Osama bin Laden

The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam.

The Iraqi children are our children.(referring to the half million Iraqi children who died from US sanctions on Iraq)

We will fight him with faith.(Bin Laden’s reply to Prince Sultan when asked how he will deal with Saddam’s weapons)

Thinking people, when disaster strikes, make it their priority to look for its causes, in order to prevent it happening again.

Just like you kill us, we will kill you.

There is no dialogue except with weapons.

These Jews are masters of usury and leaders in treachery. They will leave you nothing, either in this world or the next.

I have already said that we are against the American system, not against its people, whereas in these attacks, the common American people have been killed.

It would be a sin for Muslims not to try to possess the weapons that would prevent the infidels from inflicting harm on Muslims.

Every Muslim, from the moment they realize the distinction in their hearts, hates Americans, hates Jews and hates Christians. For as long as I can remember, I have felt tormented and at war, and have felt hatred and animosity for Americans.

It is the United States, which is perpetrating every maltreatment on women, children and common people of other faiths, particularly the followers of Islam.

I had no knowledge of these attacks, nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children and other humans as an appreciable act. Islam strictly forbids causing harm to innocent women, children and other people. Such a practice is forbidden even in the course of a battle.

If inciting people to do that is terrorism, and if killing those who kill our sons is terrorism, then let history be witness that we are terrorists.

You are the nation who, rather than ruling by the Shariah of Allah in its Constitution and Laws, choose to invent your own laws as you will and desire. You separate religion from your policies, contradicting the pure nature which affirms Absolute Authority to the Lord and your Creator.

The United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda ~ Barack Obama

I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action, and authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice. ~ Barack Obama

A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. ~ Barack Obama

Before the Americans, bin Laden had been symbolically killed by the people on Tahrir square and Burghiba avenue. ~ Bernardo Valli

Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (10 March 1957 – 2 May 2011) was the Saudi Arabian-born founder of al-Qaeda, a militant Islamic organization that has been involved in terrorist attacks against civilian and military targets around the world, especially against western countries and including the September 11 attacks.

He was also a member of major construction company Saudi Binladin Group run by Binladin family.

Quotes

• In the Vietnam War, the leaders of the White House claimed at the time that it was a necessary and crucial war, and during it, Donald Rumsfeld and his aides murdered two million villagers. And when Kennedy took over the presidency and deviated from the general line of policy drawn up for the White House and wanted to stop this unjust war, that angered the owners of the major corporations who were benefiting from its continuation. And so Kennedy was killed, and al-Qaida wasn't present at that time, but rather, those corporations were the primary beneficiary from his killing. And the war continued after that for approximately one decade. But after it became clear to you that it was an unjust and unnecessary war, you made one of your greatest mistakes, in that you neither brought to account nor punished those who waged this war, not even the most violent of its murderers, Rumsfeld.
  • As quoted in The Washington Post, Osama bin Laden, video, September 2007.

1990s

Meeting with Saudi Royal Family (1990)

When asked by Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz how Bin Laden would defend the fighters if Saddam used Iraqi chemical and biological weapons against them, Bin Laden replied:

• “We will fight him with faith”

Interview with Independent (1993)

• “What I lived in two years there[Afghanistan], I could not have lived in a hundred years elsewhere”- 1993 Independent article

Declaration of War against the Americans (1996)

Osama Bin Laden's Jihad and text of Fatwahs and Declaration of War, Text of the August 1996 Fatwa at PBS

• It should not be hidden from you that the people of Islam had suffered from aggression, iniquity and injustice imposed on them by the Zionist-Crusaders alliance and their collaborators; to the extent that the Muslims blood became the cheapest and their wealth as loot in the hands of the enemies. Their blood was spilled in Palestine and Iraq. The horrifying pictures of the massacre of Qana, in Lebanon are still fresh in our memory. Massacres in Tajikistan, Burma, Kashmir, Assam, Philippines, Pattani, Ogaden, Somalia, Eritrea, Chechnya, and in Bosnia-Herzegovina took place, massacres that send shivers in the body and shake the conscience. All of this and the world watch and hear, and not only didn't respond to these atrocities, but also with a clear conspiracy between the USA and its' allies and under the cover of the iniquitous United Nations, the dispossessed people were even prevented from obtaining arms to defend themselves. The people of Islam awakened and realized that they are the main target for the aggression of the Zionist-Crusaders alliance. All false claims and propaganda about "Human Rights" were hammered down and exposed by the massacres that took place against the Muslims in every part of the world.
• “You left [Somalia] carrying disappointment, humiliation, defeat and your dead with you”
• “The Iraqi children are our children”(Bin Laden claimed America are killing his children by sanctions on Iraq)

Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders (1998)

English translation of a statement in al-Quds al-Arabi (23 February 1998) "Summary/Review of Reports Concerning Threats by Osama Bin Laden to Conduct Terrorist Operations Against the United States and/or her Allies - 23 February 1998 to 16 June 1998"

• First, for over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples.
  If some people have in the past argued about the fact of the occupation, all the people of the Peninsula have now acknowledged it. The best proof of this is the Americans' continuing aggression against the Iraqi people using the Peninsula as a staging post, even though all its rulers are against their territories being used to that end, but they are helpless.
  Second, despite the great devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people by the crusader-Zionist alliance, and despite the huge number of those killed, which has exceeded 1 million... despite all this, the Americans are once again trying to repeat the horrific massacres, as though they are not content with the protracted blockade imposed after the ferocious war or the fragmentation and devastation.
  So here they come to annihilate what is left of this people and to humiliate their Muslim neighbors.
  Third, if the Americans' aims behind these wars are religious and economic, the aim is also to serve the Jews' petty state and divert attention from its occupation of Jerusalem and murder of Muslims there. The best proof of this is their eagerness to destroy Iraq, the strongest neighboring Arab state, and their endeavor to fragment all the states of the region such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Sudan into paper statelets and through their disunion and weakness to guarantee Israel's survival and the continuation of the brutal crusade occupation of the Peninsula.

