ASIAN AFFAIRS ON TERRORISM

Osama Bin Laden - Al Qaeda founder

LIVE AND LET LIVE

Over the years, Osama Bin Laden has made a number of interviews. The last one was published in a Pakistani newspaper, Dawn, on November 9, 2001. Yet, very few took seriously Bin Laden and his rhetoric against the United States, not even the American government that has been in touch with him on and off for the most part of the last twenty years. As for Western readers, they paid little attention to the man.

Since September 11, 2001, the Bush administration has labelled Bin Laden's statements and opinions as propaganda. It then suggested to the media to broadcast only minimal information on the man and his ideas. To every honest man's surprise, the most of the media dutifully complied.

The leaders of the world have never been kind with people challenging their rights to supremacy. And the right to censor your enemy, on various ground, is a very old debate. But that the American administration feels in 2002 that it is proper and necessary to control the flow of information must not be condoned (1).

Indeed, if at the start of what was supposed to be a new millenium, we are faced with such a dilemma, then surely something is going badly wrong somewhere, and September 11, 2001, can then be only considered a by-product of our own carelessness and hypocrisy.

Governments always conveniently forget that revolutions came about because a number of individuals challenged the world order. History tells us that many were misguided and a large number of them ended up being burned at the stake or executed.

Bin Laden's message may be an unpleasant one, but it can't be denied for quite a large number of people in our global society feels it rings true.

The challenge is to understand why, in 2002, a discourse that could have been made in the XIII century is still valid in some corner of the world some eight hundred years later.

Asian Affairs

Hamid Mir (HM) (2). In your statement of Oct 7, you expressed satisfaction over the Sept 11 attacks, although a large number of innocent people perished in them, hundreds among them being Muslims. Can you justify the killing of innocent men in the light of Islamic teachings ?

OBL.- This is a major point in jurisprudence. In my view, if an enemy occupies a Muslim territory and uses common people as human shield, then it is permitted to attack that enemy. For instance, if bandits barge into a home and hold a child hostage, then the child's father can attack the bandits and in that attack even the child may get hurt. America and its allies are massacring us in Palestine, Chechenya, Kashmir and Iraq. The Muslims have the right to attack America in reprisal. The Islamic Shariat says Muslims should not live in the land of the infidel for long. The Sept 11 attacks were not targeted at women and children (3). The real targets were America's icons of military and economic power (4). The Holy Prophet (…) was against killing women and children. When he saw a dead woman during a war, he asked why was she killed? But if a child is above 13 and wields a weapon against Muslims, then it is permitted to kill him.

On the same subject, to a British jounalist, Osama Bin Laden said in 1996:

OBL.- When sixty Jews are killed inside Palestine, all the world gathers (...) to criticize the action, while the deaths of 600,000 Iraqi children (because of the US sanctions) do not receive the same reaction. Killing those Iraqi schoolchildren is a crusade against Islam (…). Our trusted leaders, our Ulema, have given us a fatwa that we must drive out the Americans (from Saudi Arabia).

to Hamid Mir, he added in 2001:

OBL.- The American people should remember that they pay taxes to their government, they elect their president, their government manufactures arms and gives them to Israel and Israel uses them to massacre Palestinians. The American Congress endorses all government measures and this proves that the entire population, because it elects the Congress, share responsibilities for the atrocities perpetrated against Muslims.

To Peter Arnet (CNN reporter), Bin Laden had made clear in 1997 that "

OSB.- the American people (…) are not exonerated from responsibility, because they chose their government and voted for it despite their knowledge of its crimes in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq and in other places and its support of its agent regimes who filled our prisons with our best children and scholars.

To Hamid Mir,

OSB.- I ask the American people to force their government to give up anti-Muslim policies. The American people had risen against their government's war in Vietnam. They must do the same today. The American people should stop the massacre of Muslims by their government.

HM.- Can it be said that you are against the American government, not the American people ?

