Praise be to God and we beseech Him for help
and
forgiveness. We seek refuge with the Lord of our bad and
evildoing.
He whom God guides is rightly guided but he whom God leaves
to stray, for him wilt thou find no protector to lead him to
the
right way. I witness that there is no God but God and
Mohammed
is His slave and Prophet. God Almighty hit the United
States at its most vulnerable spot. He destroyed
its
greatest buildings. Praise be to God. Here is the United
States.
It was filled with terror from its north to its south and
from
its east to its west. Praise be to God. What the United
States
tastes today is a very small thing compared to what we have
tasted for tens of years. Our nation has been tasting
this
humiliation and contempt for more than 80 years. Its sons
are
being killed, its blood is being shed, its holy places are
being
attacked, and it is not being ruled according to what God has
decreed.
Despite this, nobody cares. When Almighty God rendered
successful
a convoy of Muslims, the vanguards of Islam, He allowed
them
to destroy the United States. I ask God Almighty to elevate
their status and grant them Paradise. He is the one
who
is capable to do so. When these defended their
oppressed sons, brothers, and sisters in Palestine and in
many
Islamic countries, the world at large shouted. The infidels
shouted, followed by the hypocrites. One million Iraqi children
have
thus far died in Iraq although they did not do anything
wrong.
Despite this, we heard no denunciation by anyone in the
world
or a fatwa by the rulers' ulema [body of Muslim scholars].
Israeli tanks and tracked vehicles also enter to wreak havoc
in
Palestine, in Jenin, Ramallah, Rafah, Beit Jala, and other
Islamic
areas and we hear no voices raised or moves made. But
if the sword falls on the United States after 80
years,
hypocrisy raises its head lamenting the deaths of
these
killers who tampered with the blood, honour, and holy
places of the Muslims. The least that one can describe
these
people is that they are morally depraved. They champion
falsehood,
support the butcher against the victim, the oppressor
against
the innocent child. May God mete them the punishment they
deserve.
I say that the matter is clear and explicit. In the
aftermath
of this event and now that senior US officials have spoken,
beginning with Bush, the head of the world's infidels, and
whoever supports him, every Muslim should rush to defend his
religion.
They came out in arrogance with their men and horses
and instigated even those countries that belong to
Islam
against us. They came out to fight this group of people who
declared their faith in God and refused to abandon their
religion.
They came out to fight Islam in the name of terrorism.
Hundreds
of thousands of people, young and old, were killed in the
farthest
point on earth in Japan. [For them] this is not a crime,
but
rather a debatable issue. They bombed Iraq and considered
that
a debatable issue. But when a dozen people of them
were
killed in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Afghanistan
and
Iraq were bombed and all hypocrite ones stood behind
the head of the world's infidelity - behind the Hubal [an
idol
worshipped by pagans before the advent of Islam] of the age
-
namely, America and its supporters. These incidents divided the
entire
world into two regions - one of faith where there is no hypocrisy
and another of infidelity, from which we hope God will
protect
us. The winds of faith and change have blown to
remove
falsehood from the [Arabian] peninsula of Prophet
Mohammed,
may God's prayers be upon him. As for the United
States,
I tell it and its people these few words: I swear by
Almighty
God who raised the heavens without pillars that neither the
United States nor he who lives in the United States will enjoy
security
before we can see it as a reality in Palestine and before all the
infidel armies leave the land of Mohammed, may God's peace
and blessing be upon him. God is great and glory to
Islam.
May God's peace, mercy, and blessings be upon you.
October 9, 2001 NYT 
Bin
Laden's Media Savvy: Expert Timing of Threats
By JUDITH MILLER
With his turban and
camouflage
jacket, his ornate Arabic and harsh vows of continued terror against
America,
Osama bin Laden revealed in
his speech the instinctive cunning that has made him such a formidable
foe.
This was in fact Mr. bin Laden's fourth call for jihad,
or holy war, but this appeal differed in important ways from his
earlier ones. First and foremost was the elevation of
the suffering of Iraq, and especially of Palestine, as leading causes
of his righteous indignation.