• The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies — civilians and military — is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim.

ABC interview (1998)

Interview with ABC reporter John Miller (May 1998)

• The call to wage war against America was made because America has spear-headed the crusade against the Islamic nation, sending tens of thousands of its troops to the land of the two Holy Mosques over and above its meddling in its affairs and its politics, and its support of the oppressive, corrupt and tyrannical regime that is in control. These are the reasons behind the singling out of America as a target. And not exempt of responsibility are those Western regimes whose presence in the region offers support to the American troops there. We know at least one reason behind the symbolic participation of the Western forces and that is to support the Jewish and Zionist plans for expansion of what is called the Great Israel. Surely, their presence is not out of concern over their interests in the region. … Their presence has no meaning save one and that is to offer support to the Jews in Palestine who are in need of their Christian brothers to achieve full control over the Arab Peninsula which they intend to make an important part of the so called Greater Israel.

• After our victory in Afghanistan and the defeat of the oppressors who had killed millions of Muslims, the legend about the invincibility of the superpowers vanished. Our boys no longer viewed America as a superpower. So, when they left Afghanistan, they went to Somalia and prepared themselves carefully for a long war. They had thought that the Americans were like the Russians, so they trained and prepared. They were stunned when they discovered how low was the morale of the American soldier. America had entered with 30,000 soldiers in addition to thousands of soldiers from different countries in the world. … As I said, our boys were shocked by the low morale of the American soldier and they realized that the American soldier was just a paper tiger.

• Any effort directed against America and the Jews yields positive and direct results, Allah willing. It is far better for anyone to kill a single American soldier than to squander his efforts on other activities.

• We believe that this administration represents Israel inside America. Take the sensitive ministries such as the Ministry of Exterior and the Ministry of Defense and the CIA, you will find that the Jews have the upper hand in them. They make use of America to further their plans for the world, especially the Islamic world. American presence in the Gulf provides support to the Jews and protects their rear. And while millions of Americans are homeless and destitute and live in abject poverty, their government is busy occupying our land and building new settlements and helping Israel build new settlements in the point of departure for our Prophet's midnight journey to the seven heavens. America throws her own sons in the land of the two Holy Mosques for the sake of protecting Jewish interests.

• I am one of the servants of Allah. We do our duty of fighting for the sake of the religion of Allah. It is also our duty to send a call to all the people of the world to enjoy this great light and to embrace Islam and experience the happiness in Islam. Our primary mission is nothing but the furthering of this religion. ... Let not the West be taken in by those who say that Muslims choose nothing but slaughtering. Their brothers in East Europe, in Turkey and in Albania have been guided by Allah to submit to Islam and to experience the bliss of Islam. Unlike those, the European and the American people and some of the Arabs are under the influence of Jewish media.

Time magazine interview (23 December 1998)

Time magazine interview (23 December 1998)

• The International Islamic Front for Jihad against the U.S. and Israel has, by the grace of God, issued a crystal-clear fatwah calling on the Islamic nation to carry on jihad aimed at liberating holy sites. The nation of Muhammad has responded to this appeal. If the instigation for jihad against the Jews and the Americans in order to liberate al-Aksa Mosque and the Holy Ka'aba is considered a crime, then let history be a witness that I am a criminal. Our job is to instigate and, by the grace of God, we did that, and certain people responded to this instigation.
  • In response to the interviewer stating: 'Are you responsible for the bomb attacks on the two American embassies in Africa?'

• What I know is that those who risked their lives to earn the pleasure of God are real men. They managed to rid the Islamic nation of disgrace. We hold them in the highest esteem.
  • In response to the interviewer stating: 'Do you know the men who have been arrested for these attacks?'

• Wadih el-Hage was one of our brothers whom God was kind enough to steer to the path of relief work for Afghan refugees. I still remember him, though I have not seen him or heard from him for many years. He has nothing to do with the U.S. allegations. As for Mohamed Rashed al-'Owhali, we were informed that he is a Saudi from the province of Najd. The fact of the matter is that America, and in particular the CIA, wanted to cover up its failure in the aftermath of the events that took place in Riyadh, Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, Capetown, Kampala--and other places, God willing, in the future--by arresting any person who had participated in the Islamic jihad in Afghanistan. We pray to God to end the plight, and we are confident they will be exonerated.
  • In response to the interviewer stating: 'But all those arrested are said to have been associated with you.'

