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Mujahideen
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A Mujahid (Arabic: , , literally "struggler") is a person involved in a jihad. The plural is Mujahideen (). The word is from the same Arabic triliteral as jihad ("struggle").
Mujahideen is also transliterated from Arabic as Mujahedin, mujahedeen, mujahedin, mujahidin, mujaheddin, and variants.
ic words usually have triliterals, which are triconsonantal (three-consonant) roots.
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Encyclopedia
A Mujahid (Arabic: , , literally "struggler") is a person involved in a jihad. The plural is Mujahideen (). The word is from the same Arabic triliteral as jihad ("struggle").
Mujahideen is also transliterated from Arabic as Mujahedin, mujahedeen, mujahedin, mujahidin, mujaheddin, and variants.
Etymology
Arabic words usually have triliterals, which are triconsonantal (three-consonant) roots. The root of mujahidin is J-H-D (?-?-?), meaning "effort or sacrifice" ("Jihad" can mean to struggle and "Mujahideen" can mean struggler.) However, the particular verb stem of J-H-D from which both jihad and mujahid are derived means "to exert effort against" or "to struggle". Mujahid is originally, therefore, "someone who struggles". The term has, even in Arabic, taken on meanings that are specifically religious, or specifically military or paramilitary, or both.
Like the concept and title Ghazi, it has been used in formal titles of Muslim leaders who prided themselves on (and legitimized their conquests by) Jihad bis saďf, holy war in the name of establishing Islamic rule, even at very high political level: no lesser ruler than Sultan Murad Khan II Khoja-Ghazi, sixth Sovereign of the House of Osman (1421–1451), had as full style Abu'l Hayrat, Sultan ul-Mujahidin, Khan of Khans, Grand Sultan of Anatolia and Rumelia, and of the Cities of Adrianople and Philippolis, including the formal title "Sultan of mujahideen"
In English, the word is recorded since 1958, in a Pakistani context, adopted from Persian and Arabic, as the plural of mujahid "one who fights in a jihad", in modern use, for "Muslim guerilla insurgent."
In the late 20th century and early 21st century, the term "mujahideen" became the name of various armed fighters who subscribe to militant Islamic ideologies and identify themselves as mujahideen, although there is not always an explicit "holy" or "warrior" meaning of the word. In modern times "mujahideen" more relates to different terrorist group formed in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Afghanistan
The best-known mujahideen, various loosely-aligned Afghan opposition groups, initially fought against the incumbent pro-Soviet Afghan government during the late 1970s. At the Afghan government's request, the Soviet Union became involved in the war. The mujahideen insurgency then fought against the Soviet and Afghan government troops during the Soviet war in Afghanistan. After the Soviet Union pulled out of the conflict in the late 1980s the mujahideen fought each other in the subsequent Afghan Civil War.
The mujahideen were significantly financed and armed (and are alleged to have been trained) by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the Carter and Reagan administrations and the governments of Saudi Arabia, the People's Republic of China, several Western European countries, Iran, and Zia-ul-Haq's military regime in Pakistan. The Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was the interagent used in the majority of these activities to disguise the sources of support for the resistance. Under Reagan, U.S. support for the mujahideen evolved into an official U.S. foreign policy, known as the Reagan Doctrine, which included U.S. support for anti-Soviet resistance movements in Afghanistan, Angola, Nicaragua, and elsewhere.
The main base station of mujahideen in Pakistan was the town Badaber, 24 km from Peshawar. Afghanistan mujahideen were trained in the Badaber base under supervision by military instructors from the U.S.A., Pakistan, and the Republic of China .The base served as the concentration camp for Soviet and DRA captives as well. In 1985, the uprising of captives destroyed the base, but the incident was concealed by Pakistani and Soviet governments until the dissolution of the USSR.
Ronald Reagan praised mujahideen as "freedom fighters", and four mainstream Western films, the 1987 James Bond film The Living Daylights, the 1988 action films Rambo III, The Beast and the 2007 biographical movie Charlie Wilson's War, portrayed them as heroic.
Afghanistan's resistance movement was born in chaos and, at first, virtually all of its war was waged locally by regional warlords. As warfare became more sophisticated, outside support and regional coordination grew. Even so, the basic units of mujahideen organization and action continued to reflect the highly segmented nature of Afghan society. Eventually, the seven main mujahideen parties allied themselves into the political bloc called Islamic Unity of Afghanistan Mujahideen.
Many Muslims from other countries volunteered to assist the various mujahideen groups in Afghanistan, and gained significant experience in guerrilla warfare. Some groups of these veterans have been significant factors in more recent conflicts in and around the Muslim world. Osama bin Laden, originally from a wealthy family in Saudi Arabia, was a prominent organizer and financier of an all-Arab islamist group of foreign volunteers; his Maktab al-Khadamat funnelled money, arms, and Muslim fighters from around the muslim world into Afghanistan, with the assistance and support of the Saudi and Pakistani governments. These foreign fighters became known as "Afghan Arabs" and their efforts were coordinated by Abdullah Yusuf Azzam.
