Usama bin Laden's statement on Nov. 3, 2001

In the interest of free speech, we are presenting a translation of Usama bin Ladin’s statement on Nov. 3, 2001. Portions of the statement were unclear from the audio and have been marked as (. . . ). Please forward this to interested people as everyone has a right to review the facts and make up their minds. Click on ‘read more’.

Usama bin Laden started off with a traditional prayer before a speech:
“Surely, all praise is for Allah; we praise Him and ask Him for help and forgiveness; and ask His protection from the mischief of our souls and the bad results of our deeds (figuratively, to ward off sin, both in intention and deed); whomsoever Allah guides, none can misguide; and whom He declares misguided, none can guide to the right path; and I bear witness that there is none worthy of worship but Allah — He is Alone, without partner.

Continuing on,
In context of the distressing events of tremendous magnitude,after these immense attacks that American endured in the centres of her fighting strength, New York and Washington — a great propaganda campaign has erupted from America. This campaign has no precedent in its magnitude, and is intended to sway the opinions of people regarding these events. So, * (after the strikes on America),*people have been divided into two camps: one camp that supports these strikes agains American tyranny and the other camp that disapproves of them. Soon afterwards, as the United States of American began this unjust military campaign on the Muslim state in Afghanistan, people again divided into two camps: those that support these oppressive offensives, and those that disapprove of them and reject them.

And the great events that has split people into two have affected Muslims to a very high degree – wherever . . . a great number of rules and judgments have resulted as a consequence of the events . . . and the essence of them is the strong connection to Islam . . . this is an opportunity for Muslims to understand the nature of this dispute and the facts of the conflict, and facilitates them in determining which ranks they are in.

The locations of the violent demonstrations in the Islamic East — from the far East to the far West — from Indonesia, Philippines, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, through the Arab World, and all the way to Nigeria and Mauritania — indicates that this war is basically a religious war. It is the Eastern people, the Muslims, who are responding to the call and sympathizing with other Muslims against the Western Crusaders. Those who are trying to hide this very clear fact that this is a religious war — on which the world is unanimously agreed in its actions — are deceiving the Muslim Nation instead of explaining the reality of this conflict. This fact is entrenched in the Book of Allah (Holy and Exalted) and in the practice of our Prophet (peace and blessings on him). It is impossible to forget, in any situation, then enmity between us and the disbelievers. The enmity is our beliefs — and in order to maintain the loyalty between the believers and the family of those who say, “There is none worthy of worship but Allah” (the Islamic creed); and the obligation to denounce the family of idol-worshippers and disbelievers and atheists (Allah is enough for all of them), the Holy and Exalted says: “Never will the Jews or the Christians be satisfied with you unless you follow their form of religion.” Therefore, the question is a question of faith and belief, and not as Bush and Blair portray it as “a war on terrorism.” They have taken action against many villains from this Nation in the past, and not a single person stood up. But now, these mobilized masses from the far reaches of the East to the West are not doing so on the call of Usama, but rather on the call of their faith, because they know they are on the side of truth. And they know that they are standing against the most intense, most ferocious, most dangerous, fiercest Crusader attack on Islam since the advent of the Prophet (peace and blessings on him). This clear, obvious and self-evident fact will help each Muslim to understand and know where he stands on the issue of this war.