• There is no doubt that the treacherous attack has confirmed that Britain and America are acting on behalf of Israel and the Jews, paving the way for the Jews to divide the Muslim world once again, enslave it and loot the rest of its wealth. A great part of the force that carried out the attack came from certain gulf countries that have lost their sovereignty. Now infidels walk everywhere on the land where Muhammad was born and where the Koran was revealed to him. The situation is serious. The rulers have become powerless. Muslims should carry out their obligations, since the rulers of the region have accepted the invasion of their countries. These countries belong to Islam and not the rulers.
  • In response to the interviewer stating: 'How do you react to the December attack on Iraq by U.S. and British forces?'

• Any thief or criminal or robber who enters another country in order to steal should expect to be exposed to murder at any time. For the American forces to expect anything from me personally reflects a very narrow perception. Thousands of millions of Muslims are angry. The Americans should expect reactions from the Muslim world that are proportionate to the injustice they inflict.
  • In response to the interviewer stating: 'What can the U.S. expect from you now?'

• Acquiring weapons for the defense of Muslims is a religious duty. If I have indeed acquired these weapons, then I thank God for enabling me to do so. And if I seek to acquire these weapons, I am carrying out a duty. It would be a sin for Muslims not to try to possess the weapons that would prevent the infidels from inflicting harm on Muslims.
  • In response to the interviewer stating: 'The U.S. says you are trying to acquire chemical and nuclear weapons.'

• The U.S. knows that I have attacked it, by the grace of God, for more than 10 years now. The U.S. alleges that I am fully responsible for the killing of its soldiers in Somalia. God knows that we have been pleased at the killing of American soldiers. This was achieved by the grace of God and the efforts of the mujahedin from among the Somali brothers and other Arab mujahedin who had been in Afghanistan before that. America has been trying ever since to tighten its economic blockade against us and to arrest me. It has failed. This blockade does not hurt us much. We expect to be rewarded by God.
  • In response to the interviewer stating: 'The U.S. is trying to stop the flow of funds to your organization. Has it been able to do so?'

• Winds of change have blown in order to lift the injustice to which the world is subjected by America and its supporters and the Jews who are collaborating with them. Look at what is happening these days in Indonesia, where Suharto, a despot who ruled for 30 years, was overthrown. The time will come, sooner rather than later, when criminal despots who betrayed God and his Prophet, and betrayed their trust and their nation, will face the same fate.
  • In response to the interviewer stating: 'Is your Islamic message having an impact?'

• We should fully understand our religion. Fighting is a part of our religion and our Shari'a. Those who love God and his Prophet and this religion cannot deny that. Whoever denies even a minor tenet of our religion commits the gravest sin in Islam. Those who sympathize with the infidels-such as the PLO in Palestine or the so-called Palestinian Authority--have been trying for tens of years to get back some of their rights. They laid down arms and abandoned what is called violence and tried peaceful bargaining. What did the Jews give them? They did not give them even 1% of their rights.
  • In response to the interviewer stating: 'But there are many Muslims who do not agree with your kind of violence.'

• Hostility toward America is a religious duty, and we hope to be rewarded for it by God. To call us Enemy No. 1 or 2 does not hurt us. Osama bin Laden is confident that the Islamic nation will carry out its duty. I am confident that Muslims will be able to end the legend of the so-called superpower that is America.
  • In response to the interviewer stating: 'America, the world's only superpower, has called you Public Enemy Number One. Are you worried?'

2000s

• As for those who condemned these operations looked at the event [9/11] in isolation and failed to connect them to past events and did not look at the causes that lead to this result. So their point of view is narrow.
  • Al - Jazeera Broadcast Tape - On 9/11 and the American reaction (The date of this tape is not provided, though it seems to be 2002 or 2003, but could be as early as October 2001.)

2001

• In today's wars, there are no morals. We believe the worst thieves in the world today and the worst terrorists are the Americans. We do not have to differentiate between military or civilian. As far as we are concerned, they are all targets.
  • As quoted in "The Most Wanted Man in the World" (16 September 2001), Time magazine profile.

• The pieces of the bodies of infidels were flying like dust particles. If you would have seen it with your own eyes, you would have been very pleased, and your heart would have been filled with joy.
  • As quoted in "The Most Wanted Man in the World" (16 September 2001), Time magazine profile.

• I'm fighting so I can die a martyr and go to heaven to meet God. Our fight now is against the Americans.
  • Statement in al-Quds al-Arabi, as quoted in "Bin Laden: I Didn't Do It" CBS News (12 September 2001); also at Positive Atheism's "Big List of Scary Quotes"

• I was not involved in the September 11 attacks in the United States nor did I have knowledge of the attacks.
  There exists a government within a government within the United States.
  The United States should try to trace the perpetrators of these attacks within itself.
  That secret government must be asked as to who carried out the attacks.
  The American system is totally in control of the Jews, whose first priority is Israel, not the United States.
  • 22 September 2001, statement of denial published by the BBC, per 2008 book The 9/11 Mystery Plane

• Neither I had any knowledge of these attacks nor I consider the killing of innocent women, children, and other humans as an appreciable act. Islam strictly forbids causing harm to innocent women, children, and other people. Such a practice is forbidden ever in the course of a battle. … It is the United States, which is perpetrating every maltreatment on women, children and common people of other faiths, particularly the followers of Islam.
  • Interview with Karachi Ummat (28 September 2001).

I have already said that we are against the American system, not against its people, whereas in these attacks, the common American people have been killed.

• • Interview with Karachi Ummat (28 September 2001).

