8/23/1996

On August 23, 1996, Osama bin Laden said, ” ‘My Muslim Brothers of The World…Your brothers in Palestine and in the land of the two Holy Places [Saudi Arabia] are calling upon your help and asking you to take part in fighting against the enemy–your enemy and their enemy–The Americans and Israelis. They are asking you to do whatever you can, with your own means and ability, to expel the enemy, humiliated and defeated, out of the sanctities of Islam. It should not be hidden from you,’ he wrote, ‘that the people of Islam had suffered from aggression, iniquity and injustice imposed on them by the Zionist-Crusaders alliance and their collaborators; to the extent that the Muslims’ blood became the cheapest and their wealth as loot in the hands of the enemies. Their blood was spilled in Palestine and Iraq. The horrifying pictures of the massacre of Qana, in Lebanon, are still fresh in our memory…the people of the cross [Americans] had come with their horses [soldiers] and occupied the land of the two Holy Places [Saudi Arabia]. And the Zionist Jews fiddling as they wish with the Al-Aqsa Mosque [in Jerusalem].’ ”

 – James Bamford, A Pretext for War, Pages 165-166