OSB.- Yes! We are carrying on the mission of our Prophet, Muhammad (…). The mission is to spread the word of God, not to indulge massacring people. We ourselves are the target of killings, destruction and atrocities. We are only defending ourselves. This is defensive Jihad. We want to defend our people and our land. That is why I say that if we don't get security, the Americans, too are not going to get it either. This is a simple formula that even an American child can understand. This is the formula of live and let live.

HM.- The head of Egypt's Jamia Al-Azhar has issued a fatwa (edict) against you, saying that the views and beliefs of Osama bin Laden have nothing to do with Islam. What do you have to say about that ?

OSB.- History is full of such Ulema who justify Riba, who justify the occupation of Palestine by the Jews, who justify the presence of American troops around Harmain Sharifain. These people support the infidels for their personal gain.The true Ulema support the Jihad against America. Tell me, if the Indian forces invaded Pakistan what would you do? The Israeli forces occupy our land and the American troops are on our territory. We have no other option but to launch Jihad.

HM.- Some Western media claim that you are trying to acquire chemical and nuclear weapons. How much truth is there in such reports?

OSB.- I heard the speech of American President Bush yesterday (Oct 7, 2001). He was scaring the European countries that Osama wanted to attack with weapons of mass destruction. I wish to declare that if America used chemical or nuclear weapons against us, then we may retort with chemical and nuclear weapons. We have the weapons as deterrent (5).

HM.- Demonstrations are being held in many European countries against American attacks on Afghanistan. Thousands of the protesters were non-Muslim. What is your opinion about those non-Muslim protesters ?

OSB.- There are many innocent and good-hearted people in the West. American media instigates them against Muslims. However, some good-hearted people are protesting against American attacks because human nature abhors injustice.

When the Muslims were massacred under the UN patronage in Bosnia, I was told that some officers of the State Department resigned in protest. Many years ago the US ambassador in Egypt resigned in protest against the policies of President Jimmy Carter. Nice and civilized people are everywhere. But the Jewish lobby has taken America and the West hostage.

HM.- Some people say that war is no solution to any issue. Do you think that some political formula could be found to stop the present war?

OSB.- You should put this question to those who have started this war. We are only defending ourselves.

HM.- If America got out of Saudi Arabia and the Al-Aqsa mosque was liberated, would you then present yourself for trial in some Muslim country ?

OSB.- Only Afghanistan (under the Taleban regime) is an Islamic country. Pakistan follows the English law. I don't consider Saudi Arabia an Islamic country

to Robert Fisk, a British journalist, in a meeting in Afghanistan in 1996, Osama Bin Ladden added:

OSB.- When the American troops entered Saudia Arabia (after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait), the land of the two holy places (Mecca and Medina), there was strong protest from the Ulema (religious authorities) and from students of the Shariah law all over the country against the interference of American troops. This big mistake by the Saudi regime of inviting the American troops revealed their deception. They had given their support to nations that were fighting against Muslims. They (the Saudis) helped the Yemen Communists against the southern Yemeni Muslims and they helped Arafat's regime fight against Hamas. After it had insulted and jailed the Ulema ... the Saudi regime lost its legitimacy (6).

to Hamid Mir, he concluded:

OSB.- If the Americans have charges against me, we too have a charge sheet against them (7).

HM.- Pakistan government decided to cooperate with America after Sept 11, which you don't consider right. What do you think Pakistan should have done but to cooperate with America ?

OSB.- The government of Pakistan should have taken the wishes of its people into account. It should not have surrendered to the unjustified demands of America. America does not have solid proof against us. It just has some surmises. It is unjust to start bombing on the basis of those surmises.

HM.- Had America decided to attack Pakistan with the help of India and Israel, what would have we done ?

OSB.- What has America achieved by attacking Afghanistan ? (…) We have been disappointed by Gen Pervez Musharraf. He says that the majority is with him. I say the majority is against him. Bush has used the word crusade. This is a crusade declared by Bush. It is no wisdom to barter off blood of Afghan brethren to improve Pakistan's economy. He will be punished by the Pakistani people and Allah. Right now a great war of Islamic history is being fought in Afghanistan. All the big powers are united against Muslims. It is "sawab" to participate in this war.

