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Bin Laden praises Sept. 11 attacks
Al-Qaeda leader's videotaped statement urges Muslims to unite against the West
10/08/2001
By JIM LANDERS / The Dallas Morning News
WASHINGTON - Osama bin Laden, praising the suicide hijackers who killed thousands last month, surfaced on videotape Sunday and appealed to Muslims around the world to join a war against the United States.
• "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." • "When the sword comes down ... [on America] 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." • "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." • "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 be upon him."
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Mr. bin Laden was dressed in a white turban and camouflage jacket, his back against a rock wall with a Kalashnikov rifle at his side. Al-Jazeera, a television station in the Persian Gulf emirate Qatar, aired the tape a few hours after U.S. and British forces launched attacks against Afghanistan. Mr. bin Laden appeared to be speaking during daylight, which would suggest that the tape was made some time before the nighttime missile attacks and airstrikes.
His remarks made it clear, however, that the tape was made after the Sept. 11 attacks on the New York World Trade Center and at the Pentagon.
"There is America, hit by God in one of its softest spots. Its greatest buildings were destroyed. Thank God for that," he said.
As in earlier terrorist attacks linked to the al-Qaeda network, Mr. bin Laden refrained from claiming responsibility but praised the individuals who committed suicide while slaughtering Americans and others.
"When God blessed one of the groups of Islam, they destroyed America," he said. "I pray to God to elevate their status and bless them."
Stance in Israel cited
He tied his war against the West to U.S. support for Israel in its conflict with the Palestinians, economic sanctions against Iraq and the continued presence of U.S. military forces in Saudi Arabia, which is home to the holiest sites of Islam, in Mecca and Medina.
Also on the tape with Mr. bin Laden was Ayman Zawahiri, leader of Egypt's Islamic Jihad, who merged his group with al-Qaeda in 1998.
Mr. bin Laden's decision to make the tape and release it to Al-Jazeera was an effort to spark street rebellions in Muslim countries such as Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, or at least to make it difficult for U.S. forces to gain their cooperation, several Mideast experts said.
Experts can't agree
Its effectiveness was unclear late at night in the Middle East, and it was a matter of dispute among communications and Arab studies specialists in the United States.
"He's launching a holy war. I think this notion is not selling well among mainstream Arabs," said Mohammed El-Nawawy, a communications professor at the University of West Florida. "They know the Arab cause is not being well served by these attacks. There is major concern, in fact, that he is hurting Islam and the Arab cause."
Mark Katz, a professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., said the message would appeal to many in the Arab world.
"He's appealing in very emotional terms with a struggle where virtually all Arabs and Muslims believe the Palestinians are right and Israel and America are wrong," he said. "It makes it difficult as possible for Arab and Muslim countries to side with us. It's a real danger."
Maryland University professor Shibley Telhami said Mr. bin Laden's message was identical to the appeals launched during the Gulf War by Saddam Hussein, who said attacks on Iraq were attacks on Islam.
"He basically highlights all the ills he knows people in the Middle East understand well - Palestine, Iraq, the number of Muslim victims the West doesn't seem to care about, and calls for jihad," he said.
"There's no question his message resonates. Not his violent methods, and not his recruiting message," Dr. Telhami said.
Mr. Hussein's appeals did little to disguise Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, a fellow Arab and Muslim country, and they had limited reach because airstrikes crippled Iraqi television broadcasts.
Long reach
Al-Jazeera reaches satellite dishes throughout the world, however. The station is considered the least-censored media outlet in the Arab world, and has been used by Mr. bin Laden to release earlier tapes and messages.
"The message will reach Muslims around the world," Dr. El-Nawawy said. "Al-Jazeera is picked up in Iran and translated into Farsi, and CNN is seen worldwide with translations into English."
U.S. prosecutors, who indicted Mr. bin Laden for the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, said his al-Qaeda network included a propaganda wing to praise attacks against the United States and appeal for recruits.
Recruiting tapes used by al-Qaeda feature footage of the blasted hull of the U.S.S. Cole in waters off Yemen and the devastation of the bombed U.S. embassy in Nairobi, Kenya. U.S. officials say that Mr. bin Laden had assigned one of his operatives to film the bombing of the Cole last year, but that the operative failed in his assignment because he overslept.
War of ideas
Mr. bin Laden's penchant for propaganda points to a need among the nations allied against him to win the war of ideas as well as bombs, Dr. Telhami said.
"The majority in the Arab world are terrified by the bin Laden phenomenon," he said.
"Most of the governments of the Arab world are terrified by bin Laden's effort to dominate the Arab world, and they feel guilty for allowing it to happen. They haven't done enough to confront the extremists through a war of ideas," Dr. Telhami said.