Moreover, the taped speech, broadcast over a popular
Arabic
satellite channel and rebroadcast
repeatedly by CNN and
other networks, gave the Saudi-born exile his most
visible
platform ever to vent
a litany of grievances widely shared in the Arab world.
His choice of outlets was apt:officials complained
today
that Al Jazeera,
the Arabic network, had obeyed Mr. bin Laden's
instructions
to delay broadcasting the speech until after the start of the American
bombing of Afghanistan.
This use of modern media to make his pitch fits
neatly
with what has by now become a familiar bin Laden tactic: turning the
West's
own modern technology against it.
The timing, as well, was designed to deny President
Bush
a media monopoly for his declaration of war against terrorism. Just as
Mr. bin Laden's followers hijacked America's jet planes and turned them
against its symbols of
economic and military might, Mr. bin Laden stole Mr.
Bush's media thunder. A few Arabic newspapers even featured
pictures of the two men side-by-side on their front
pages.
Perversely mirroring the president's division of the
world
into those who stood with America in rejecting terrorism and
those who stood against her, Mr. bin Laden, too,
divided
people into the "faithful" who side with him, and those who
oppose him, the "infidels." What seemed a deliberate
mockery of Mr. Bush's appeal made some in Washington uneasy.
"I'm a little disturbed that his press people may be
as good as ours," one official lamented.
While a vast majority of Muslims are repelled and
horrified
by Al Qaeda's methods, said Nawaf Obaid, a Saudi
analyst, "the speech suggests he has the gift to strike
at the very core of the grievances that the common Arab man in the
street has toward his respective government, especially
in Saudi Arabia."
Whether it be his evocation of Palestine, his vow to
end
the 80 years of "humiliation and disgrace" that Muslims have
endured since the carving up the Ottoman empire, or his
desire to re-create the caliphate, the Muslim empire that
scholar Bernard Lewis notes was based for half a
millennium
in Iraq, Mr. bin Laden's words have disturbing resonance
among many Muslims.
Mr. bin Laden's first appeal for a holy war, issued
in
1992, urged believers to kill American soldiers in the horn of
Africa, Somalia, and of course, in Arabia, the
custodian
of Islam's two holiest places, said David Schenker, a research
fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East
Policy.
There was virtually no mention of Palestine.
The 1996 fatwa, a sprawling 40- page document, cited
the
oppression of Palestinians by Israel, but the condemnation
was buried in an endless list of Muslim grievances
against
the United States and injustices endured by Muslims in
Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya, Somalia, Kashmir, the
Philippines,
Tajikistan and Eritrea, to name a few.
A three-page call-to-arms, published in February
1998,
focused first on the plight of Muslims in the Arabian peninsula,
second on the Iraqi people, and finally, not on
Palestinians,
but on the "occupation" of holy Jerusalem.
But while this declaration of war by the newly
formed
World Islamic Front for Jihad against Jews and Crusaders was
signed by the leaders of militant groups from Pakistan,
Bangladesh and Egypt, among others, there were no signatores
from militant Palestinian groups, Mr. Schenker notes.
In seeking to justify mass murder and align his
terrorism
with the Palestinian cause, Mr. bin Laden understands — and,
former associates note, even envies — the appeal. Mr.
bin Laden is trying to expand his terrorist base, says Daniel
Benjamin, a former White House official in the Bush
administration
who is writing a book on religious terror.
Each fatwa is more savage and ambitious than the
last,
these experts note. While the earlier opinions targeted American
soldiers in Africa and the Gulf, the latest call for
jihad indicts and targets all Americans. It revels in the "horror from
north to south and east to west" that has been
inflicted
by those whom he praises as "vanguard Muslims."
-----------------------------------------------------
October 9, 2001
THE VIDEOTAPE
Bin
Laden Images Mesmerize Muslims
By SUSAN SACHS
CAIRO, Oct. 8 — Osama bin Laden's
internationally
televised speech on Sunday mesmerized many Muslims with its
religious and historical imagery,
a powerful combination that only magnified his standing with people who
wanted
to see him as a heroic spokesman for the weak against
the strong.
