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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Monday, October 8, 2001

The September 11th attack | America strikes back
Defiant bin Laden renews call for 'jihad'

Full text of Osama bin Laden's videotaped address

USA Today

Osama bin Laden, in a videotape aired yesterday after the United States and Britain began military strikes aimed at eradicating his international terrorist network, praised the hijackers who attacked America. He also swore that the American people would not live in peace before "all the infidel armies" depart the Islamic world. It was the first time bin Laden publicly acknowledged the attacks Sept. 11 and associated himself with their cause.

Osama bin Laden, second from left, spoke from an undisclosed location in this television image broadcast yesterday by a Qatar-based news network. In his videotaped remarks, Bin Laden swore America "will never dream of security" until "the infidel's armies leave the land of Muhammad."

Associated Press

"There is America, full of fear from its north to its south, from its west to its east. Thank God for that," bin Laden said on the videotape shown on the independent al-Jazeera satellite TV network based in Qatar. He added that America is tasting "something insignificant" compared with what the Islam nation has suffered over the past 80 years: "Its sons are killed, its blood is shed, its sanctuaries are attacked, and no one hears and no one heeds."

The bearded, frail-looking bin Laden, 44, was shown sitting before what looked like the stony entrance to a cave, wearing a white turban and a military camouflage jacket, a rifle behind him and a black microphone in his hand.

Given the logistics of the region, the tape must have been recorded before the U.S. military barrage, possibly in the past week, experts said. MSNBC reported that the tape may have been made Sept. 11 after the jet attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Rifaat Hussain, chairman of the Defense and Strategic Studies Department at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad, Pakistan, called the video "a last-ditch attempt on bin Laden's part to incite the Muslim masses."

Hussain predicted some in Pakistan and the Arab world would be rallied to protest.

In a translation from the Arabic provided by the Associated Press, bin Laden declared that "every Muslim has to rush to make his religion victorious." He cited several flash points of Islamic anger:

  • He said "millions of innocent children" are being killed in Iraq, an apparent reference to the United Nations sanctions against Iraq. The sanctions forbid Iraq from using oil profits for anything but food, medicine and war reparations. U.S. officials say Iraq is using the money for weapons instead of food.
  • He said, "Israeli tanks infest Palestine" and other Islamic homelands, and vowed that Americans "will not dream of security before we live it in Palestine."
  • He called America and its allies "the cowards of this age" and President Bush "the head of infidels worldwide."
  • He said the world is divided "into two sides, the side of believers and the side of infidels."

Bin Laden credited God for striking America "in one of its softest spots" and destroying "its greatest buildings." Experts say his remarks carried a ring of pride that implied at least some association with the attacks. "When God blessed one of the groups of Islam, vanguards of Islam, they destroyed America," he said of the suicide terrorists. "I pray to God to elevate their status and bless them."

Bin Laden said his people had suffered humiliation and disgrace for more than 80 years, an apparent reference to the post-World War I British Mandate under which Jews were granted a national home in Palestine. Jews living there formed their own government and defense forces in 1920, laying the foundations for Israeli statehood in 1948.

It was not the first time bin Laden got his message out on al-Jazeera, a controversial force in the Arab world. The satellite network airs interviews and debates featuring players across the spectrum, from Israeli politicians to bin Laden and leaders of Hamas, the extremist Islamic group based in the Palestinian territories.

"Everyone's furious with the Qataris," Ehud Ya'ari wrote in The Jerusalem Report magazine last year.