Freedom Domain
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.......REPORTER: Mr Bin Ladin, you’ve declared a jihad against the United States. Can you tell us why? And is the jihad directed against the US government or the United States troops in Arabia? What about US civilians in Arabia or the people of the United States?
BIN LADIN: We declared jihad against the US government, because the US government is unjust, criminal and tyrannical. It has committed acts that are extremely unjust, hideous and criminal, whether directly or through its support of the Israeli occupation of the Prophet’s Night Travel Land [Palestine]. And we believe the US is directly responsible for those who were killed in Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq.
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.
They should have been considerate that the qibla [Mecca] of the Muslims upheaves the emotion of the entire Muslim world. Due to its subordination to the Jews, the arrogance and haughtiness of the US regime has reached to the extent that they occupied the qibla of the Muslims [Arabia] who are more than a billion in the world today.
A reaction might take place as a result of the US government’s hitting Muslim civilians and executing more than 600,000 Muslim children in Iraq by preventing food and medicine from reaching them. So, the US is responsible for any reaction, because it extended its war against troops to civilians.
As for what you asked regarding the American people, they are not exonerated from responsibility, because they chose this 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. We ask that may God release them.
REPORTER: The US State Department, quoting a Pakistani official, says that Ramzi Yousef, a convicted bomber in the World Trade Centre in New York City, stayed in the house you funded in Peshawar, Pakistan, for those receiving training during the Afghan conflict after the bombing. Is that true? Did Ramzi Yousef stay in your house in Peshawar?
BIN LADEN: If the American government is serious about avoiding the explosions inside the US, then let it stop provoking the feelings of 1,250 million Muslims. Those hundreds of thousands who have been killed or displaced in Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, do have brothers and relatives. They would make of Ramzi Yousef a symbol and a teacher. The US will drive them to transfer the battle into the United States. Everything is made possible to protect the blood of the American citizen while the bloodshed of Muslims is allowed in every place. With this kind of behaviour, the US government is hurting itself, hurting Muslims and hurting the American people.
REPORTER: What are your future plans?
BIN LADIN: You’ll see them and hear about them in the media, God willing.