HM.- A French newspaper has claimed that you had kidney problems and had secretly gone to Dubai for treatment last year. Is that correct ?

OSB.- My kidneys are all right. I did not go to Dubai last year. One British newspaper has published an imaginary interview with Islamabad dateline with one of my sons who lives in Saudi Arabia. All this is false.

Robert Fisk asked Osama Bin Laden in 1996, when he declared war on America if he was not afraid of the consequences:

OSB.- No, I was never afraid of death. (…) As Muslims, we believe that when we die, we go to heaven. Before a battle, God sends us sequina (tranquillity). My fellow Muslims did much more than I. Many of them died but I am still alive.

The last statement of Osama Bin Laden in 2001 was released on the Al-Jazira channel on December 27. The exact date of the recording is unknown.

OSB.- Three months after the blessed strikes against world atheism and its leader, America, and around two months after the start of a fierce crusade against Islam, we must review the impact of these events.

The latest events have proved important truths. It has become clear that the West in general and America in particular have an unspeakable hatred for Islam. Those who lived under continuous US raids for the past months are aware of it.

How many villages have been destroyed and how many millions have been pushed out in the freezing cold? These men, women and children who have been damned and now live under tents in Pakistan have committed no sin. They are innocent. But on a mere suspicion, the United States has launched this fierce campaign. We have witnessed the true crimes of those who call themselves humanists and claim to be defenders of freedom.

Only seven grams of explosives are needed to kill someone, but the United States has used bombs weighing seven million grams (in its raids on Afghanistan), proving its hatred of the Taleban and Muslims.

When some youths - may God receive them as martyrs - blew up (the US embassy) in Nairobi, less than two tonnes were used. The United States then said it was a terrorist act and a mass destruction weapon, while (now) it unscrupulously used two seven-tonne bombs, of seven million grams each.

After they (the Americans), for no reason, bombed entire villages to scare the inhabitants (…), the (US0 Defence Secretary said it was the United States' right to exterminate the people since they are Muslim and since they are not American. It is a blatant crime.

A few days ago, they bombed al-Qaeda positions in Khost [eastern Afghanistan] and dropped - in what they said was a mistake - a radio-guided bomb on a mosque where ulemas were praying. They [the Americans] targeted the mosque, killing 150 Muslim worshippers. It is the hatred of crusaders. Terrorism against America deserves to be praised because it was a response to injustice, aimed at forcing America to stop its support for Israel, which kills our people (8).

This interview contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Asian Affairs disseminates this material for research and educational purposes. We believe this constitute a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C. $ 107. If the reader wishes to use the copyrighted material from this issue for purposes that go beyond fair use, he must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Asian Affairs - December 2001

Notes:

1.- In the issue of the Wall Street Journal of Tuesday, November 6, 2001, Dorothy Rabinowitz noted that the media had trouble grasping that America's was at war: "Shortly after the memorial service held, last month, amid the still smoking ruins of the World Trade Center, CNN's new chairman issued an exceptionally pointed memo, she remarked. In it, he directed CNN reporters to balance their war coverage, to supply the context for the American bombing raids and to beware of being used by Taliban propagandists.

The need for such directives was clear to him, Walter Isaacson says that (after the) last televised memorial (…) there would now be less and less coverage of the terrorist attacks, and their victims(…). He concluded that something had to be done to ensure that the atrocities that had caused the U.S. to go to war not be obscured."

The something turned out to be a memo to CNN's international correspondents which instructed them to include, in their dispatches about civilian casualties matters like the Taliban's propensity to use civilians as shields. The directive said it would be desirable, also, to remind viewers from time to time that the Taliban harbored the terrorists responsible for killing close to 5,000 people." (the number of victims was in fact less than 3,000).

(…) There can be no doubt that one of the terrors that have long haunted newspeople is of seeming to violate the neutrality rule, a considerable problem, in the current circumstance. Even Tom Brokaw, the man who brought us "The Greatest Generation", is reported to have explained, a few weeks ago, that he didn't want to wear an American flag pin on air lest he gives the impression he supported government policies across the board."

