PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- There is peace in the narrow back streets of old
Peshawar, where soft sunlight falls on ancient doorways, and a small boy need
worry about little more than where his next piece of candy will come from.
He is 3 years old and dressed for play in matching T-shirt and shorts patterned
with small red hearts, a smiling cat, fish bones and the word "Meow."
The child is free to dream now, but his father, Abdullah Ahad Baig, has great
hopes for him--that someday he will be a moujahed, or holy warrior, in defense
of Islam. That is why he named his child Osama bin Ahad, after the man he
idolizes as the greatest moujahed of all: Osama bin Laden.
To Baig, a shop owner, and legions of others like him in the Muslim world, the
Saudi-born millionaire suspected of ordering the most horrific foreign attack
on U.S. soil is not a terrorist but a freedom fighter. In their view, Bin Laden
is leading the latest phase of a war that began centuries ago when medieval
Christian crusaders tried to crush Islam.
Such hero worship is widespread and deeply felt in Pakistan, a Muslim nation of
140 million souls. The man seen by Americans as the personification of evil has
over the last 12 days taken on a kind of mythical quality in the bazaars and
back streets of this country. He has become a figure deemed worthy of unlimited
adoration and respect.
In a part of the world that has produced few heroes or role models for its
people in recent times, the image of Bin Laden is a metaphor for the vast
distance in public perceptions that today separates America from much of the
Muslim world.
Under pressure from the United States, Arab and other Muslim governments are
closing ranks in the quest to bring down Bin Laden and subdue the Taliban
government in Afghanistan that shelters him. But in millions of living rooms,
sympathy for him reigns.
An important strand of this sympathy is the unwavering conviction held by many
Pakistanis that Bin Laden is innocent of any responsibility for the Sept. 11
events in New York, at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania. Muslims here
invariably say that if he did order the carnage that struck America, he should
be punished.
U.S. Focus Has Elevated Militant's Status
Still, the fact that the United States believes Bin Laden was capable of
mounting such a sophisticated terrorist offensive has lifted him to new
prominence in the eyes of people who have come to view America as an
anti-Muslim bully.
Bin Laden's young namesake in Peshawar, near Pakistan's northwestern border
with Afghanistan, is a Kashmiri--from the Himalayan region that Pakistan and
India have fought over since partition in 1947.
Peshawar is a rough frontier town, where a shopper can pick up a Swiss watch
cheap at the Smugglers' Market and then go next door to purchase a grenade
launcher or an assault rifle from the arms bazaar. Harder to find these days
are popular T-shirts emblazoned with Bin Laden's name above a map of
Afghanistan, an image of a Kalashnikov assault rifle and the words "The
Great Mujahid of Islam."
Sales of the T-shirts shot up after the strikes on the U.S., and Pakistani
police warned hawkers to hide the rest as official policy shifted toward
Washington.
Pakistan's military president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, has been trying for
months to disarm his population, and his crackdown on fund-raising for
guerrilla groups fighting Indian forces in Kashmir is another reason the
younger Osama's family feels aggrieved.
Two of the boy's cousins were killed--or martyred, as their relatives prefer to
put it--while fighting Indian troops in Kashmir in 1996 as members of the most
feared guerrilla army there, the Lashkar-e-Taiba. The family belongs to the
Ahl-i-Hadith sect, which espouses a purist form of Islam emphasizing a literal
and often harsh interpretation of its teachings.
The family lives in a small house with few decorations beyond the bumper
sticker on a bulky gray metal cabinet in the living room.
"Allah is sufficient for us. We need no one else," it says.
Many of the boy Osama's immediate family members don't want to be quoted by
name because they fear retribution from Pakistani authorities now that their
government is once again an ally of the U.S. A family friend, Abdul Ghajar
Baig, spoke for them Sunday.
"The United States is only interested in becoming the single power in the
world," he said through a translator. "According to our Muslim faith,
the superpower is Allah."
A Shadowy Figure Who Is Rarely Seen or Heard
Meanwhile, in the more affluent environs of the capital, Islamabad,
well-traveled Pakistanis complain that America's obsession with Bin Laden has
been a key reason for his fame.
"He's a hero [here] because of the manner in which he's been built up by
the United States and by the media," said Zulfikar Ali Khan, Pakistan's
former ambassador to Washington.
The saga of Bin Laden as a rich and privileged Arab who fought the Soviet
invaders of Afghanistan in the 1980s and donated millions to the war effort
merely adds to the aura surrounding him. The fact that he moves free of any
government's control--a shadowy figure, rarely seen or heard but known rather
as a faint and peaceful smile staring out of photographs--also contributes to
the awe in which he is held by so many.
"Mysterious, almost mystical," said a mother of three in Islamabad
who declined to be identified.
"He's the best person on Earth, a pious man who prays five times a
day," said Tariq Rashid Butti, an accountant in the capital. "When
all the evidence points elsewhere, the Muslim world will support him."
Said Mohammed Fayaz, a fruit dealer in Islamabad's bustling Sunday market:
"He inspires us. He gives us motivation. Everyone else is for sale. Not
him."
Some of Bin Laden's fiercest supporters believe that an apocalyptic battle is
nearing and that either paradise or victory awaits them when it is over. Waris
Khan Afridi, a tribal chief from Pakistan's rugged Khyber Pass, which leads to
Afghanistan, accused Israel of starting a fight that is spreading around the
world.
"Is the blood of Muslims not blood?" he asked. "Are we not human
beings? Look what Israel is doing to the Palestinians. And is Israel not
supported by America? Where is the justice in that?
"We like justice. We are not terrorists. But if you attack us, if God
wills it, we will start the third world war and the whole world will be
destroyed. Every Muslim will fight until the last Muslim is alive."
During prayers outside the Red Mosque in Islamabad on Friday, worshipers were
handed leaflets that read in part, "Oh God Almighty, give us so much
strength that we are able to sacrifice our lives, our material possessions and
the lives of our children for this pious Arab billionaire."