• Every Muslim must rise to defend his religion. The wind of faith is blowing.
  • Video statement broadcast on the Arabic-language Al-Jazeera TV station. (7 October 2001).

• [H]istory should be a witness that we are terrorists.
  Yes, we kill their innocents
  The Twin Towers were legitimate targets, they were supporting US economic power.
  These events were great by all measurement.
  What was destroyed were not only the towers, but the towers of morale in that country.
  blessed by Allah to destroy America's economic and military landmarks
  If avenging the killing of our people is terrorism then history should be a witness that we are terrorists.
  Yes, we kill their innocents and this is legal religiously and logically.
  The towers were supposed to be filled with supporters of the economical powers of the United States who are abusing the world.
  Those who talk about civilians should change their stand and reconsider their position.
  We are treating them like they treated us.
  There are two types of terror, good and bad.
  What we are practising is good terror.
  We will not stop killing them and whoever supports them.
  Bush and Blair don't understand anything but the power of force.
  Every time they kill us, we kill them, so the balance of terror can be achieved.
  It is the duty of every Muslim to fight.
  Killing Jews is top priority.
  If America used chemical or nuclear weapons against us, then we may retort with chemical and nuclear weapons. We have the weapons as deterrent.
  • 11 November 2001

2002

• We had notification since the previous Thursday that the event would take place that day. We had finished our work that day and had the radio on. It was 5:30 PM our time. I was sitting with Dr. Ahmad Abu al-Khair. Immediately, we heard the news that a plane had hit the World Trade Center.

• I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people in — and the West in general — into an unbearable hell and a choking life.
  • Al-Jazeera interview, (21 October 2001), as reported in "Bin Laden's sole post-September 11 TV interview aired" CNN (31 January 2002).

• When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse.
  • Video interview, quoted in Analyzing Leaders, Presidents and Terrorists by Diane E. Holloway page 325, with NPR transcript (9 November 2001)

• We say our terror against America is blessed terror in order to put an end to suppression, in order for the United States to stop its support to Israel.
  • Video statement broadcast on the Arabic-language Al-Jazeera TV station. (26 December 2001).

• If inciting people to do that is terrorism, and if killing those who kill our sons is terrorism, then let history be witness that we are terrorists.
  • On the September 11, 2001 attacks, in CNN broadcast of an interview that Al-Jazeera conducted in October 2001 (31 January 2002).

• These Jews are masters of usury and leaders in treachery. They will leave you nothing, either in this world or the next.
  • As quoted in Messages to the World (2005), by Bruce Lawrence, p. 190. Also from 53-minute audiotape that "was circulated on various websites" dated February 14, 2003. "Among a Band of Knights".

• Just like you kill us, we will kill you.
  • Audiotape aired on Al-Jazeera (12 November 2002).

Letter to the American people (2002)

"Letter to the American people", The Observer (24 November 2002), via the Internet Archive. On 15 November 2023, the website took down the original article.

• The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam. The religion of the Unification of God; of freedom from associating partners with Him, and rejection of this; of complete love of Him, the Exalted; of complete submission to His Laws; and of the discarding of all the opinions, orders, theories and religions which contradict with the religion He sent down to His Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Islam is the religion of all the prophets, and makes no distinction between them - peace be upon them all. It is to this religion that we call you; the seal of all the previous religions. It is the religion of Unification of God, sincerity, the best of manners, righteousness, mercy, honour, purity, and piety. It is the religion of showing kindness to others, establishing justice between them, granting them their rights, and defending the oppressed and the persecuted. It is the religion of enjoining the good and forbidding the evil with the hand, tongue and heart. It is the religion of Jihad in the way of Allah so that Allah's Word and religion reign Supreme. And it is the religion of unity and agreement on the obedience to Allah, and total equality between all people, without regarding their colour, sex, or language. It is the religion whose book - the Quran - will remained preserved and unchanged, after the other Divine books and messages have been changed. The Quran is the miracle until the Day of Judgment. Allah has challenged anyone to bring a book like the Quran or even ten verses like it.
• You are the nation who, rather than ruling by the Shariah of Allah in its Constitution and Laws, choose to invent your own laws as you will and desire. You separate religion from your policies, contradicting the pure nature which affirms Absolute Authority to the Lord and your Creator. You flee from the embarrassing question posed to you: How is it possible for Allah the Almighty to create His creation, grant them power over all the creatures and land, grant them all the amenities of life, and then deny them that which they are most in need of: knowledge of the laws which govern their lives?
• Your law is the law of the rich and wealthy people, who hold sway in their political parties, and fund their election campaigns with their gifts. Behind them stand the Jews, who control your policies, media and economy.
• We also advise you to pack your luggage and get out of our lands. We desire for your goodness, guidance, and righteousness, so do not force us to send you back as cargo in coffins.
• Sixthly, we call upon you to end your support of the corrupt leaders in our countries. Do not interfere in our politics and method of education. Leave us alone, or else expect us in New York and Washington.
• We also call you to deal with us and interact with us on the basis of mutual interests and benefits, rather than the policies of sub dual, theft and occupation, and not to continue your policy of supporting the Jews because this will result in more disasters for you.
• If you fail to respond to all these conditions, then prepare for fight with the Islamic Nation. The Nation of Monotheism, that puts complete trust on Allah and fears none other than Him. The Nation which is addressed by its Quran with the words: 'Do you fear them? Allah has more right that you should fear Him if you are believers. Fight against them so that Allah will punish them by your hands and disgrace them and give you victory over them and heal the breasts of believing people. And remove the anger of their [Muslims'] hearts'.