The mujahideen won when the Soviet Union pulled troops out of Afghanistan in 1989, followed by the fall of the Mohammad Najibullah regime in 1992. However, the mujahideen did not establish a united government, and many of the larger mujahideen groups began to fight each other over the power in Kabul. After several years of devastating infighting, a village mullah organized a new armed movement with the backing of Pakistan. This movement became known as the Taliban, meaning "students of Islam", and referring to the Saudi-backed religious schools known for producing extremism. Veteran mujahideen were confronted by this radical splinter group in 1996.
By 2001, the Taliban, with backing from the Pakistani ISI (military intelligence) and possibly even the regular Pakistan Army, as well as al-Qaeda which found a refuge in Afghanistan, had largely defeated the militias and controlled most of the country. The opposition factions allied themselves together again and became known as the United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan (Northern Alliance). In 2001 with U.S. help and international military intervention, they ousted the Taliban from power and formed the new government, and gradually militias were either incorporated into the new national army and police forces or demobilized.
At present the term "mujahideen" is sometimes used to describe insurgents, including the Taliban/Al Qaeda, fighting NATO troops and the security forces of the US-backed government of Hamid Karzai and allied militias in Afghanistan, although most of the Mujahideen leaders who fought the Soviet Union later fought against the Taliban.
The Afghan mujahideen also participated in the Nagorno-Karabakh War and the Tajik Civil War.
India
An outfit calling itself the Indian Mujahideen came to light in 2008 with the multiple large scale terror attacks. Unlike the various Mujahideens around this world this group is a specific organizational terror apparatus, as opposed to a coalition of fighters. On November 26, 2008, a group calling itself the Deccan Mujahideen claimed responsibility for a string of attacks across Mumbai. The Weekly Standard claimed, "Indian intelligence and Pakistan army has confirmed that the Indian Mujahideen is a front group created by Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami to confuse investigators and cover the tracks of the Students' Islamic Movement of India, or SIMI, a radical Islamist movement. The groups receive support from Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence and are al Qaeda affiliates."
Kashmir
In Pakistan and the former princely state of (Jammu and) Kashmir (In British India), Kashmiris opposing Indian rule are often known as mujahideen.
Several different militant groups have since taken root in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. Most noticeable of these groups are Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) and Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM). A 1996 report by Human Rights Watch estimated the number of active mujahideens at 3,200.
Chechnya
In the case of the Chechen-Russian conflict, the term mujahideen has often been used to refer to all separatist fighters. In this article however, it will be used to refer to the foreign, non-Caucasian fighters who joined the separatists’ cause for the sake of Jihad. In other literature dealing with this conflict they are often called Ansaar (helpers) to prevent confusion with the native fighters.
Foreign mujahideen have played a part in both Chechen wars. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent Chechen declaration of independence, foreign fighters started entering the region and associated themselves with local rebels (most notably Shamil Basayev). Many of them were veterans of the Soviet-Afghan war and prior to the Russian invasion, they used their expertise to train the Chechen separatists. During the First Chechen War they were notorious and feared for their guerilla tactics, inflicting severe casualties on the badly prepared Russian forces. The mujahideen also made a significant financial contribution to the separatists’ cause; with their access to the immense wealth of Salafist charities like al-Haramein, they soon became an invaluable source of funds for the Chechen resistance, which had little resources of its own.
After the withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya most of the mujahideen decided to remain in the country. In 1999, foreign fighters would play an important role in the ill-fated Chechen incursion into Dagestan, where they suffered a decisive defeat and where forced to retreat back into Chechnya. The incursion provided the new Russian government with a pretext for intervention and in December 1999 Russian ground forces invaded Chechnya again. In the Second Chechen War the separatists were less successful. Faced with a better prepared and more determined Russian forces, the Chechens were unable to hold their ground and as early as in 2002, Russian officials claimed the separatists had been defeated. The Russians also succeeded in eliminating the most prominent mujahideen commanders (most notably Ibn al-Khattab and Abu al-Walid).
Although the region has since been far from stable, separatist activity has decreased and although some foreign fighters are still active in Chechnya. In the last months of 2007, the influence of foreign fighters became apparent again when Dokka Umarov proclaimed the Caucasus Emirate, a pan-Caucasian Islamic state of which Chechnya was to be a province. This move caused a rift in the resistance movement between those supporting the Emirate and those who were in favour of preserving the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria.
