Communists were defeated by the Mujahideen, Khattab

and a small group of friends heard about the war

against the same enemy, but this time in Tajikistan.

He then packed his bags and went over to Tajikistan in

1993 with a small group of brothers. Two years they

stayed there fighting the Russians in snowy,

mountainous terrain with a lack of proper weapons and

ammunition.

After two years in Tajikistan, Khattab returned with

his small group to Afghanistan, early in 1995. It was

at this time that the war in Chechnya had just begun

and everyone was confused as to the religious

inclinations of the Chechens and the religious

significance of this war.

Khattab describes his feelings when he saw the news

about Chechnya on satellite television one evening in

Afghanistan:

"When I saw groups of Chechens wearing headbands with

'La ilaha illalah...' (There is no god but Allah and

Muhammad is His Messenger) written on them, and

shouting takbeers (Allahu-Akbar), I decided that there

was a Jihad going on in Chechnya and I must go there."

From Afghanistan, Khattab travelled with a group of

eight of his fellow Mujahideen, direct to Chechnya,

arriving there in the Spring of 1995. The next four

years were to make Khattab's exploits in Afghanistan

and Tajikistan look like games in a nursery

playground. According to official Russian statistics,

more Russian soldiers were killed in three years of

the war in Chechnya than were killed in the entire

ten-year Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

Khattab was joined by a few more of his fellow

Mujahideen from Afghanistan and they set about

training the local Chechens in both military warfare

and Islamic knowledge. They carried out a number of

daring operations against the Russians inside Chechnya

(Khartashoi, 1995; Shatoi, 1996; Yashmardy, 1996) and

Russia itself (Dagestan, 1997 and now, 1999).

One of his most daring operations was the Ambush of

Shatoi on 16 April 1996, in which he led a group of 50

Mujahideen to annihilate a convoy of 50 Russian

vehicles leaving Chechnya. Official Russian military

sources said that 223 Russian soldiers were killed

(including 26 senior officers) and every single

vehicle was destroyed. This operation led to the

sacking of two or three senior Russian Generals in

Moscow and Boris Yeltsin announced news of the

operation to the Russian Parliament. Five of the

Mujahideen were martyred in that operation. The entire

operation was filmed and clips and photographs of it

can be seen at http://www.azzam.com in the Photo

Library section.

A few months after that, his group carried out a raid

on a Russian Army barracks, destroying Russian

helicopter gunships with AT-3 Sagger wire-guided

anti-tank missiles. Again, this entire operation,

including the destruction of the helicopters was

filmed.

A group of his fighters also participated in the

famous Grozny offensive of August 1996, led by Shamil

Basayev.

He also came to the scene on 22 December 1997, in

which he led a group of 100 Chechen and Foreign

Mujahideen 100km inside Russian territory and attacked

the headquarters of the 136 Motorised Rifle Brigade of

the Russian Army. 300 Russian vehicles were destroyed

and scores of Russian troops were killed. Two

Mujahideen were killed in this operation, including

one of Khattab's senior most commanders from

Afghanistan, Commander Abu Bakr Aqeedah.

After the withdrawal of the Russian troops from

Chechnya in the Autumn of 1996, Khattab was proclaimed

a national hero in Chechnya. He was presented with a

medal of courage and bravery by the Chechen Government

and assigned an official rank of General, in a

ceremony attended by Shamil Basayev and Salman

Raduyev, the most brilliant commanders of the Chechen

war. Before General Jawhar Dudayev was killed, he held

Khattab in the utmost respect. This was a respect

earned by his actions, not by his words.

Khattab believes in the Jihad of media. He was once

reported as saying: "Allah orders us to fight the

disbelievers as they fight us. They fight us with

media and propaganda, so we should also fight them

with our media." For this reason, he is insistent on

filming each and every one of his operations. It is

said that he possesses a library of hundreds of video

cassettes from Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Chechnya.

