Muslim Abu Walid Shishani's Statement (حفظه اللہ) on the Fitna in Syria
July 4, 2014
Muslim Abu Walid Shishani has issued a new audio statement expressing
his views on the fitna in Syria. I have translated some passages below.
After explaining that he has held back from commenting
so far in case he affected the fitna, Muslim goes on to say:
I’ve been here two years already and have
witnessed all these events from the start… At first when we came here
there were very few Muhajireen [foreign fighters] and they were mostly
in Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar Sham. Among the Ansars, like in other
places where jihad started, we saw jahl [ignorance of divine guidance].
But it’s no exaggeration to say that most of them love Islam and want
Islam on this land…
It was a second Chechnya, and we had experience
adopted from Khattab and those brothers who were with him, and it wasn’t
hard for us to repeat it. Alhamdulilah, Allah united us with learned
brothers, who had spent 17-20 years in jail and wasted no time there in
adding to their knowledge of the great scholars.
They organized here in Latakia a madrassa for
students, with a three-month course. They recruited mainly those who had
little knowledge and prepared them so that they could make du’a and
pray. And they also opened a school for children. For one month they
lived and ate in this school, and were trained in the first necessary
knowledge. When we recruited 50 students in the first month, they hadn’t
finished the course when more than 100 more were on the waiting list,
brought by [their] parents.
We opened 17 mosques that had been closed and
organized dawa, juma’a and namaz prayers. Slowly and surely, people
began to fill these mosques. These brothers worked not only with the
people, they also went to the group the Free Syrian Army and did dawa
and we saw good results. Now these brothers work around Aleppo. You’ll
know more about this in the near future as soon as our site is working.
It’s bad that we don’t have a permanent sponsor
and we cannot expand this area..
I remember when I visited Umar Shishani, he went
to the second floor filled with emotion and said, “Wallah, these
takfirists have driven me [crazy] and I want to chuck them out.” That
was a group of 150 guys, mostly Azerbaijanis. There were groups here
that made takfir with Jabhat al-Nusra (JAN) and other groups. One of
them, a Dagestani from a group you probably remember, Abu Banat he was
called, a lot of sites have written that he fled, when people started to
suspect he was a Russian special agent. Afterward, he was judged in the
Sharia [court] and sentenced to death by his Naib or Qadi and another
for killing civilians….
For example, where Abu Hanif’s group was (he’s
also a Dagestani who is now in ISIS) they found two women and infants
murdered among other corpses. They put checkpoints on the roads with
masked [guards] and took cars from people, killed them, and resold [the
cars]. One brother, an Uzbek, who bought a car from them, latter, after
ISIS left, he was taken to the Sharia court and he was made to return
it. Another young Ansar recognized the refrigerator truck belonging to
his father, that they had previously sold for $30,000 and which they had
had to leave someplace with other cars when they fled. He found the body
of his father among other bodies, and said in tears that he had searched
for him everywhere without knowing what had happened.
They said that this was a trophy they had taken
from the infidels.
The more foreign fighters that came here, the
more often things started to happen. But more groups also started to try
to control their ranks from such people, and chucked out of their groups
those people, but unfortunately they did not fully control the territory
of jihad and those people started to gather in various parts of Syria.
In the main they did not fight against the
infidels, and said that everyone here is an infidel. “With whom, against
whom should we fight?!”
But despite that, the local people loved the
Muhajireen all the same, and there was no small kudos given to the group
Jaish al-Muhajireen wal Ansar, headed by Umar Shishani. It was one of
the first groups of foreign fighters that operated in Syria, in Aleppo,
and as Aleppo was the most affordable place, it gained a very large
force for a short time.
Local people greatly trusted this group, if
problems occurred, they immediately turned to Umar Shishani. At that
time, I often visited Umar and saw he really tried to solve their
problems. Most of these problems were related to the rudeness of the
Muhajireen and because there were so many people, Umar could not control
the whole group. But despite all this, change for the better was being
seen every day, because after all there were more sincere brothers here,
and they showed and taught people Islam as best they could…
And this did not go unnoticed among the
infidels. They began to feel anxious and America blacklisted JAN. At
that time, JAN was not as well known as Al Qaeda, although it was known
among the Mujahideen. It operated here with very great authority and
indeed, she had good local policies in relation to the people. In Aleppo
local people even arranged rallies in support of JAN and some emirs from
the Ansar came out and officially stated that JAN, this is one of the
groups fighting against Assad like the others, and they won’t allow us
to be divided. They said that they have different parties, and we have
the same, there are different groups, but we are all solving the same
problem, though we have different visions for solving the problem. But
the infidels not miss a chance when something happened between the
foreign fighters and the Ansars and once again out forward an enticing
proposition. And when the infidels put conditions on the Ansars that
they get rid of the Muhajir and promised in return to supply weapons and
other necessities, those who were observing the situation, you probably
remember well how the Ansars responded to this?