• When the Islamic party in Algeria wanted to practice democracy and they won the election, you unleashed your agents in the Algerian army onto them, and to attack them with tanks and guns, to imprison them and torture them - a new lesson from the 'American book of democracy'

2003

• We will continue to fight you as long as we have weapons in our hands.
  • Audiotape aired on Al-Jazeera (18 October 2003).

• There is no dialogue except with weapons.
  • Audiotape aired on Al-Jazeera (18 October 2003).

2004

• This war in Iraq makes millions of dollars for big corporations, either weapons manufacturers or those working in the reconstruction, such as Halliburton and its sister companies. . . It is crystal clear who benefits from igniting the fire of this war and this bloodshed: They are the merchants of war, the bloodsuckers who run the policy of the world from behind the scenes. President Bush and his ilk, the media giants, and the U.N. . . all are a fatal danger to the world, and the Zionist lobby is their most dangerous member. God willing, we will persist in fighting them. . .
  • Reported in Strategic Culture and Violent Non-state Actors: Weapons of Mass Destruction and Asymmetrical Operations Concepts and Cases by James M. Smith, Jerry Mark Long, Thomas H. Johnson, p. 33, USAF Institute for National Security Studies, 2008

• Every Muslim, from the moment they realize the distinction in their hearts, hates Americans, hates Jews and hates Christians. For as long as I can remember, I have felt tormented and at war, and have felt hatred and animosity for Americans.
  • As quoted in Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama bin Laden (2005) by Bruce Lawrence ISBN 1844670457

• The events that affected my soul in a direct way started in 1982 when America permitted the Israelis to invade Lebanon and the American Sixth Fleet helped them in that. This bombardment began and many were killed and injured and others were terrorised and displaced.
  I couldn't forget those moving scenes, blood and severed limbs, women and children sprawled everywhere. Houses destroyed along with their occupants and high rises demolished over their residents, rockets raining down on our home without mercy.
  The situation was like a crocodile meeting a helpless child, powerless except for his screams. Does the crocodile understand a conversation that doesn't include a weapon? And the whole world saw and heard but it didn't respond.
  In those difficult moments many hard-to-describe ideas bubbled in my soul, but in the end they produced an intense feeling of rejection of tyranny, and gave birth to a strong resolve to punish the oppressors.
  And as I looked at those demolished towers in Lebanon, it entered my mind that we should punish the oppressor in kind and that we should destroy towers in America in order that they taste some of what we tasted and so that they be deterred from killing our women and children.
  And that day, it was confirmed to me that oppression and the intentional killing of innocent women and children is a deliberate American policy. Destruction is freedom and democracy, while resistance is terrorism and intolerance.
  This means the oppressing and embargoing to death of millions as Bush Sr did in Iraq in the greatest mass slaughter of children mankind has ever known, and it means the throwing of millions of pounds of bombs and explosives at millions of children - also in Iraq - as Bush Jr did, in order to remove an old agent and replace him with a new puppet to assist in the pilfering of Iraq's oil and other outrages.
  So with these images and their like as their background, the events of September 11th came as a reply to those great wrongs, should a man be blamed for defending his sanctuary?
  • "Full transcript of bin Ladin's speech", Aljazeera, (1 Nov 2004)

• As for it's results, they have been, by the grace of Allah, positive and enormous, and have, by all standards, exceeded all expectations. This is due to many factors, chief among them, that we have found it difficult to deal with the Bush administration in light of the resemblance it bears to the regimes in our countries, half of which are ruled by the military and the other half which are ruled by the sons of kings and presidents.
  Our experience with them is lengthy, and both types are replete with those who are characterised by pride, arrogance, greed and misappropriation of wealth. This resemblance began after the visits of Bush Sr to the region.
  At a time when some of our compatriots were dazzled by America and hoping that these visits would have an effect on our countries, all of a sudden he was affected by those monarchies and military regimes, and became envious of their remaining decades in their positions, to embezzle the public wealth of the nation without supervision or accounting.
  So he took dictatorship and suppression of freedoms to his son and they named it the Patriot Act, under the pretence of fighting terrorism. In addition, Bush sanctioned the installing of sons as state governors, and didn't forget to import expertise in election fraud from the region's presidents to Florida to be made use of in moments of difficulty.
  • "Full transcript of bin Ladin's speech", Aljazeera, (1 Nov 2004)

2004 Video Broadcast on Al-Jazeera October 29

Al-Jazeera transcript [1]

• Your security is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush or al Qaeda. Your security is in your own hands. Each and every state that does not tamper with our security will have automatically assured its own security.
• Contrary to Bush's claim that we hate freedom. If so, then let him explain to us why we don't strike for example - Sweden?
• No, we fight because we are free men who don't sleep under oppression. We want to restore freedom to our nation, just as you lay waste to our nation. So shall we lay waste to yours.
• And as I looked at those demolished towers in Lebanon, it entered my mind that we should punish the oppressor in kind and that we should destroy towers in America in order that they taste some of what we tasted and so that they be deterred from killing our women and children.
• And it's no secret to you that the thinkers and perceptive ones from among the Americans warned Bush before the war and told him: "All that you want for securing America and removing the weapons of mass destruction - assuming they exist - is available to you, and the nations of the world are with you in the inspections, and it is in the interest of America that it not be thrust into an unjustified war with an unknown outcome."
• All that we have mentioned has made it easy for us to provoke and bait this administration. All that we have to do is to send two mujahidin to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaida, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies. All Praise is due to Allah. So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah.

