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Read other Essays Responding to the September 11 Attack
Bin Laden Briefs His Lieutenants
by Wayne I. Boucher 1It is October 27, 2001. . . or today. You are the a Senior Assistant to the President, or perhaps the Chairman of Citigroup, or perhaps the publisher of the Chicago Tribune, or perhaps the President of RAND. Or perhaps you are yourself. One of your closest friends—someone whose judgment and integrity are beyond question—calls and asks urgently for a private meeting at once. When you meet, he presents you with the following document, which he had personally received a few hours earlier from an utterly reliable colleague in the Pentagon. (This source is also the author of the introductory note in italics, wherein he refers to himself in the third person.) Your friend is in a state of great alarm. He is certain that the document is authentic.
You read it. Like your friend, you are deeply shocked by this glimpse into the mind of Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda. You too are persuaded that this terrifying document is genuine. What do you do? When? Why? (Why exactly?) If you are asked for your advice, what do you say? And what do you expect to happen as a result?
Translation of Bin Laden Statement
The U.S. Special Forces action on the ground in Afghanistan on October 19 resulted in the capture of many useful documents. But the principal discovery was an audio tape which has just been found to contain a briefing by Osama bin Laden to his key subordinates. (Voice verification was done by the CIA.) Bin Laden’s purpose in this briefing was to assess developments to date and to inspire anew his "blessed group of vanguard Muslims" in their commitment to the jihad against "the infidels," especially "the great Satan." Internal evidence suggests that this tape must have been made on the 17th or 18th.
The translation here was made hurriedly on the 26th, and it is informal. Citations for quotations from the Koran are by the translator, and it may be confirmed that, remarkably, all the quotations are exact. A more literal translation of this speech is in progress at the CIA, along with a response analysis, but (consistent with the National Security Adviser’s position) officials there apparently plan not to release this text publicly, given its extremely inflammatory and chilling content. The President and Vice President have not yet seen this document. But a source in the Pentagon (who wishes to remain anonymous) has now made this version available, his belief being that Bin Laden’s speech is too important to be denied the American public and, indeed, the world at this critical time.
In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful, greetings to you, my Muslim brothers. Peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah and his blessings.
We feel the deepest sorrow for the murder of Abu Baseera al-Masri, our beloved friend, and for the murder of so many of our other brothers in recent days by the American crusade forces. May God, who alone has the power, welcome these martyrs to blessedness in a supreme place in Heaven and by his grace shield and sustain their children and others in their families! Our duty—a responsibility we Muslims gladly accept—is not only to become the caretakers of these survivors. It is also, Allah willing, to avenge the blood of the martyrs and utterly defeat the pagans, the infidels, and, not least, the apostate hereditary rulers in Islam who back the Christian-Jewish butchers. As is written in the Holy Qur’an, "if Allah willed, he could have punished them without you, but, thus it is ordained, that he may try some of you by means of others. And those who are slain in the way of Allah, he renders not their actions vain." 2
The courageous Afghan people are struggling with us in this cause under their fighting emir, Mullah Mohammed Omar, prince of the faithful. At their side, and with the wise guidance of our teacher Ayman al-Zawahiri and the inspired leadership of Muhammad Atef, we—and all our al-Qa’ida brothers not in this room—are fighting both here and throughout the world in this just conflict. Our blood waters the ground for millions more to grow.
My wish today is to summarize [the] main recent events and briefly to look forward to the immediate steps we will take toward the global victory of Islam.
The news is good, Allah be praised. God Almighty had struck down America’s greatest buildings. Muslims around the world are rising in our support to defend Islam. The infidel coalition has become boastful, but in their hearts they are confused and uncertain. They are now flailing blindly at the sand and rocks of Afghanistan with terrible weapons that kill innocent people. At home, particularly in American, governments are in disarray and can no longer speak with a single voice or do their work. Whole industries are on the verge of collapse. And thanks to our brothers in America, who fulfilled their mission to mail a half-dozen envelopes with a special message of retribution from Allah, panic has swept that evil country and, indeed, the world. People buy gas masks and hoard pills they foolishly think will help them.
For pennies, we have forced them all to spend untold billions. For a few minutes of work in the name of Allah, we have begun to change their life for centuries. And all they can do is drop bombs, bloody the sands of Islam, and cry out, "What next?"
Already we have achieved our first objectives. Everyone in the world now knows of our cause. They know our determination and resolve. They know we are everywhere, lying in wait, ready to strike. And their panic, mounting each day, makes them both reckless in deed and careless in thought. They have already told us all we wanted to know about their state of preparedness for attack—how vulnerable they are to anthrax, smallpox, and the like, or to chemical weapons, or to attack planes—and where their weaknesses are in their power and water supply, transportation, commerce, telecommunications, agriculture, and elsewhere, including their homes. We now know these things exactly. They broadcast the details endlessly.
