Ummati Islamic Website
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Vol. 3 No. 3 Thul Hijjah 1417/ April 1997
| Bin Laden’s Reflections |
| Usamah Bin Laden is the son of the wealthy, Saudi Arabian Bin Laden Family. He is presently living in exile in Sudan. |
| We highlight some of his reflections, which appeared on the Internet recently |
| Bin Laden spreads his right hand and uses his fingers to list the ‘mistakes’ of the Saudi monarchy. “A financial crisis has occurred in the Kingdom and now the Saudi merchants have found that their contracts were broken. The government owes them 340 billion Saudi Riyals, a colossal amount. It represents 90 per cent of the national income inside thekingdom. Prices are going up and people have to pay more for electricity: water and fuel, Saudi firms, have not received money since 1992, and those who get grants now, receive them on government loans from blanks. Education is deteriorating and people have to take their children from government schools and put them under private education, which is very expensive. The Saudi people have rememberednow what the Ulama told them and they realise America is the main reason for their problems.” |
| The ordinary man knows that his country is the largest oil producer in the world, yet at the same time he is suffering from taxes and bad services. Now the people understand the speeches of the Ulama in the mosques that our country has become an American colony. What happened in Riyadh and Khobar when 24 Americans were killed in two bombings is clear evidence of the huge anger of Saudi people against America. The Saudis now know their real enemy is America.” |
| Feeling for Muslims |
| There is a dark quality to Bin Laden’s calculations. “If one kilogram of TNT exploded in a country in which nobody had heard an explosion in a hundred years, surely the exploding of 2,500 kilos of TNT at Khobar is evidence of the people’s resistance to American occupation. We, as Muslims, have a strong feel-ing that binds us together. We feel for our brothers in Palestine and Lebanon. The explosion at Khobar did not come as a direct result of American occupation but as a result of American behaviour against Muslims. When 60 Jews are killed inside Palestine in suicide bombings earlier this year, all the world gathers within seven; day to criticise this action, while the death of 600,000 Iraqi children after UN sanctions were placed on Iraq did not receive the same reaction. Killing those Iraqi children is a crusade against lsâm. We as Muslims do not like the Iraqi regime but we think that the Iraqi people and their children are our brothers and we care about their future.” Saudi Arabia’s angriest dis-sident reserves some of his fury for the British. “I am astonished at the British government,” he says. “They sent a letter to me through their embassy in Khartoum before I left Sudan, saying that I would not be welcome in the UK. But I did not ask to go to Britain. So why did they send me this letter? The letter said, “If you come to Britain, you will not be admitted.” The letter gave the Saudi press the opportunity of claim-ing that I had asked for political asylum in Britain – which was not true.” |
| But it was America that captured Bin Laden’s anger. “I believe that sooner or later the Americans will leave Saudi Arabia and that the war declared by America against the Saudi people means war against all Muslims everywhere. Resistance against America will spread in many, many places in Muslim countries. Our trusted leaders, the Ulama, have given us a fatwa that we must drive out the Americans. The solution to this crisis is the withdrawal of American troops. Their military presence is an insult for the Saudi people.” |