Many emirs of the Ansars gathered from different
places and stated that they will not take up arms against their
brethren, and if they get help because of doing so, the fact is that
they would refuse this assistance…
No sooner did we enjoy this victory over fitna
when another broke out, a more terrible and bloody fitna, which is still
gaining momentum. That’s what I want to talk of in detail.
After all that, not much time had passed when
Abu Bakr Baghdadi came out and announced to the world that he declared
the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham. It was a very big surprise for all
the Mujahideen. Not because we did not want and did not aspire to this,
but because he did not take into consideration the situation in Syria
and consider those who shed blood on this earth. After all, Muhammad
Jolani, whom he considered as his deputy in Syria, even for him it was a
surprise attack, and more than that, even Dr. Ayman Zawahiri, who at the
time was his Emir, and he wrote in his letter that he was not in the
loop.
Here, everyone understood that for this, we
would still have to toil, and that it would only backfire, not only on
the people but also among the groups of Ansars who did not know Abu
Bakr. Especially since he is not an Ansar and especially since there
were unpleasant rumrs flying aroud about the jihad in Iraq.
Here, people heard that there [i.e. in Iraq]
Mujahideen were fighting with each other and that there were hundreds of
dead Mujahideen in this fitna, and much more. Muhammad Jolani officially
came out and refused to accept this and stated that he swore an oath to
Al Qaida and awaited a decision from Dr Zawahiri. After this statement
JAN was divided on two fronts. Initially not many supported Abu Bakr,
but a decision on this issue from Dr. Zawahiri was delayed and in that
time those who supported Abu Bakr managed to change a lot of things.
Foreign fighters joined them, but still there were not so many, and they
began to visit all the foreign fighter Jamaats. They visited me a few
times, but I refused, saying that they first need to fix their problems
themselves…
Back then, the largest foreign fighter group was
Umar Shishani’s, and I heard that he himself hosted Abu Bakr for several
days. I did not want him to get into this fitna, because we had a very
close friendship and did not see any good in it.
In any case, until Dr. Zawahiri said something,
I did not want him to hurry, since both Jolani and Abu Bakr were
subordinate to him and he had to have the final word. But when I visited
him it was too late, he said that he had sworn. It was for their PR,
Umar had at the time about one thousand Muhajireen and it was a serious
force. They consolidated their position. After all, it was mostly
Caucasians who were with Umar, and they were known as good warriors and
everyone tried to get more of them in their group.
We talked with him about many things, I
explained as best I could to him that he should not go into this fitna,
and that he should wait until everything was settled. And he was not
sure of his choice and said, if the situation developed further for the
worse, he would leave them. Everything depended on the decision of Dr.
Zawahiri. But around him were people who influenced him greatly and I
noticed these people didn’t miss a chance to strengthen him.
And when Dr Zawahiri’s address came out, where
he told both to each remain in place and work as they worked before, and
Abu Bakr refused to submit to him again, I went to see him [Umar]. But I
saw that he finally became firm in his choice. Beside him was a
professional psychologist who is known from Chechnya, where because of
him there was no little fitna among the Mujahideen, and it was not
without his participation that the jihad in Chechnya was weakened, but
it’s a long topic and I will not dwell on this. He always appears in the
right place at the right time and having done his business he walks away
wiping his hands and enjoying the result of his work from a distance,
taking a neutral stance.
What is most interesting is that everyone knows these people and
everyone hates them, but somehow they are still allowed to get to the
control levers of such an important matter? And there he played no small
role. Umar said that he advised him to hold on to them. Sayfullah
Shishani did not support Umar’s choice and constantly kept saying to me
that after my visit, this psychologist spent hours with him and that
Umar listened closely to hom. And then because of this reason, Sayfullah
left the jamaat.
But all the same, it was small fry because there are
50,000 people fighting in Syria and they scored only around 2,000 and
they started to take those who they’d previously rejected….
And when they’d gotten
together enough forces, in order to show their strength they went onto
JAN’s bases a few times and disarmed a few of them.
…
But one day, as God would have it, I saw it
firsthand. This was at a time when we were preparing for the operation
against Baruda and Durin in Latakia. You probably have seen these films
on the Internet. Baruda was attacked by ISIS, a group of Muhajirs and
Suqqur al-Iz, numbering 150 people, and we [attacked] Durin with a group
of Ansars of the same number. Almost everything was ready and our
brothers had already gotten close to these places for about 10 days, and
waited for the others. At this time, when I was at on the base with the
brothers, I had a visit from Abu Basir, with a few people. He was the
Emir of one of the FSA groups. In Latakia, he was one of the most
influential emirs of the Ansars. Previously, we sometimes went to them
and we saw how he and his brothers were happy to see us. He told me that
he wants to work with us and that he was ready to obey in all things.
