The Muslim Brotherhood

Monday, the Muslim Brotherhood demanded the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq and Afghanistan after the killing of Osama bin Laden, the leader of the al-Qaida organization and the architect of the September 11 attacks in the United States.

President Barack Obama announced that American Special Forces killed bin Laden in a targeted operation in Pakistan.

In a statement in the name of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt to Reuters, Assam Alaryan said that the death of bin Laden removed one of the most violent people from the world.

He went on to say that it’s time for Obama to withdraw from Afghanistan and Iraq and end the occupations by the United States and Western forces across the world that have harmed the Islamic countries for a long time.

Alaryan, who is a senior member of the Brotherhood, says that their announcement of the establishment of parliamentary elections in Egypt after the downfall of Mubarak proves that democracy has a place in the Middle East and that the region does not need the intervention of foreign powers anymore.

This followed attacks on Washington and New York and two wars; now the United States and the other Western countries with troops in Afghanistan are scheduled to withdraw from Iraq by the end of this year, under a security agreement signed in Baghdad. Washington has also stationed troops in the Gulf.

Since the overthrow of Mubarak on February 11, Egypt has witnessed the rise of other Islamic groups, among them groups that took up arms before.

Asim Sheikh Abdul Majid, a member of the Shura Council of the Islamic Group, made the mistake of leading an armed rebellion in the 1990s to establish an Islamic state in Egypt, but renounced violence afterward — tactics that bin Laden turned to. He said that the methods of bin Laden made the enemy more aggressive, turned neutral parties into enemies and made his friends reluctant to support him because they do not believe in his methods.

However, he went on to say that bin Laden was a Muslim, expressed the hope that God will forgive him even if he had erred in some of the issues and expressed an interest in his supporters and his disciples and the plan under which they operate, in particular with regard to the methods they use.

Tariq Zamar, a member of another prominent Islamist group, said that the death of bin Laden could lead to reprisals, but said the reaction is overwhelmed by the Arab uprisings against the same totalitarian rulers whom bin Laden rose up against. Zamar, who spent 30 years in prison for his role in the assassination of President Anwar Sadat in 1981 and was released from prison after the overthrow of Mubarak, also said that bin Laden would become a symbol of resistance to occupation and that U.S. forces killed bin Laden in reaction and revenge for attempts to resist Western occupation. He went on to say that the peaceful uprisings in the Arab and Islamic world would prevent the occurrence of random violence and revenge.

Aboud Al-Tarek is the brother of the founders of Islamic Jihad, which assassinated Sadat, led by Ayman al-Zawahri, second in al-Qaida, who is expected to replace bin Laden in the leadership of the organization. He said that the killing of bin Laden would increase tension between the Islamic world and the United States.

Majid Abu Abdullah said the relations between Arabs and non-Arab countries, especially the United States, will worsen. He went on to say that bin Laden is not the same as the Salafis, and said he was confident that the conflation is “a U.S. fabrication.”

Abdullah Ali, a taxi driver, said, “He died a martyr and the world will witness the revenge campaign. Bin Laden defended the dignity of Muslims, and now America and the West’s occupation eighth would pay.”

Al-Arian predicted the possibility of a backlash against the killing of bin Laden in the regions of the world where al-Qaida retains a foothold. He said the reaction in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Morocco and Algeria will be violent because the influence of al-Qaida is widespread. He asked not to link Islam with terrorism or some type of violence promoted by bin Laden.

He said it is time because that the world understands that there is not a relationship between violence and Islam, and that the link between them is a deliberate error by the media.