We know two other things, as well. First, that they fear for their coalition, which has now fallen into complete jeopardy because of our Palestine brothers’ courage in eliminating an Israeli minister. This simple act of justice for the bloody murder in August of one of our friends, Abu Ali Mustafa of the PFLP, 3 has emboldened the Israeli occupiers to echo the absurd demand of the head of international infidels, Bush, when he demanded that all of us be betrayed by our faithful Taliban friends and "handed over." The fanatical Israelis may be insane enough to force the issue in their case, which, God willing, would shortly bring the coalition down on its head in a ruin of days that will further weaken Israel itself and bring us closer to the time when peace again reigns in Palestine.
But, second, they are now constantly giving us their own assessment of our likely future actions. This is even more precious, because it confirms the wisdom of our plans and daily presents us with new options. We never intended to spray the whole Christian-Jewish world with anthrax! We know the difficulties of producing and using such a weapon, and until now we have been unwilling to accept the offer of full help from our friends in Iraq, Russia, and elsewhere. Our purpose in recent days was only to gather intelligence, sow confusion, distrust, and fear, and, yes, inspire our Muslim brethren by providing an example of the power of simple actions. That is why those letters were few in number and contained powders of different grades. That is also why the mail system was the "delivery platform." 4
But we have achieved our ends in this, and now, with the help of Allah, we seek bigger results. The Americans and the British have told us that they are essentially defenseless against smallpox, that it will be months—very probably years—before they have [an] adequate vaccine supply. More important, they have revealed that they think we would not use the smallpox virus, because we are too unsophisticated to prepare it, handle it, and deliver it. More important still, they have inadvertently told us that they actually believe that we would use only one such weapon at a time. Or strike only one city or two at a time. Or rely on "crop dusters" or "missiles" 5 to deliver our weapons. Like children, they err on all counts!
Do they think we are children? They must learn the reality, that we are the "single-minded slaves of Allah." 6 That we understand full well that "Allah tasks not a soul beyond its scope." 7 And that we, like all Muslims everywhere, are charged to do as the Glorious Qur’an says: "Slay them wherever you find them, and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out, for persecution is worse than slaughter. . . .And fight them until persecution is no more, and religion is for Allah." 8
We shall soon teach them a new vocabulary. I have told you before that acquiring weapons of mass destruction—chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear—is a religious duty. We are doing so. The world now knows about anthrax. Soon the Americans, the British, and others will also learn in great detail about hemorrhagic smallpox (and how it differs from malignant smallpox, meningococcemia, or severe acute leukemia). They will learn about Q fever, tularemia, Marburg, and other diseases. The great Satan, America, will once again also learn about hoof and mouth disease. Our friends, including Muslim brothers in England and Iraq, are helping us to prepare for all of this. Using substances like these not singly, but simultaneously and in concert, we shall disgorge the plague of plagues upon the infidels and destroy them, as we are commanded.
And while the Americans are busy with their foolish missile defense system and putting steel bars on pilots’ doors ("Lo!" says the Holy Qua’an, "the devil’s strategy is ever weak" 9), we shall soon teach them the power of the simplest weapons—contaminated clothes, infected meat, contaminated bed linens and blankets (just as the evil British did 250 years ago, when they became the first to use smallpox as a weapon), and the like. We do not need "crop dusters" or "missiles" when a moderately tall building, a balloon, or even a child’s kite will do, for all we need is a height of 100 feet and a fair wind to release agents on an entire city.
In fact, my brothers, we need only to cause an infection or two in 15-20 important cities in Europe and America. Is it so difficult to imagine, therefore, 15-20 of our men, well-dressed and polite (and already inoculated) arriving at much the same time in such places as Melbourne, Paris, San Francisco, and Ottawa, all carrying ordinary valises that will readily pass electronic inspection, since all they contain is good clothes, nicely folded, and neatly packed—and full of lethal virus? Should these men happen to call attention to themselves, we would welcome the inspectors who insisted on going through their valises item by item, slowly, by hand.
And, if or when it comes to it, no one can possibly stop our martyrs who will infect themselves and carry diseases into the camp of the disbelievers.
No one values life more than those who will fight for us in these ways. They know that their life is their only weapon. In dying, they know they will be using this weapon in the best way possible—for our holy faith and our sacred cause—just as we saw in September. Allah will glorify their names.