2006

• No one except a dumb thief plays with the security of others and then makes himself believe he will be secure. Whereas thinking people, when disaster strikes, make it their priority to look for its causes, in order to prevent it happening again.
• I am the one in charge of the 19 brothers … I was responsible for entrusting the 19 brothers … with the raids.
  • On the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, in an audiotape broadcast on Al Jazeera (23 May 2006).

2007

• People of America: the world is following your news in regards to your invasion of Iraq, for people have recently come to know that, after several years of tragedies of this war, the vast majority of you want it stopped. Thus, you elected the Democratic Party for this purpose, but the Democrats haven't made a move worth mentioning.
  • "New OBL Tape: Iraq, Democratic Control" ABC News (7 September 2007).

Quotes about bin Laden

Alphabetized by author

• Last year, when the need to form a fact-finding team to undertake a thorough investigation concerning the hidden elements involved in September 11 incident was brought up; an idea also endorsed by all independent governments and nations as well as by the majority in the United States, my country and myself came under pressure and threat by the government of the United States. Instead of assigning a fact-finding team, they killed the main perpetrator and threw his body into the sea. Would it not have been reasonable to bring to justice and openly bring to trial the main perpetrator of the incident in order to identify the elements behind the safe space provided for the invading aircraft to attack the twin world trade towers? Why should it not have been allowed to bring him to trial to help recognize those who launched terrorist groups and brought wars and other miseries into the region? Is there any classified information that must be kept secret?
  • Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Speech to the United Nations General Assembly (22 September 2011), New York City, New York.

• Well, when it was a local problem, the American media did not really care much about it. But until September 11, you saw how this faith of hate, I call it, did to all of us, to New Yorkers and to the rest of the world, honestly. [...] Prince Nayif condemned bin Laden, and other princes... Prince Turki condemned bin Laden. They did not condemn that message. They condemned bin Laden. ... Bin Laden learned this in Saudi Arabia. He didn't learn it in the moon. That message that Bin Laden received, it still is taught in Saudi Arabia. And if bin Laden dies, and this policy or curriculum stays, we will have other bin Ladens.
  • Ahmed Ali, Wahhabism: Analysis. PBS.

• If a blasphemer [Salman Rushdie] can be given the title "Sir" by the West despite the fact he has hurt the feelings of Muslims, then a mujahid [Osama bin Laden] who has been fighting for Islam against the Russians, Americans and British must be given the lofty title of Islam, Saifullah.
  • Tahir Ashrafi, Pakistan Ulema Council chairman, quoted in Bin Laden made a Sword of Islam, Metro.co.uk (2007-06-21)

They did not condemn that message. They condemned bin Laden. ... Bin Laden learned this in Saudi Arabia. He didn't learn it in the moon. That message that Bin Laden received, it still is taught in Saudi Arabia. And if bin Laden dies, and this policy or curriculum stays, we will have other bin Ladens. ~ Ahmed Ali

• I would like to emphasize here, on Al-Arabiya TV, that I place Sheik Osama on the same level as my father, and I love him perhaps even more than my father.
  • Nasser Al-Bahri, AKA "Abu Jandal," former bodyguard of Osama bin Laden, on Al-Arabiya TV (4 May 2007) as quoted in "Former Osama bin Laden Bodyguard in Al-Arabiya TV Interview : I Love Him More Than I Love My Own Father" (6 June 2007).

• At a time when the name Osama bin Laden had appeared almost nowhere in the Western press, Bennett named the man to beware of. “Among private donors to the new generation [of fighters], Usama Bin Ladin is particularly famous for his religious zeal and financial largesse,” she wrote.
  • Gina Bennett, “The Wandering Mujahidin: Armed and Dangerous”; as quoted by Liza Mundy, “The Women Who Saw 9/11 Coming”, The Atlantic, (November 18, 2023); adapted from The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA.

• We know those responsible. In Afghanistan are scores of training camps for the export of terror. Chief amongst the sponsors and organisers is Usama Bin Laden. He is supported, shielded and given succour by the Taliban regime. Two days before the 11 September attacks, Masood, the leader of the opposition Northern Alliance, was assassinated by two suicide bombers. Both were linked to Bin Laden. Some may call that coincidence. I call it payment - payment in the currency these people deal in: blood. Be in no doubt: Bin Laden and his people organised this atrocity. The Taliban aid and abet him. He will not desist from further acts of terror. They will not stop helping him.
  • Tony Blair, Address to the 2001 Labour Party Conference, (7 October 2001)

• Not only did Islamabad have advance knowledge of the impending strikes, but at the very least it warned the Taliban leadership—whom Islamabad created and is sponsoring—so that they could ensure that bin Laden, Zawahiri, and their lieutenants were not harmed in the strike. According to Arab sources, the ISI even sent a senior official to Afghanistan to personally warn bin Laden about the impending U.S. strike.
  • Bodansky, Yossef - Bin Laden_ the man who declared war on America (2011)

• I will screw him in the ass.
  • George W. Bush, as quoted in Ariel Sharon: An Intimate Portrait (2007), by Uri Dan.

