Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 10 (32 page)

 
          
“Glad
to help, Stalkers. Watch the skies. Headbanger clear.”

 
         
The
Libyan town of
Jaghbub
was located one hundred and twenty miles south of Tobruk. Jaghbub was
an oasis fed by an occasionally dry river, which for most of its two thousand
years of history never had more than a few hundred persons living there. But
the area was one of the best farming regions in the northern Sahara, with many
different types of fruits, vegetables, and nut trees in abundance, and
travelers and nomads going across northern Africa found Jaghbub to be a rich
and inviting place to stop and rest before continuing their trek across the
wastelands. It had therefore developed over the centuries as a crossroads of
many different nationalities, religious sects, political identities, and
schools of thought from all over the known world.

 
          
So
when an obscure descendant of the Prophet Muhammad was forced to flee his home
in
Fez
,
Morocco
, by French colonists in the early
nineteenth century, he escaped across the burning sands of the northern
Sahara
desert, following the ancient nomadic
routes over fifteen hundred miles back toward the holy land, and came upon this
little oasis. There he found a home for his own particular style of Islam.
Instead of the wild, untamed “whirling dervish” being practiced in many Islamic
sects, this holy man, who called himself Sayyid Muhammad ibn ‘Ali as-Sanusi,
preached a return to strict Muslim practices—abstinence, prayer, and strict
adherence to the words of the prophet in the Quran. He built a mosque, then a
university, and finally a fortress on the banks of the little river, and the
holy city of Jaghbub was bom.

 
          
For
the next one hundred and forty years, Jaghbub was the birthplace of some of the
most powerful and revered kings of Africa. The Sanusi dynasty became the lords
of northern Africa and the ghosts of vengeance of the Sahara. They ruled the
oases with an iron fist, tempered with justice through the laws of Islam.
Travelers and pilgrims from any nation were welcome and treated with
extraordinary kindness and generosity; anyone who preyed on a traveler or
pilgrim was dealt with equally extraordinary swiftness and cruelty, usually by
being buried up to the chin in the sand outside an oasis where insects and
vultures could pick at the robber’s head for a day or two.

 
          
They
were never conquered. Despite invasions from the French, British, Turks,
Italians, Germans, and Americans, the Sanusi dynasty survived and prospered. On
December 24, 1951, Sayyid al-Hasan ibn ‘Abdullah as-Sanusi, the fourth Grand
Sanusi and the first to be chosen amir of each of the three kingdoms of Libya,
proclaimed the independence of Libya from post-World War II British rule and
himself ruler of the United Kingdom of Libya. The Sanusi family moved the
capital of their new kingdom to
Tripoli
, keeping the family stronghold at Jaghbub
as a retreat and family mosque; soon, Jaghbub became a destination for Muslim
pilgrims from all over the world who visited and prayed at the tombs of the
great nomadic kings of early
Libya
.

           
The newly independent kingdom
survived mostly by borrowing money from its Arab neighbors and the United
Nations, until British geologists discovered oil in the desert southeast of
Tripoli in 1958. Virtually overnight, Libya became one of the richest and most
strategically vital countries in the world, almost on a par with Egypt and its
famous Suez Canal. First the British, and then the Americans, built some of
their largest and most important overseas military bases in Libya, all to
ensure the delivery of the seemingly endless supply of oil being pumped from
its deserts. With its newfound wealth, the king of Libya improved the cities,
built large and modem ports and rail lines, improved education and health care,
and made Libya an attractive destination for people and investors from all over
the world. Once again, travelers and pilgrims were welcomed and protected by
the as-Sanusi family.

 
          
All
that changed in September of 1969, when a group of young army officers led by
Muammar Qadhafi staged a bloodless coup against the monarchy. The king himself
was out of the country, recovering from eye surgery in Turkey. He abdicated and
named his second son Muhammad heir to the throne; the rest of the family fled
the palace. The family retreated to Jaghbub, thinking that even Qadhafi would
never dare violate a sacred mosque or try to destroy the Muslim university.

 
          
When
Qadhafi’s rule became more bloodthirsty, violent, and repressive, and Libya was
distancing itself not just from the West but from many of its Arab neighbors,
the people began to call for a return of the Sanusi dynasty to rule Libya as a
constitutional monarchy. Jaghbub started to become the symbol of the once and
future Libya, the root of Libya’s past greatness and the source of leadership
of the new Libya, should the military dictatorship fail or be overturned.

 
          
Crown
Prince Sayyid Muhammad ibn al-Hasan as- Sanusi of Libya was welcomed into the
capitals of many countries, and he made it clear that, with the right support from
outside his country as well as within, he would assume the throne once again.
Muhammad was bom in 1962, the king’s second son. Officially he, like most of
the Sanusi men before him, was bom in the holy sanctuary at the Great Mosque at
Jaghbub—in reality, Muhammad was bom at the American base hospital at Wheelus
Air Force Base, which had far better medical equipment and medical
professionals than at Jaghbub. His family had learned their lesson from the
birth of the first son, al-Mahdi, who really was bom at Jaghbub but had
suffered dehydration and circulation problems during delivery.

 
          
Muhammad
began his schooling at the Royal Military Academy in Tripoli at the age of four
and learned the basics, the Libyan “Five ‘R’s”—reading, writing, arithmetic,
religion, and riding—with extraordinary speed. Although his future, chosen by
his father, was as a religious scholar and teacher, his real love was the
military. He loved hearing stories of his grandfather, a general in the Turkish
Army when Libya was still part of the Ottoman Empire, harassing the Third Reich’s
Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s Panzers all across the Sahara. But he soon
realized that tanks in the present day, like horses in World War U, were
obsolete—a strong air force was the best way to secure a nation as large as
Libya, on a continent as large as Africa.

