In an interview with journalist Peter Bergen in March 2005, “Ahmad Zaidan, Al Jazeera’s bureau chief in Pakistan [said:] ‘What I believe is that al Qaeda succeeded to hijack Taliban ideologically. The evidence is that usually Afghans are very much alike in their politics. They never, ever thought, about international [politics]. And al Qaeda succeeded to revolutionize all of the thinking of Taliban. Now they are thinking about America, about Palestine, about this, about that, international politics. It was a joke.’ ” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]
– Peter Bergen, The Osama bin Laden I Know, Pages 235-236