• Fighting the inflated menace of Osama bin Laden has become big business, generating hundreds of billions of dollars for government agencies and contractors in what one friend of mine in the Washington policy-making stratosphere calls "the counterterrorist-industrial complex."
  • Christopher Dickey, Terrorist Triage: Why are the presidential candidates—and so many counterterrorism experts—afraid to say that the Al Qaeda threat is overrated?, Newsweek

• As a human being, bin Laden may have deserved compassion and even forgiveness, the Dalai Lama said in answer to a question about the assassination of the al-Qaeda leader. But, he said, "Forgiveness doesn't mean forget what happened. … If something is serious and it is necessary to take counter-measures, you have to take counter-measures."
  • Mitchell Landsberg quoting Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, in "Dalai Lama suggests Osama bin Laden's death was justified" in The Los Angeles Times (4 May 2011).

• Remembering the evils of the past helps to sustain the faithful. Yes, the present may look dark, but that, too, is part of the story before the triumph of the faithful, and paradise comes on earth or in heaven. A few weeks after September 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden released a tape in which he exulted about the destruction of the World Trade Center towers: “Our Islamic nation has been tasting the same for more than eighty years, of humiliation and disgrace, its sons killed and their blood spilled, its sanctities desecrated.” Few people in the West knew that, for him, Muslim degradation had started in the modern age with the abolition of the caliphate. In 1924, in a move that caused little comment in the West, Atatürk, the founder of a new and secular Turkey, had abolished that last office held by the deposed Ottoman sultans. As caliphs they had claimed spiritual leadership of the world’s Muslims. The last one, a gentle poet, had gone quietly into exile. For many Muslims, from India to the Middle East, the abolition was a blow to their dream of a united Muslim world governed according to God’s laws. For Bin Laden and those who thought like him, disunity among Muslims had allowed Western powers to push the Middle East around; to take its oil and, with the establishment of Israel, its land; to corrupt its leaders; and to lead ordinary Muslims astray. The Saudi rulers had committed the ultimate sin of allowing the United States to bring its troops on to the holy land where Muslims had their most sacred sites. Bin Laden's history includes much more than the past eighty years. The Crusades, the defeat of the Moors in Spain, Western imperialism in the nineteenth century, and the evils of the twentieth all add up to a dark tale of Muslim humiliation and suffering. Such history keeps followers angry and motivated and attracts new recruits.
  • Margaret MacMillan, The Uses and Abuses of History (2008), pp. 67-68

• Though it took a decade to find bin Laden, there is one consolation for his long evasion of justice: He lived long enough to witness what some are calling the Arab Spring, the complete repudiation of his violent ideology.
  • John McCain, in "Bin Laden’s death and the debate over torture" in The Washington Post (11 May 2011).

• In America, we have a figure from history from 1897 named Teddy Roosevelt. He was a wealthy man, who grew up in a privileged situation and who fought on the front lines. He put together his own men–hand chose them–and went to battle. You are like the Middle East version of Teddy Roosevelt.
  • John Miller, as quoted in interview with John Miller (May 1998).

• By mid-1998, [CIA analyst Cindy] Storer had long been warning colleagues that bin Laden's organization had the ability to stage simultaneous attacks. On Friday, August 7, she turned out to be right: Major explosions occurred at U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing hundreds and injuring thousands. When the attacks were conclusively linked to al-Qaeda, this was, as one operations officer later wrote, a "profound" revelation, in that it showed that bin Laden could conduct "large-scale bombings of U.S. targets."
  Gradually, the truth was working its way to the agency's seventh floor and to CIA Director George Tenet, who tried to convey to the White House the extent of the threat. A series of plans to capture bin Laden were formed but were rejected by top officials, who worried about how precise the targeting was and the danger of putting civilians at risk.
  • Liza Mundy, “The Women Who Saw 9/11 Coming”, The Atlantic, (November 18, 2023); adapted from The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA.

• As 2000 gave way to 2001, Storer found herself reading terrorist communications that used words like "Olympic-sized" and "Armageddon." In October 2000, suicide bombers in Yemen blew a hole in the w:USS Cole:USS Cole, killing 17 American sailors, and analysts were shocked when the outgoing Clinton administration did not retaliate. In 2001, Tenet began begging the incoming administration of George W. Bush to let the CIA mount an operation that allowed for killing bin Laden rather than capturing him. Analysts expected that another major attack could happen in the summer, and Storer felt responsibility and dread: This is going to happen on your watch.
  • Liza Mundy, “The Women Who Saw 9/11 Coming”, The Atlantic, (November 18, 2023); adapted from The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA.

• Osama bin Laden understands that he cannot defeat the U.S. in a conventional war. What he and his allies can do is inflict enough pain to provoke a reaction of the sort we've seen in Iraq–a botched and ill-advised U.S. military incursion into a Muslim country, which in turn spurs on insurgencies based on religious sentiment and nationalist pride, which in turn necessitates a lengthy and difficult U.S. occupation. All of this fans anti-American sentiment among Muslims, and increases the pool of potential terrorist recruits. That’s the plan for winning a war from a cave, and so far, we are playing to script. To change that script, we'll need to make sure that any exercise of American military power helps rather than hinders our broader goals: to incapacitate the destructive potential of terrorist networks and win this global battle of ideas.
  • Barack Obama, as quoted in Audacity of Hope (2006), p. 307.

• Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda.
  • Barack H. Obama II, in remarks on the death of bin Laden - White House transcript and video (1 May 2011).

• Last August, after years of painstaking work by our intelligence community, I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden. It was far from certain, and it took many months to run this thread to ground. I met repeatedly with my national security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located bin Laden hiding within a compound deep inside of Pakistan. And finally, last week, I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action, and authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice. Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body.
  • Barack H. Obama II, in remarks on the death of bin Laden (2 May 2011).

• In May 2011 the United States finally got bin Laden. I felt a great sense of relief and pride as well as gratitude to President Obama for the bold decision to launch the raid that had led to the killing. And I felt vindication for putting into place many of the tools that had led to that day. I always believed that we would get bin Laden.
  • Condoleezza Rice, No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington (2011), p. 120

• We should give him credit for only one thing: unlike other vile tyrants, he did not live in golden palaces, but avoided them.
  • Gabriele Romagnoli, Osama: Quando Muore un Fantasma, Vanity Fair (11 May 2011).

• Osama Bin Laden and George Bush were both terrorists. They were both building international networks that perpetrate terror and devastate people’s lives. Bush with the Pentagon, the WTO, the IMF and the World Bank. Bin Laden with Al-Qaeda. The difference is that nobody elected Bin Laden... The United States supported Saddam Hussein and made sure that he ruled with an iron fist for all those years. Then they used the sanctions to break the back of civil society. Then they made Iraq disarm. Then they attacked Iraq. And now they’ve taken over all its assets.
  • Arundhati Roy in The Shape of the Beast: Conversations with Arundhati Roy (2008)

• Few people know that the first INTERPOL Notice for Osama bin Laden was issued in 1998 at the request of Libya, then under Muammar Ghaddafi’s rule.
  Less than five months later, some 200 people would lose their lives at the hands of al Qaeda in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and in Nairobi, Kenya.
  • Jurgen Stock, “Opinion editorial by Secretary General Jürgen Stock”, INTERPOL, (9 May 2023)

• On the existential plain, Bin Laden was marginalized, out of play, but inside the chrysalis of myth that he had spun about himself he was becoming a representative of all persecuted and humiliated Muslims. His life and the symbols in which he cloaked himself powerfully embodied the pervasive sense of dispossession that characterized the modern Muslim world. In his own miserable exile, he absorbed the misery of his fellow believers, his loss entitled him to speak for theirs, his vengeance would sanctify their suffering.
  • Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower.

• In what people irritatingly call "iconic" terms, Bin Laden certainly had no rival. The strange, scrofulous quasi-nobility and bogus spirituality of his appearance was appallingly telegenic, and it will be highly interesting to see whether this charisma survives the alternative definition of revolution that has lately transfigured the Muslim world. The most tenaciously lasting impression of all, however, is that of his sheer irrationality. What had the man thought he was doing? Ten years ago, did he expect, let alone desire, to be in a walled compound in dear little Abbottabad? ... What happened in Abbottobad … has been the second death of Osama bin Laden. His physical one. Meanwhile, his symbolic, political and ideological [death] had already occurred on the squares of Cairo, Tunis, Damascus and Bengasi, where al-Qaeda had been ignored. Nobody exhalted it. Nobody mentioned it. The "Arab spring" has blossomed and exploded for want of democracy and freedom. It is not provoked by Islamic fanaticism, and even less inspired by the idea of a caliphate... launched by bin Laden. It is not a choice. It is outdated, even if its sporadic followers are still able to strike. Before the Americans, bin Laden had been symbolically killed by the people on Tahrir square and Burghiba avenue.
  • Bernardo Valli, in "Il giovane viziato con lo sguardo timido diventato il 'principe del terrore': I soldi del padre e la svolta nella lotta contro l'Urss in Afghanistan" in La Republica (3 May 2011).

• The Sheikh has departed, may God have mercy on him, to his God as a martyr and we must continue on his path of jihad to expel the invaders from the land of Muslims and to purify it from injustice. Today, and thanks to God, America is not facing an individual or a group, but a rebelling nation, which has awoken from its sleep in a jihadist renaissance.
  • Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al-Qaeda posts fresh warning from al-Zawahiri to US. BBC News (June 8, 2011). Retrieved on June 20, 2011.

In fiction

• Huey squeals to the Feds’ terrorism hotline -

Huey: Why do you keep hanging up on me? I’m telling you the truth! The CIA trained Osama Bin Laden in using terrorism against the soviets during the Reagan-Bush administration they gave the Afghanistan rebels countless amounts of covert funding!

FBI: Don’t you have better things to be doing?

Huey: Better than fighting terrorism? Heck no! We’re at war!!

• Aaron McGruder, The Boondocks, (10/5/2001).

External links

• Interpol Profile
• FBI's 10 Most Wanted Fugitives poster
• "Hunting Bin Laden" PBS (November 2002)
• 'I met Osama bin Laden' BBC News (26 March 2004)
• "Young Osama" by Steve Coll, The New Yorker (12 December 2005)
• "Listening to Bin Laden" by Said Shirazi at PrintCulture (31 March 2006)
• Transcript: Full Text of Bin Ladin 4 January Audio Message (4 March 2004).