Jihad: Afghan-Trained Mercenaries Look For New Battlefields

PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Like many young mercenaries of the fading war in Afghanistan, Mohammed Akbar Ali awaits a new battleground to continue the fight for Islam.

In 1987, Akbar and his classmates at a religious school volunteered to help the Afghan guerrillas in their jihad, or holy war, against the Soviet army that had invaded their country.

"Those were good days," the 20-year-old Egyptian said as he cleaned a Soviet-made Kalashnikov assault rifle captured in a raid.

"But now there are worse people doing worse things to Islam than the communists ever did. We must get rid of them."

With the Afghan jihad all but lost, many of the young fighters are taking their fight to other battlefields, from Algeria to western China.

During the past 13 years, radical underground groups sent thousands of young Muslims to Afghanistan. In the seclusion of its lawless mountains, they were trained in guerrilla warfare and sabotage and taught to use sophisticated weapons.

They came from Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Tunisia, Yemen, Libya, Iraq, Sudan, Egypt and the Israeli-occupied West Bank. There were Muslim converts and recruits from Burma, China, Japan, the Philippines and the Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union.

Determined and single-minded, they won some of the biggest battles against the communist-style government and were considered the best hope of forcing the Soviet army out of Afghanistan. That goal was achieved in February 1989.

With backers of both sides pressing for a negotiated settlement, many of the young zealots feel they have been denied their prize: establishing a fundamentalist government in Kabul and a base for revolution among the world's 880 million Muslims.

Diplomatic and Muslim guerrilla sources estimate at least 10,000 and possibly 20,000 Muslim mercenaries have been trained in Afghanistan. They believe up to 2,000 are living in Peshawar, the staging area for the Afghan resistance.

The mercenaries, known for ruthlessness, are accused of assassinating rivals, summarily executing Soviet and Afghan soldiers who surrendered, and capturing Afghan women to keep as slaves. Middle Eastern diplomats say most would be considered security risks and jailed at home.

Radical underground organizations, each with a different plan for an Islamic revolution, recruited and paid them.

Such organizations collected tens of millions of dollars in mosques across the Arab world for the Afghan jihad, according to the diplomatic and guerrilla sources. Most of the money went into special bank accounts in the Persian Gulf or was funneled through private relief agencies operating in Peshawar.

Although the U.S. and Saudi governments officially halted aid to the Afghan guerrillas Jan. 1, some of the groups still support fundamentalists who trained and armed their volunteers. The assistance is much less than the $300 million to $500 million annually from Washington and Riyadh, but still significant.

A major contributor is said to be the International Muslim Brotherhood. Sources say the Brotherhood recently gave $48 million to the fundamentalists to undermine a U.N.-brokered plan for a negotiated settlement of the Afghan war.

Citizens of Muslim countries trained in Afghan camps "could turn against their own security forces if they ever find their attempts to enforce their narrow concept of an Islamic system are being thwarted," said Azizuddin Ahmed, a scholar who has warned against extremist influence in Afghanistan. "They're already trying."

In Algeria, authorities blame bands of young men back from Afghanistan for attacks on eastern border posts in November in which half a dozen policemen were killed.

India routinely accuses Pakistan of arming and harboring Muslim secessionists trained in southern Afghanistan.

Last year in Tunisia, Muslim militants plotted to shoot down a government plane with an anti-aircraft Stinger missile supplied to Afghan guerrillas by the U.S.

President Najibullah of Afghanistan has said his country could become a center of world terrorism if the fundamentalists gain control.

"If that happens, the West could find itself fighting the Crusades all over again," he said in a recent interview.