As Dorothy Rabinowitz remarked, the reporters who covered the Vietnam war or World War II did not, despite their American uniforms, fail to question authority nor did they accept official stories without question. But this time, the current generation failed to do likewise and the current bombing of Afghanistan went largely unreported as the journalists could only rely on the Pentagone information (or lack of it).

2.- Hamid Mir is the editor of the sister publication of the Pakistani English newspaper "Dawn".

3.- In the transcript of a tape found in Afghanistan and released by the American government, Osama Bin Laden is alleged to have said to a visiting guest, the following: "we calculated in advance the number of casualties from the enemy, who would be killed based on the position of the (World Trade) towers. We calculated that the floors that would be hit would be three or four floors. I was the most optimistic of them all. (...Inaudible...) due to my experience in this field, I was thinking that the fire from the gas in the plane would melt the iron structure of the building and collapse the area where the plane hit and all the floors above it only. This is all that we had hoped for (...inaudible...)

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 p.m. 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. (…) Not everybody knew (...inaudible...). Muhammad ((Atta)) from the Egyptian family (meaning the Al Qa'ida Egyptian group), was in charge of the group. (…) The brothers, who conducted the operation, all they knew was that they have a martyrdom operation and we asked each of them to go to America but they didn't know anything about the operation, not even one letter. But they were trained and we did not reveal the operation to them until they were there and just before they boarded the planes. (…) Those who were trained to fly didn't know the others. One group of people did not know the other group."

4.- The main concern is that any new regime would be a threat to the oil supply on the world market. To Peter Arnet (CNN reporter) who asked in 1997 Bin Laden what the Islamic movement would do if in power in Saudi Arabia, he replied: "Oil (…) is a commodity that should be subject to the price of the market according to supply and demand. We believe that the current prices are not realistic due to the Saudi regime playing the role of a US agent and the pressures exercised by the US on the Saudi regime to increase production and flooding the market that caused a sharp decrease in oil prices". The erratic volatility of the oil market in 2001 is further evidence that Saudi Arabia is less and less able to monitor and control the oil market as it did in the past.

5.- It is quite doubtful that the network of Osama Bin Laden has mastered the necessary technology and resources to produce anything close to a nuclear device. However it is quite possible that it has got the ability to use crude bio-chemical weapons. The still unexplained anthrax scare in the US, although most probably a home-grown act of terror, reminded every one that bio-chemical weapons are readily available, and that many governments including the United States have or had covered development programs.

6.- In a way, Bin Laden is on the way to achieve its aim. The current rulers of Saudi Arabia, to avoid infuriating the population, refuse the use of the American military resources stationed in the country to attack Afghanistan. As a result, a number of senior US lawmakers and the Pentagon are now airing the views that the United States should consider withdrawing military forces from Saudi Arabia because of frustration over what they consider the kingdom’s tepid support for its war on terrorism and the many restrictions the rulers place on American military operations.

In the sharpest and most recent expression of frustration, on January 16, 2002, Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat who is Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that he had “an uneasy feeling” that the Saudis were not doing enough to crack down on Islamic terrorists and that American forces were “not particularly wanted” there. “They act as though somehow or another they’re doing us a favour,” Senator Levin told reporters. “And I think the war against terrorism has got to be fought by countries who really realize that it’s in everybody’s interest to go after terrorism. “I think we may be able to find a place where we are much more welcome openly,” he said, “a place which has not seen significant resources flowing to support some really extreme, fanatic views.”

However, in a statement, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, (who is from the Saud family) responded blandly to the comments. “Our two nations share the goal of peace and the end of terrorism,” he said. “I have great respect for Senator Levin, but I am surprised by his statement.”

In the Pentagon, a growing number of commanders are frustrated with the Saudis’ refusal to allow American warplanes based at the Prince Sultan Air Base south of Riyadh to bomb Iraq and other Islamic countries, except in self-defence. “We’re pretty heavily invested in Saudi right now,” a senior military official said. “But if the opportunity arose to operate somewhere else in the region we’d be pretty interested.”