Former Yugoslavia
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Mujahideen came in Bosnia during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war after the massacres committed by the Serb forces on Bosnian Muslim civilians. They intended to fight a jihad against the perpetrators. The number of volunteers is estimated by some newspaper reports to have been about 4,000, but some recent research discards such claims estimating 400 foreign volunteers. They came from countries such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey and Albania; to quote the summary of the ICTY judgement:
It is alleged that mujahideen participated in some incidents considered to be war crimes according to the international law. However no indictment was issued by the ICTY against them, but a few Bosnian Army officers were indicted on the basis of superior criminal responsibility. Amir Kubura and Enver Hadžihasanovic were found not guilty on all counts related to the incidents involving mujahideen. Furthermore, the Appeals Chamber noted that the relationship between the 3rd Corps of the Bosnian Army headed by Hadžihasanovic and the El Mujahedin detachment was not one of subordination but was instead close to overt hostility since the only way to control the detachment was to attack them as if they were a distinct enemy force. In the case against Rasim Delic, the former commander of the Bosnian Army General Staff, the ICTY Trial Chamber decided, with a majority of votes, presiding judge Moloto dissenting, that the former commander had effective control over the members of the El Mujahid Detachment, but had no knowledge of the crimes they committed, although in one case he had reason to know of their tendency to treat prisoners of war cruelly. He was sentenced to three years of prison for failure to prevent or punish the cruel treatment of twelve captured Serb soldiers in the village of Livade and in the Kamenica camp near Zavidovici in July and August 1995 at the hands of the Mujahideen. The general will remain in the Detention Unit until the end of the appellate proceedings.
Kosovo and Macedonia
According to the Serbian press only, a several hundred to a few thousand Mujahideen fighters from the Middle East and other parts of the world later joined the KLA to fight against Serbian and Macedonian forces in Kosovo war 1997–1999. Allegedly some of them formed their own units with Albanian leaders who spoke Arabic fluently. The greatest involvement was in the conflicts along the border with Albania as well as in the Battle of Košare. After the war most of the foreign volunteers went back to their home lands, and some of them remained in Kosovo and Macedonia where they became citizens.
Iran
While more than one group in Iran have called themselves mujahideen, the most famous is the People's Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI). Currently an Iraq-based Islamic Socialist militant organization that advocates the overthrow of Iran's current government. The group also took part in the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Iraq-Iran War (on the side of Iraqis), and the Iraqi internal conflicts. They advocate a separation of religion and state, and denounce the theocratic practices of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Another mujahideen was the Mujahedin-e Islam, an Islamic party led by Ayatollah Abol-Ghasem Kashani. It was a component of the National Front (Iran) during the time of Mohammed Mosaddeq's oil nationalization, but broke away from Mosaddeq over his allegedly unIslamic policies.
Iraq
The term mujahideen is sometimes applied to fighters who joined the insurgency after the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Some groups also use the word mujahideen in their names, like Mujahideen Shura Council (an umbrella group ran by al-Qaeda in Iraq) and Mujahideen Army,
Philippines
Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) is the smallest and most radical of the Islamic separatist groups in the southern Philippines. It is best-known for a series of kidnappings of Western nationals and Filipinos, for which it has received several large ransom payments. Some ASG members have allegedly studied or worked in Saudi Arabia and developed ties to mujahideen while fighting and training in the war against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Abu Sayyaf always pro-claim themselves as mujahideen but are not provided support by many people in Moroland including Muslim clerics. Abu Sayyaf is thought to number fewer than 500 core fighters, but the group continues to present enough of a problem to lead the government to launch occasional major offensives in an effort to wipe the rebels.
Burma (Myanmar)
A sizable number of mujahideen are present and concentrated in the province of Arakan, Burma. They were much more active before the 1962 coup d'etat by General Ne Win. Ne Win carried out some military operations targeting them over a period of two decades. The prominent one was "Operation King Dragon" which took place in 1978; as a result, many Muslims in the region fled to neighboring country Bangladesh as refugees. Nevertheless, the Burmese mujahideen are still active within the remote areas of Arakan. Their associations with Bangladeshi mujahideen were significant but they have extended their networks to the international level and countries such as Pakistan, Malaysia, et al, during the recent years. They collect donations, and get religious military training outside of Burma.
Somalia
In July 2006, a Web-posted message purportedly written by Osama bin Laden urged Somalis to build an Islamic state in the country and warned western states that his al-Qaeda network would fight against them if they intervened there. Foreign fighters began to arrive, though there were official denials of the presence of mujahideen in the country.
Even so, the threat of jihad was made openly and repeatedly in the months proceeding the Battle of Baidoa. On December 23, 2006, Islamists, for the first time, called upon international fighters to join their cause. The term mujahideen is now openly used by the post-ICU resistance against the Ethiopians and the TFG.
Other
The Pakistan Army National Guard is know as "Mujahid Force". Unlike the above examples, these are persons who are enlisted or commissioned in the army of a nation state and they are thus regular soldiers, and in no way associated with the mujahideens.
History
See also
Persons:
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