We shall also teach the infidels that we have not forgotten powerful but simple bombs. Everyone knows what they can do to embassies, office buildings, military bases, and the like, as well as planes in flight. We have not been alone in showing the world. They will soon see more. And they may well wonder about nuclear weapons. Some believe that we may already possess one of those "suitcase bombs" that General Lebed said were missing from the Russian arsenal. Jews say we may have as many as 30 of them. Do we? Or do we have our own atomic bomb? You shall learn in due course. For now, it is sufficient that the pagans cannot prove otherwise. We can clear any stadium, shut down any parliament, close any port, evacuate any city with a mere word of warning.
And we shall also teach them that no one can hide from the wrath of Allah and his faithful. They seem to think that New York, Washington, and an obscure place in Florida are all we care about. But our target is not this city or that. It is the minds of the infidels, the enemies of Islam, those who have assaulted our deepest values, persecuted us, driven us from our land, and occupied the holiest of places. It is all those—wherever they may be—who will not accept Islam or let us live in peace. And, as a Hamas training manual rightly states, it is foolish to hunt a tiger when there are plenty of sheep to be had. Where? Where can we strike with greatest effect?
"Deem they themselves secure from the coming on them of a pall of Allah’s punishment, or the coming of the Hour suddenly when they are unaware?" 10 If they do, they deceive themselves. We shall, with the help of Allah, target the sheep, especially where they come to congregate, so that they can take our message home with them before they die. That means the cesspools of atheism, such as Las Vegas, where the "great sins" of "strong drink and games of chance" 11 are celebrated, in mockery of Allah. The tourist centers such as Berlin, London, Paris, and Rome. The famous Super Bowl. The Olympics. The great international transportation terminals.
And when? We have already begun, and we shall not stop, not even for Ramadan. The Glorious Qu’ran tells us we must not: "They question you (O Muhammad) with regard to warfare in the sacred month. Say: Warfare therein is a great transgression, but to turn men from the way of Allah, and to disbelieve in Him and in the Sacred Mosque, and to expel its people from it, is a greater sin with Allah; for persecution is worse than slaughter. And they will not cease from fighting against you, if they can. . . [But] lo! those who believe, and those who emigrate to escape the persecution and strive in the way of Allah, these have hope of Allah’s mercy. Allah is Forgiving, Merciful." 12
We shall give them a dark winter, 13 plus many years of strife, doubt, helplessness, failure, and despair. I have told you, my Muslim brothers, that we seek to free Palestine for the Islamic faithful, to drive the oppressors and occupiers from the home of our Prophet (peace be upon him), and utterly to eliminate the influence of the infidels on our freedom in our faith. Now I must tell you that, while these aims are unchanged, we must recognize further that rest cannot be ours until Islam triumphs throughout the world, until all religion "is for Allah," until the Sharia is fully applied in public life everywhere—just as Hanna al-Banna taught the Brotherhood in Egypt so many years ago. Recent events, in which the enemy plainly declares that he will root us out and destroy us, each and all, make this obvious. The truth cannot perish.
So the contest cannot be short. We must and will, Almighty God with us, remain steadfast on the path of jihad. Every Muslim must rise to defend his religion. The fetwa will be obeyed. You, the blessed group of vanguard Muslims, must not flinch, for, as the Holy Qur’an says, "there is life for you in retaliation, O men of understanding, that you may ward off evil." 14 On Allah you can rely for our victory.
Glory be to Islam!
1. Mr. Boucher is Managing Partner of Strategic Futures International, a leading consultancy in applied futures research and policy analysis. His email address is wib@sfutures.com. Copyright © 2001 by the author.
2. Surah 47:4.
3. Abu Ali Mustafa, who was better known in the West as Mustafa Zabri, was secretary general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
4. Spoken with great sarcasm.
5. Again, spoken with great sarcasm. Laughter can be heard in response.
6. Surah 37:128.
7. Surah 2:286.
8. Surah 2: 191, 193.
9. From Surah 4:76.
10. Surah 12:107.
11. Alluding to Surah 2:219.
12. Surah 2:217-218.
13. No doubt a reference to the June 2001 "Dark Winter" exercise conducted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Studies, the ANSER Institute for Homeland Security, and the Oklahoma National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism. This 13-day war game was concerned with a smallpox attack in the U.S., in which a single outbreak of the disease spread to 25 states and 15 other countries by the end of the simulation period. One of the conclusions of this game was that " massive civilian casualties, breakdown in essential institutions, violation of democratic processes, civil disorder, loss of confidence in government, and reduced US strategic flexibility abroad are among the ways a biological attack might compromise US security."
14. Surah 2: 179.
