Mujahideen

Mujahideen (Arabic: مجاهدين, Template:ArabDIN, literally "strugglers") is a term for Muslims fighting in a war or involved in any other struggle. The word is the plural form of مجاهد, Template:ArabDIN, which comes from the same Arabic root as jihad ("struggle"). In Islamic scripture, the status of mujahid is unequal to qaid, one who does not join the jihad.

Mujahideen is also transliterated from Arabic as mujahedeen, mujahedīn, mujahidīn, and mujaheddīn.

Etymology

Arabic words usually have triliterals, which are triconsonantal (three-consonant) roots. The root of mujahidin is J-H-D (ج-ه-د), 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 legitimated their conquests by) Jihad bis saïf, 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.

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 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.

Ronald Reagan praised them as "freedom fighters", and three mainstream films, 1987 The Living Daylights, 1988 Rambo III and 2007 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 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. A wealthy Saudi named Osama bin Laden 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", 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 aid, 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.

Thailand

Over past 4 years, the resistance against the government was escalated. Almost 3000 have been killed.

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 Doku 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

During the Yugoslav wars, the Bosnian government, like the other factions in the Bosnian War received aid from mujahideen from the Middle East and North Africa, because of intensive and widespread war crimes committed by Serb and, to a lesser extent, Croat forces on Bosnian Muslim civilians. The number of volunteers is estimated to have been about 4,000, but some recent research discards such claims estimating 400 foreign volunteers. A number of local Bosniaks also joined to fight alongside the foreign Mujahideen. Allegedly many of the Mujahideen were supported financially from Saudi Arabia, including persons and organizations later connected with al-Qaeda. The mujahideen arrived in central Bosnia in the second half of 1992 with the aim of helping their Bosnian Muslim (Bosniak) coreligionists against the Serb and Croat perpetrators. By August 1993 the mujahideen were formally organized as an independent unit, El Mujahid, as part of the 3rd Corps closely related to 7th Muslim Brigade, of the Bosnian Army (ABiH), based in and around Zenica in central Bosnia. The 7th Muslim Brigade and the El Mujahid unit was disbanded at the end of the war in 1995.

A number of the foreign mujahideen stayed in Bosnia when the war ended and married local Bosniak women and attained Bosnian citizenship. They are now living in villages in central Bosnia.

Kosovo and Macedonia

Mujahideen fighters from Bosnia and the Middle East and other parts of the world later joined the ranks of Kosovo Liberation Army in its fight against Serbian and Macedonian authorities in Kosovo War 1996–1999 and in the 2001 Macedonia conflict. Some joined the KLA other formed their own units with Albanian leaders who spoke fluent Albanian and Arabic, and their greatest involvement was in the fighting around the border of Kosovo and Albania. After the Kosovo war some mujahideen when to Macedonia to assist the Albanians again in their conflict there against the Macedonian government forces.

After the wars most mujahideen went back to their home countries or other conflict zones very few remained in Kosovo and Macedonia where they became citizens.

Iran

People's Mujahedin of Iran is 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, and the Iraqi internal conflicts.

Iraq

The term mujahideen is sometimes applied by sympathizers and regional experts to the Iraqi insurgency against the U.S.-led allies whose invasion destroyed Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist republic, and against the subsequent Iraqi regimes in need of allied military support, while the insurgents comprise a wide, incoherent spectrum of forces, with or without crucial Islamist ideology. There is also a number of foreign fighters from the other Arab countries, in many cases acting as a suicide attackers.

Some inurgent groups actually use the word mujahideen in their names, like Mujahideen Shura Council (an umbrella group run by al-Qaeda in Iraq) and Mujahideen Army.

Kashmir

In Pakistan and the former princely state of (Jammu and) Kashmir (disputed with India), Kashmiris opposing Indian rule are often known as mujahideen.

In 1947, the mostly Pashtun Muslim fighters tried to force the annexation of Kashmir by Pakistan. Pakistan claimed the fighters were independent mujahideen helping a local insurgency, while India claimed that the invaders were Pakistani irregulars supported by the Pakistani Army which was still being run by British officials. The British appointed non-Muslim Hindu ruler of Jammu and Kashmir, Maharaja Hari Singh called upon help from British Indian army and the then Indian Prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru airlifted Indian troops to the region and tried to drive off the insurgents. The Kashmiri and Pakistani mujahideen since then, with support from Pakistan's ISI, Army (see Operation Gibraltar), as well as other sympathetic nations have been waging an armed campaign in Jammu and Kashmir against India's troops.

Several different militant groups have since taken root in Indian 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 militants at 3,200.

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.

Somalia

The Somali Civil War (2006) changed radically due to Ethiopian involvement. Before their entry into the conflict in July, 2006, the struggle between the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) and the warlord-based Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism and the fledgling Transitional Federal Government (TFG) was an internal struggle between Somali Muslims, particularly those who preferred a secular state to one ruled by sharia law. Now faced with the presence of forces from the historically Christian Ethiopia, the ICU began to frame the war as one of jihad, and called its citizens to rise in arms to throw the Ethiopians out of the country.

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.

History

• Almohad dynasty
• Aurangzeb
• Babur
• Barbary pirates
• Fulani jihads
• Jahangir Khoja
• Muhammad Ahmed Al Mahdi

• Saladin
• Sheikh Mansur
• Mehmed V
• Abdul Aziz ibn Muhammad ibn Saud
• Imam Shamil
• Suleiman the Magnificent
• Timur Lenk

See also

• Hadith
• Reagan Doctrine
• Itmam al-hujjah
• Bosnian Mujahideen

Persons:

• Sayyid Qutb
• Hassan al Banna
• Yusuf al-Qaradawi
• Khurshid Ahmad
• Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi
• Javed Ahmed Ghamidi