Journalist Abdel Bari Atwan met with Osama bin Laden for a few days, starting on November 23, 1996. ” ‘When I met bin Laden…he explained his long-term strategy to me. He knew he would never be able to defeat his enemy, the giant military superpower America, on its own soil using conventional weapons. …patience would be required if bin Laden was to do as he intended: ‘We want to bring the Americans to fight us on Muslim land,’ he said as we walked through the woods in the high mountains at Tora Bora [Afghanistan]. ‘If we can fight them on our own territory we will beat them, because the battle will be on our terms in a land they neither know nor understand.’ “
– Abdel Bari Atwan, The Secret History of al Qaeda, Page 179