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Osama (or Usama) Bin Laden is both one of the CIA's most wanted men and a hero to many young people in the Arab world.
It is
now a known fact that he is responsible for the terror attacks on the World
Trade Center Buildings, the Pentagon, and a failed attack that ended in a crash
in a Pennsylvania Field.
He and his associates were already being sought by the US on charges of international
terrorism, including in connection with the 1998 bombing of American embassies in Africa
and last year's attack on the USS Cole in Yemen.
In May this year a US jury convicted four men believed to be linked
with Bin Laden of plotting the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.
Bin Laden, an immensely wealthy and private man, has been granted
a safe haven by Afghanistan's ruling Taleban movement.
During his time in hiding, he has called for a holy war against the US, and for the killing of
Americans and Jews. He is reported to be able to rally around him up to 3,000 fighters.
He is also suspected of helping to set up Islamic training centers
to prepare soldiers to fight in Chechnya and other parts of the former Soviet Union.
Sponsored by US and Pakistan
His power is founded on a personal fortune earned by his family's construction business in
Saudi Arabia.
Born in Saudi Arabia to a Yemeni family, Bin Laden left Saudi Arabia
in 1979 to fight against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
The Afghan jihad was backed with American dollars and had the
blessing of the governments of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
He received security training from the CIA itself, according to Middle Eastern analyst
Hazhir Teimourian.
While in Afghanistan, he founded the Maktab al-Khidimat (MAK), which recruited fighters
from around the world and imported equipment to aid the Afghan resistance against the
Soviet army.
Egyptians, Lebanese, Turks and others - numbering thousands in Bin Laden's estimate -
joined their Afghan Muslim brothers in the struggle against an ideology that spurned
religion.
Turned against the US
After the Soviet withdrawal, the "Arab Afghans", as Bin Laden's faction came to be
called, turned their fire against the US and its allies in the Middle East.
Bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia to work in the family construction business, but was
expelled in 1991 because of his anti-government activities there.
He spent the next five years in Sudan until US pressure prompted the Sudanese Government
to expel him, whereupon Bin Laden returned to Afghanistan.
Terrorism experts say Bin Laden has been using his millions to fund attacks against the US.
The US State Department calls him "one of the most significant sponsors of Islamic extremist
activities in the world today".
According to the US, Bin Laden was involved in at least three major attacks - the 1993 World
Trade Center bombing, the 1996 killing of 19 US soldiers in Saudi Arabia, and the 1998
bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.
Islamic front
BBC correspondent James Robbins says Bin Laden had "all but admitted involvement" in the
Saudi Arabia killings.
Some experts say he is part of an international Islamic front, bringing together Saudi, Egyptian
and other groups.
Their rallying cry is the liberation of Islam's three holiest places - Mecca, Medina and
Jerusalem.
Analysts say Bin Laden's organization is very different from the groups that carried out
bombings and hijackings in the past in that it is not a tightly knit group with a clear command
structure but a loose coalition of groups operating across continents.
American officials believe Bin Laden's associates may operate in over forty countries
- in Europe and North America, as well as in the Middle East and Asia.
The few outsiders who have met Bin Laden describe him as modest, almost shy. He rarely
gives interviews.
He is believed to be in his 40s, and to have at least three wives.
Published in Al-Quds al-'Arabi on February 23, 1998
Statement signed by Sheikh Usamah Bin-Muhammad Bin-Ladin; Ayman al-Zawahiri, leader of the Jihad Group in Egypt; Abu- Yasir Rifa'i Ahmad Taha, a leader of the Islamic Group; Sheikh Mir Hamzah, secretary of the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Pakistan; and Fazlul Rahman, leader of the Jihad Movement in Bangladesh
Praise be to God, who revealed the Book, controls the clouds, defeats factionalism, and says in His Book "But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the pagans wherever ye find them, seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war)"; and peace be upon our Prophet, Muhammad Bin-'Abdallah, who said "I have been sent with the sword between my hands to ensure that no one but God is worshipped, God who put my livelihood under the shadow of my spear and who inflicts humiliation and scorn on those who disobey my orders." The Arabian Peninsula has never--since God made it flat, created its desert, and encircled it with seas--been stormed by any forces like the crusader armies now spreading in it like locusts, consuming its riches and destroying its plantations. All this is happening at a time when nations are attacking Muslims like people fighting over a plate of food. In the light of the grave situation and the lack of support, we and you are obliged to discuss current events, and we should all agree on how to settle the matter.
No one argues today about three facts that are known to everyone; we will list them, in order to remind everyone:
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 formerly debated 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, still 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, in excess of 1 million... despite all this, the Americans are once against 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 now 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.
All these crimes and sins committed by the Americans are a clear declaration of war on God, his messenger, and Muslims. And ulema have throughout Islamic history unanimously agreed that the jihad is an individual duty if the enemy destroys the Muslim countries. This was revealed by Imam Bin-Qadamah in "Al- Mughni," Imam al-Kisa'i in "Al- Bada'i," al-Qurtubi in his interpretation, and the shaykh of al-Islam in his books, where he said "As for the militant struggle, it is aimed at defending sanctity and religion, and it is a duty as agreed. Nothing is more sacred than belief except repulsing an enemy who is attacking religion and life."
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 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. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty God, "and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together," and "fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in God."
This is in addition to the words of Almighty God "And why should ye not fight in the cause of God and of those who, being weak, are ill-treated and oppressed--women and children, whose cry is 'Our Lord, rescue us from this town, whose people are oppressors; and raise for us from thee one who will help!'"
We -- with God's help -- call on every Muslim who believes in God and wishes to be rewarded to comply with God's order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it. We also call on Muslim ulema, leaders, youths, and soldiers to launch the raid on Satan's U.S. troops and the devil's supporters allying with them, and to displace those who are behind them so that they may learn a lesson.
Almighty God said "O ye who believe, give your response to God and His Apostle, when He calleth you to that which will give you life. And know that God cometh between a man and his heart, and that it is He to whom ye shall all be gathered."
Almighty God also says "O ye who believe, what is the matter with you, that when ye are asked to go forth in the cause of God, ye cling so heavily to the earth! Do ye prefer the life of this world to the hereafter? But little is the comfort of this life, as compared with the hereafter. Unless ye go forth, He will punish you with a grievous penalty, and put others in your place; but Him ye would not harm in the least. For God hath power over all things."