Bin Laden: No 'security or safety' for U.S.

October 7, 2001 Posted: 11:48 PM EDT (0348 GMT)


Bin Laden appears on al Jareeza TV Sunday in a taped statement broadcast shortly after U.S.-led strikes on Afghanistan began.

DOHA, Qatar (CNN) -- Americans will never know safety again unless the United States changes its policies toward the Islamic world, suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden said in a taped statement broadcast on Sunday on a Qatar-based television station.

A videotape of bin Laden, holding a microphone and sitting in a cave-like space, was shown on TV news network al Jazeera shortly after the beginning of the U.S.-led attacks in Afghanistan. The attacks began about 8:45 p.m., or 12:15 p.m. EDT.

"These events have split the world into two camps -- belief and disbelief," bin Laden said in the statement. "America will never dream or know or taste security or safety unless we know safety and security in our land and in Palestine."

It is unclear when the statement was made or whether bin Laden spoke before or after joint U.S.-British strikes on targets in Afghanistan, including camps associated with al Qaeda, the terrorist organization he is believed to head.

Speaking of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, which U.S. officials blame on bin Laden, he said, "This is America, God has sent one of the attacks ... and has attacked one of its best buildings.

"And what America is facing today is something very little of what we have tasted for decades. Our nation, since nearly 80 years is tasting this humility," he said. "Sons are killed, and nobody answers the call."

"When God has guided a bunch of Muslims to be at the forefront and destroyed America -- a big destruction -- I wish God would lift their position," he said.

Bin Laden also said America is "filled with fear from the north, south, east and west, thank God for that.

Al Jazeera reported that bin Laden and Taliban Supreme Leader Mullah Mohammed Omar were still alive, after Sunday's bombings.

Bin Laden was accompanied by his second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who spoke before him.

"Oh American people, can you ask yourselves, why all this hate against America and against Israel, why?" al-Zawahiri said. "All this hatred in the hearts of Americans against America?


Bin Laden, second from left and flanked by supporters, said America is "filled with fear."

"The answer is very clear and very simple, that America has committed so many crimes against the nations of Muslims. Unbearable and nobody could bear. America is the head of criminals by creating the Israel. This continuance of crime for 50 years, the Muslim nation shall not accept this crime."

U.S. prosecutors say bin Laden is the leader of al Qaeda (Arabic for "the Base") -- a worldwide network also blamed for the millennium bombing plot, last year's attack on the USS Cole in Yemen and the nearly simultaneous bombings of the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998.

"It is your government which is seizing the people of Iraq and killing them," al-Zawahiri said. "It is your government which is supporting the rotten governments in our countries."

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