Senator Levin did not say where the several thousand American forces might be moved. They also use airfields, ports and command posts in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and United Arab Emirates.

However, the US airing of views publicly is considered, by independent military analysts, an exercise to pressurise the Saudi government to change its stance and attitude vis-a-vis the US as for the military matters are concerned. There was a time when what ever the US said went through, but, there are questions being asked and an air of independence has started blowing in Saudfi Arabia, to which the US is not accustomed. The change in the US media towards Saudi Arabia is being considered akin to ‘the wolf is coming.’

According to the NYT, “it is widely acknowledged in military circles that the Pentagon would have a hard time replacing a high-tech air operations centre it opened last summer at Prince Sultan Air Base. American commanders directed the air campaign in Afghanistan from Prince Sultan, which is also the command centre for the allied fighter jets that patrol the no-flight zone over southern Iraq. For that reason, some members of Congress say the United States cannot afford to move its forces out of Saudi Arabia, particularly while tensions in the region remain high.”

“They have been good friends over the years, but I’m not sure their whole heart is with us,” said Representative like Skelton, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee. “They need to cleanse the place of potential terrorist groups.”

Representative Porter J. Goss of Florida, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said in an interview, with the NYT, that he and many other members of Congress shared Senator Levin’s frustrations with the Saudis, though he was not prepared to support removing American troops from the kingdom.

“He’s expressing a frustration that many of us feel about their evolutionary process into a more democratic society,” Goss said. “It’s pretty tyrannical there.”

Prince Abdullah, the regent of the Kingdom, with Bin Laden and his supporters in the wings, can harldy accommodate such request without taking the risk of losing all legitimacy in the eyes of the Saudi population. The current rift is exactly the kind of scenario Bin Laden has been working on for many years.

7.- "We believe the US is directly responsible for those who were killed in Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq," Bin Laden told Peter Arnet. "The mention of the US reminds us before everything else of those innocent children who were dismembered, their heads and arms cut off in the recent explosion that took place in Qana (in Lebanon). This US government abandoned even humanitarian feelings by these hideous crimes. It transgressed all bounds and behaved in a way not witnessed before by any power or any imperialist power in the world (…).

"(The United States) has started to look at itself as a Master of this world and established what it calls the new world order. It wanted to delude people that it can do whatever it wants, but it can't do this. It leveled against me and others as many accusations as it desired and wished. It is these (accusations) that you mentioned. The US today as a result of the arrogant atmosphere has set a double standard, calling whoever goes against its injustice a terrorist. It wants to occupy our countries, steal our resources, impose on us agents to rule us based not on what God has revealed and wants us to agree on all these. If we refuse to do so, it will say you are terrorists. With a simple look at the US behaviors, we find that it judges the behavior of the poor Palestinian children whose country was occupied: if they throw stones against the Israeli occupation, it says they are terrorists whereas when the Israeli pilots bombed the United Nations building in Qana, Lebanon while it was full of children and women, the US stopped any plan to condemn Israel.

Wherever we look, we find the US as the leader of terrorism and crime in the world. The US does not consider it terrorism when hundreds of thousands of our sons and brothers in Iraq died for lack of food or medicine. So, there is no basis for what the US says and this saying does not affect us, because we, by the grace of God, are dependent on Him, martyrs. So, the US is responsible for any reaction, because it extended its war against troops to civilians.

8.- Bin Laden mentioned in several interviews as a proof of the "terrorist" nature of the Israeli regime the Israeli massacre of 107 Lebanese refugees sheltering at the UN camp at Qana in April 1996. Israel claimed it was a "mistake," the UN conceded otherwise and then President Clinton called it only a "tragedy", as if it was a natural disaster. Bin Laden called it bluntly an act of "international terrorism. "There must be justice and trials for the Israeli perpetrators", he said in 1997. The leading Israeli general that would then be implicated if a trial was held would be no other than Ariel Sharon, the current Prime Minister of Israel.

Asian Affairs - December 2001