“Mr. bin Laden, while praising what he called ‘great strikes’ made against New York and Washington on Sept. 11, said the United States had failed to produce any evidence for its attacks against Afghanistan. ‘This is a matter of religion and creed; it is not what [President] Bush and [U.K. Prime Minister Tony] Blair maintain, that it is a war against terrorism,’ he said on a tape broadcast [on November 3, 2001] by Al Jazeera, an Arab satellite channel based in Qatar. ‘There is no way to forget the hostility between us and the infidels. It is ideological, so Muslims have to ally themselves with Muslims.’ ”
– Neil MacFarquhar and Jim Rutenberg, “Bin Laden, in a Taped Speech, Says Attacks in Afghanistan are a War Against Islam,” The New York Times, Nov. 4, 2001