Framed in the camera's eye by barren rock and a
solitary
rifle, Mr. bin Laden summoned up Islam's desert roots. He
spoke of swords and horses and the camp of the infidel
enemy. His language recalled the contained fury of passages in
the Koran where God promises Muslims that they will
triumph
over nonbelievers and hypocrites who only pretend to
accept Islam.
"The way he talks, his tone and his quiet voice, his
vocabulary
and his logic — it's all so charismatic," said Doaa
Mostafa, a student of Arabic literature at Ain Shams
University in Cairo. "He is so convincing. This was the first time
I've seen him on TV and I felt sure he is not a
terrorist.
I felt his aim is to protect Islam, nothing more."
But while Mr. bin Laden impressed many Muslim
listeners
with his simple phrases, his championing of the Palestinians
and his flowery contempt for the United States, he also
frightened others with his vision of an apocalyptic war between
Muslims and non-Muslims.
"He made me feel he is defending the Arabs' rights,
since
all Arab leaders are silent," said Mohammed Ahmed, another
Ain Shams University student. "But I would prefer that
he stop using violence and negotiate instead of kill. We agree
with him on his point of view, but we do not agree with
his methods."
In his speech, the Saudi exile condemned the Muslim
leaders
who have sympathized with Americans over the attacks on
the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. He called them
hypocrites, a word with particular resonance for Muslims
because it is used throughout the Koran to describe
people
who falsely claim to be Muslim.
According to Islam, which considers the Koran the
word
of God, hypocrites are doomed to a hell worse than the one
that awaits nonbelievers. "The hypocrites," the Koran
states in one of many such passages, "will be in the lowest depths
of the fire."
"This is language that can really reach the people,
especially
in the gulf where the tension is very high," said Fahmi
Howeidi, an influential writer on Islamic politics for
Al Ahram newspaper in Cairo.
Similarly, the historical episodes Mr. bin Laden
chose
to invoke revealed much about his view of the conflicts that
continue to simmer in the Arab world, placing them
among
Islam's greatest defeats. His reference to 80 years of
"humiliation and disgrace" was apparently a timeline
that began with the end of the Ottoman empire and the beginning
of British colonization of the Middle East after World
War I.
In the same broadcast, Ayman al- Zawahiri, Mr. bin
Laden's
deputy and the leader of the Islamic Jihad group, vowed
that "the tragedy of al Andalus" would not be repeated.
He was referring to the period widely considered the Islamic
golden age in Andalusia, in Spain, that ended in the
ignominy of Muslims being driven out of Europe by Christian
armies in the 15th century.
Such historical allusions may well tap into the
widespread
sense of siege among many Muslims who see themselves
threatened by a modern world dominated by the United
States and Western secularism.
But Mr. bin Laden was not the first would-be savior
of
the Muslim world to use the language of religion as part of his
appeal. Most recently, the Iraqi leader, Saddam
Hussein,
whose political roots are in secular Arab nationalism, tried to
portray himself as a champion of Islam to garner
support.
But Mr. bin Laden has the unique advantage of having
been
born into one of the richest families in Saudi Arabia, while
now living the austere life of mountain warrior.
"Here you have a simple man who presents himself as
someone
who left behind millions of dollars to defend Muslim
dignity," Mr. Howeidi said. "He has become the symbol
now of challenge to the West."
Still, there was little evidence, so far, that
anyone
in Egypt was ready to answer Mr. bin Laden's call for battle against
the nonbelievers and Americans.
About 30 students, all members of a group devoted to
the
Arab nationalism of the late Gamal Abdel Nasser, held a
brief protest rally at Ain Shams. A young woman climbed
the iron fence to the university grounds and shouted out
anti-American slogans, while police armed with bamboo
sticks surrounded the protesters. Small demonstrations also
erupted at a few other universities.
"We all feel sympathy and admiration for bin Laden,"
said
Mostafa Rushdi Ali, a business administration student at
Helwan University in Cairo. "But Egypt must remain
neutral
because if we interfere this will worsen our economy."
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