Text of Osama bin Laden's message
The Associated Press
Text of Osama bin Laden’s taped remarks, aired on an Arab television
station after the U.S. and British strikes Sunday. The remarks refer to the Sept. 11
terror attacks on New York and Washington, but appear to have been made before
Sunday’s strikes.
I bear witness that there is no God but Allah and that Mohammed is his messenger.
There is America, hit by God in one of its softest spots. Its greatest buildings were
destroyed, thank God for that. There is America, full of fear from its north to its south,
from its west to its east. Thank God for that.
What America is tasting now, is something insignificant compared to what we have tasted
for scores of years. Our nation (the Islamic world) has been tasting this humiliation and
this degradation for more than 80 years. Its sons are killed, its blood is shed, its
sanctuaries are attacked, and no one hears and no one heeds.
When God blessed one of the groups of Islam, vanguards of Islam, they destroyed
America. I pray to God to elevate their status and bless them.
Millions of innocent children are being killed as I speak. They are being killed in
Iraq without committing any sins and we don’t hear condemnation or a fatwa from the
rulers. In these days, Israeli tanks infest Palestine — in Jenin, Ramallah, Rafah,
Beit Jalla, and other places in the land of Islam, and we don’t hear anyone raising
his voice or moving a limb.
When the sword comes down (on America), after 80 years, hypocrisy rears its ugly head.
They deplore and they lament for those killers, who have abused the blood, honor, and
sanctuaries of Muslims. The least that can be said about those people, is that they are
debauched. They have followed injustice. They supported the butcher over the victim, the
oppressor over the innocent child.
May God show them His wrath and give them what they deserve.
I say that the situation is clear and obvious. After this event, after the senior
officials have spoken in America, starting with the head of infidels worldwide, Bush, and
those with him. They have come out in force with their men and have turned even the
countries that belong to Islam to this treachery, and they want to wag their tail at God,
to fight Islam, to supress people in the name of terrorism.
When people at the ends of the earth, Japan, were killed by their hundreds of
thousands, young and old, it was not considered a war crime, it is something that has
justification. Millions of children in Iraq, is something that has justification. But when
they lose dozens of people in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam (capitals of Kenya and Tanzania,
where U.S. embassies were bombed in 1998), Iraq was struck and Afghanistan was struck.
Hypocrisy stood in force behind the head of infidels worldwide, behind the cowards of this
age, America and those who are with it.
These events have divided the whole world into two sides. The side of believers and the
side of infidels, may God keep you away from them. Every Muslim has to rush to make his
religion victorious. The winds of faith have come. The winds of change have come to
eradicate oppression from the island of Muhammad, peace be upon him.
To America, I say only a few words to it and its people. I swear by God, who has
elevated the skies without pillars, neither America nor the people who live in it will
dream of security before we live it in Palestine, and not before all the infidel armies
leave the land of Muhammad, peace by upon him.
God is great, may pride be with Islam. May peace and God’s mercy be upon you.
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