 
          
After
the military coup in 1969, Muhammad attended elementary and high school classes
conducted at the university in Jaghbub, then was accepted to Harvard University
in 1980 and graduated in 1983 with a double major in political science and international
relations. He was admitted to Harvard Law School in 1983 and was the first
foreign first-year student ever named as an editor of the prestigious Harvard
Law Review.

 
          
But
Muammar Qadhafi wasn’t done with the as-Sanusi family—he needed a scapegoat,
and they were perfect targets. Qadhafi had suffered an embarrassing defeat in a
brief war with former ally Egypt in 1977; he failed in his attempt to occupy
neighboring Chad and Sudan; he failed in his attempt to support his friend Idi
Amin in Uganda; and he suffered an embarrassing loss of four Libyan MiG- 25
fighters when they tangled with two U.S. Navy F-14 Tomcat fighter planes
defying Qadhafi’s “Line of Death” over the Gulf of Sidra. There had already
been several assassination attempts against Qadhafi, and there was a brief but
violent military uprising in Tobruk, organized and funded by the deposed King
Idris and his newly formed Sanusi Brotherhood. Qadhafi charged the Sanusis with
sedition, treason, and inciting revolution—all crimes punishable by death. In
1984, Qadhafi ordered the entire as- Sanusi family arrested, the Jaghbub
university closed, and the tombs of the Sanusi kings opened, destroyed, and the
remains thrown out into the desert.

 
          
But
he knew it would be too politically costly to turn the Sanusis into martyrs, so
he allowed them all to escape. The king himself remained in
Istanbul
; the other family members fled, mostly to
Egypt
or
Saudi Arabia
, never to return. Once they were out of the
country, though, Qadhafi pursued them relentlessly. His assassination squads
fanned out over most of
Europe
and
Africa
, under orders to kill all Libyans who
refused to return to
Libya
—and the Sanusis were tops on their lists.
The Crown Prince first met his family in
Egypt
and publicly denounced the desecration of
the Sanusi tombs; when being public exiles in
Egypt
became too dangerous, the family scattered.

 
          
The
historic buildings, mosque, tombs, and university at Jaghbub lay baking in the
hot Saharan sun, virtually unused. The university was turned into a military
headquarters; the fortress was turned into a winter palace for Qadhafi and a
convenient but isolated place to hold propaganda events. To cover up the
desecration of the holy place, the river that fed the oasis was dammed,
flooding the plain and covering up all traces of the destroyed historic
buildings and tombs. It appeared as if the legacy of the kings of
Libya
was at an end.

 
          
But
another ambitious, treacherous Libyan army officer resurrected the memories of
the as-Sanusi kings of
Libya
—but for all the wrong reasons. Jadallah
Salem Zuwayy was an officer assigned to a Special Forces unit at Jaghbub in the
early 1990s. When Qadhafi Lake—the lake covering the Sanusi tombs—was low one
extraordinarily hot summer, he was able to view the ruins of the tombs of the
Sanusi kings that lay exposed in the mud from the low water level. Although he
and his officers were forbidden to go near the tombs, he went anyway—but even
after he was discovered, the fear of retribution from Qadhafi was so strong that
no one dared bring him up on charges. That fear of the Sanusi dynasty is what
inspired Zuwayy to begin his claim as a descendant of the Sanusi line.

 
          
It
was easily researched: Sayyid al-Hasan as-Sanusi, the first king of united
Libya
, had six sons and three daughters.
Actually, the records showed only five sons, but the Sanusi kings usually had
three or more wives, and they adopted many children, so why couldn’t there be a
sixth—or seventh, for that matter? The second son, Muhammad, was appointed the
heir apparent. The entire family fled the country after the desecration of the
tombs at Jaghbub—all, went the new story, except Jadallah, the youngest son of
King Idris. Instead of fleeing, Jadallah decided to join Qadhafi’s army, not
only to leant his weaknesses but also to leam from him how to be a leader in
the modern world.

 
          
The
real Idris the Second, Muhammad, hadn’t been heard from since 1992, when he
became King Idris the Second upon the death of his father in
Istanbul
. From his hiding place—no one knew for
certain where it was—he had proclaimed a Libyan constitutional monarchy in
exile, formed a Royal War Council, and was raising money and building an army.
Rumors spread like wildfire: Some said he was a spy for the American Central
Intelligence Agency, for the British MI6, or for the Israeli Mossad. Most knew
he was the leader of the Sanusi Brotherhood, a secret counter-assassination
group, hunting and killing first Qadhafi’s, then Zuwayy’s assassins worldwide
on behalf of his family and all exiled Libyans. Others claimed he had been
assassinated, or just deep in hiding, probably in
South America
. In any case, he or his followers hadn’t
been heard from in years.

 
          
He
was a coward, or so the story went—it was Jadallah who had the courage to dare
to try to retake the government of
Libya
from Qadhafi. As an officer at Jaghbub,
Jadallah secretly preserved “his” family’s heritage and assembled his army, and
from his ancestral home, launched the attack on
Tripoli
that eventually brought Qadhafi down.
Although Muhammad as-Sanusi was in reality the second king of
Libya
, Jadallah Zuwayy proclaimed himself the
true King Idris the Second and chieftain of the Sanusi Brotherhood.