And explained that he received weapons from the Majlis Askari (the
representative of the FSA in Turkey), and if they found out that he was
with us, then they would stop supplying. He said that, if it were
permitted by Shariah, he would not announce it, but if not, then he is
ready to give it up. And he asked that we lend his group a learned
brother to made du’a since in his group the brothers have a very weak
Iman and smoked, but said that he would do everything to set them right.
At this conversation there were witnesses from
my and his side. I gave him an answer immediately, and said that we were
busy with an operation right now. He said that he had everything ready
for another operation in Beit Ehlebia and Kherbay Solas, these are also
hilltops and a continuation of those hilltops that we planned to attack
and he asked us to support him as it would make it easier for us and the
other operation, and moreover we had everything ready on these hilltops,
before switching to Durin, for the whole month we were scouting these
hills and when all was ready, the groups with which we had an agreement
all went to Baruda and since we had problems with guns, we had to switch
back here.
[MS describes a situation in which Mohaisany
attempted to talk to ISIS in Latakia over some incident that required a
Sharia court, and says that it did not matter what they said, because
the authority for people were various websites]
The brain of the
Caucasian (basically all) youth is the websites. A young man can come
here today, we’ve already been here two years, we want to explain the
position in Syria to him and he interrupts us and starts explaining
who’s who here. You ask him, how do you know? “I read it on such and
such a site”, and it’s pointless to interrupt him.
Sayfullah even told me that he was approached by young Caucasian
brothers from ISIS who asked him to talk with Umar Shishani, because
their emirs were forcing them to kill civilians.
[the fitna had a practical affect on military operations against the
Assad regime]
We were at a loss, not
knowing what to do. We were afraid to raise our weapons, especially if
there was no fatwa from scholars, and it was also hard to just sit and
look; and it was dangerous to go to the [Aleppo Central] Prison, leaving
the area where ISIS was and going through territory where there were
checkpoints of those who were fighting ISIS. And to reach the prison we
had to go this way. Once we were shelled by an ISIS sniper post and the
Ansars, seeing us foreign fighters, immediately raised the alarm and
there was a danger that they might also shoot. So I decided to get out
of there by any means. I decided to move closer to the prison and
continue. But we had to transfer the Ribat to another, we kept a Ribat
in Layramon (just recently there was an operation there), near the main
Mukhabarat (it’s like the Russian KGB… I sent a man to the ISIS Emir to
say that we were off, and so they should take over this place. In
response, they said that they do not care even if the kafirs came.
[MS says he is most surprised by how:]
2-3 thousand people, and
almost all Muhajireen [foreign fighters], out of more than 50 thousand
Mujahideen, declare themselves a state and call anyone who does not obey
them apostates. And they forgot that Sharia is higher than the state and
that it is even higher than the caliphate.
[Compares the jihad in Syria to the jihad in Chechnya]
I can confidently
say that here in Sham, wisdom is taking a rest. Only emotions talk here.
You won’t see many coming out and talking who have life and military
experience. Basically those who are waging jihad for the first time are
speaking. In Chechnya there was also fitnah and discontentment. Often
Maskhadov and Basayev and other Emirs argued with each other and there
was a time things almost came to blows. But these people were worthy of
debate and they were decent.
I remember when Shamil talked about Maskhadov and one Mujahed
started to badmouth him. Shamil stopped him and said: Do not you dare
talk about him so badly in front of me, he was not a man of your stature
and moreover he was a Mujahid. But here grown men go and make general
reviews and general gossip.
[Has a subtle comment on the Caliphate, saying that the most important
thing is to wage jihad in Syria, because it is mentioned in the hadith]
We recognized this Jahiliya this Kufr this
inequality, and want to get rid of it quickly and live in an Islamic
state, even better in the Caliphate, where our eyes will see only what
pleases Allah and where live and raise children under Sharia law, but
this desire should not dazzle us.
Alhamdulillah, it is not in the Caucasus and in
other places [about] that are not mentioned in the Hadith. This is Sham
and there are quite a few hadith of the Prophet, we just need to listen
to them…
Did [the hadith] say join the fight in Iraq? Or
do you doubt that Abu Bakr Baghdadi’s fight is the fight of Iraq?…Do not
be fooled. Even after Sham, there is nothing said about Iraq. And if you
say that there is no single fight in Sham, then I say at the beginning
of the war there wasn’t one in Afghanistan nor in Chechnya, nor in Iraq.
This fight will be, as long as there are groups of people coming for it.
Translated into English by Brothers of below
website
Source : http://www.chechensinsyria.com/?p=22210
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