He believes that words alone are not enough to answer

false claims of the enemy's media: video footage must

answer those claims. He has also taken extensive video

footage of the destruction of the Russian forces in

the recent Dagestan operation, August 1999, which

shows hundreds of Russian dead, several times more

than the 'official' Russian figure of 40 soldiers

killed. This video can be found in the Jihad in

Chechnya section of Azzam Publications's web-site.

Khattab has been likened by many Muslims as the

'Khalid bin Waleed of our times'. He firmly believes

that his death will only come at the time written and

appointed by Allah, not a minute earlier and not a

minute later. He has escaped death and assassination

attempts on many occasions, the closest of which was

when he was driving a four tonne Russian truck, which

was bombed by the Russians. The truck was blown to

pieces as was his passenger, but Khattab survived

without a scratch.

He is intelligent, brave and has a strong personality.

He is well-liked by his soldiers, but known as someone

you cannot play games with. He regularly checks upon

his soldiers, solving any personal problems they have

and giving them money from his own pocket to go and

spend in the shops. He has a team of highly-trained

and experienced commanders, each one of whom is

capable of taking over his role were he to be killed.

In an advice to the Muslims around the world, he once

said:

"The main thing that prevents all of us from coming to

Jihad is our families. All of us who came here, came

without our family's permission. If we had listened to

our families and gone back home, who would carry on

this work that we are doing? Every time I telephone my

mother, even now she asks me to come home, even though

I have not seen her for the last 12 years. If I was to

go back to visit my mother, who would continue this

work?"

Khattab's ambition is to carry on fighting the

Russians until they leave every piece of Muslim land,

from the Caucasus to the Central Asian Republics. He

once said: "We know the Russians and we know their

tactics. We know their weak points; and that is why it

is easier for us to fight them than to fight other

armies."

False media propaganda has accused Khattab of carrying

out terrorist acts around the world. Anyone who has

read this article with an unbiased mind will know that

Khattab's nature is to confront the enemy face to

face. And if fighting soldiers and armies who destroy

your peoples' lives, turn your women into widows and

your children into orphans, amounts to terrorism, then

let history bear witness that Khattab is a terrorist.

In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Twenty

years on, there is no Soviet Union, and what remains

of it is being invaded by the Mujahideen forces

created as a result of that invasion, which was

perhaps the biggest mistake ever made by a Government

in the 20th Century.

"A small group. They are the ones who carry ambitions

for the Muslim Ummah. And an even smaller group from

this small group. They are the ones who sacrifice

their personal worldly interests in order to act upon

those ambitions. And an even smaller group from this

elite. They are the ones who sacrifice their souls and

their blood in order to bring victory to these

ambitions and convictions. So, they are a small group

within a small group within a small group." [Shaheed

Dr Sheikh Abdullah Azzam, assassinated 1989]

Azzam Publications, August 1999

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ALLAH HAS SAID IN THE QURAN:

1.  "Not equal are those of the believers who sit (at

home) except those who are disbaled (by injury or are

blind or lame, etc.) and those who do Jihaad (fight)

in the cause of Allah with their wealth and their

lives.

Allah has prefereed in grades with those who do Jihad

(fight) with their money and lives above those who sit

(at home)!.."

[An-Nisa:  95]

2.  "And what is the matter with you that  you spend

not in the Cause of Allah?  And to Allah belongs the

heritage of the heavens and the earth.

Not equal among you are those who spent and fought

before the conquering.

Such are higher degree than those who spent and fought

afterwords...

[Al-Hadeed:  10]

3.  "Is then he who is a believer like him who is

faasiq (disbeliever and disobedient to Allah)?  Not

equal are they!

As for those who believe and do righteous good deeds,

for them are Gardens (Paradise) as na entertainment,

for what they used to do.

And as for thsoe who are Faasiquun (disbelievers and

disobediant to Allah) their abode will be the Fire,

everytime they wish to get away therefrom, they will

be put back thereto, and it will be said to them:

"Taste you the torment of the Fire which you used to

deny.

[As-Sajdah:  18 - 21]