Al-Qaeda co-founder launches fierce attack on Osama bin Laden

Sayyid Imam al-Sharif, one of Al-Qaeda's founding leaders, has begun an ideological revolt against Osama bin LadenOsama bin Laden, blaming him for "every drop" of blood spilt in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Al-Sharif, who goes by the pseudonym “Dr Fadl”, helped bin Laden create Al-Qaeda and then led an Islamist insurgency in Egypt in the 1990s.

But in “The Exposure of the Exoneration”, his new book written from inside an Egyptian prison, Dr Fadl has launched a fierce attack on Al-Qaeda's ideology and the personal failings of bin Laden and his Egyptian deputy Ayman al-ZawahiriAyman al-Zawahiri.

Twenty years ago, Dr Fadl became Al-Qaeda's intellectual figurehead with a crucial book setting out the rationale for global jihad against the West. Today, however, he believes the murder of innocent people is both contrary to Islam and a strategic error. "Every drop of blood that was shed or is being shed in Afghanistan and Iraq”, he writes, “is the responsibility of bin Laden and Zawahiri and their followers."

In his new book Dr Fadl says that the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11 were both immoral and counterproductive. "Ramming America has become the shortest road to fame and leadership among the Arabs and Muslims”, he writes. “But what good is it if you destroy one of your enemy's buildings, and he destroys one of your countries? What good is it if you kill one of his people, and he kills a thousand of yours? That, in short, is my evaluation of 9/11."

He is equally unsparing in his criticism of Muslims who move to the West and then take up terrorism. "If they gave you permission to enter their homes and live with them, and if they gave you security for yourself and your money, and if they gave you the opportunity to work or study, or they granted you political asylum, then it is not honourable to betray them, through killing and destruction."

In particular, Dr Fadl focuses his attack on Zawahiri, a key figure in Al-Qaeda's core leadership and a fellow Egyptian whom he has known for 40 years. Dr Fadl describes Zawahiri as a "liar" who was paid by Sudan's intelligence service to organise terrorist attacks in Egypt in the 1990s.

Zawahiri has alleged that his former comrade was tortured into recanting. But the Al-Qaeda leader still felt the need to compose a detailed, 200-page rebuttal of his former colleague. Perhaps the fact that Zawahiri went to this trouble speaks to Dr Fadl’s credibility and is evidence that his criticisms have stung their target. The central question is whether this attack on Al-Qaeda's ideology will sway a wider audience in the Muslim world.