Killing in the name of God: Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda

Original publisher: Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.: USAF Counterproliferation Center, Air University, [2002] OCLC Number: (OCoLC)269381705 Subject: Violence -- Religious aspects -- Islam. Excerpt: ... Killing In The Name Of God... 7 righteously attacking the other two enemies in the triad of enemies, the Western-Israeli nexus, and one of the newly designated apostate Arab nations, Saudi Arabia. But he maintained the primary focus on the external enemy, the United States. Yes, the leadership of the apostate nations had to be replaced, but now it was the United States that was the prime enemy, for America was responsible for propping up the corrupt leadership of these countries. Thus, he continued the strategy born in Afghanistan of focusing on the enemy who is afar, the Zionist-Crusaders, rather than the enemy who is near, the targhut or oppressive domestic rulers. In the October 1996 Declaration of War, bin Laden justified his aggression as defensive aggression, asserting that the Islamic nation was under attack.... The people of Islam had suffered from aggression, inequality and injustice imposed on them by the Zionist-Crusader alliance and their collaborators to the extent that Muslims ' blood became the cheapest and their wealth looted in the hands of enemies. Their blood has spilled in Palestine and Iraq. The horrifying pictures of the massacre of Qana, in Lebanon are still fresh in our memory. Massacres in Tajikistan, Burma, Kashmir, Assam, Philippines, Somalia, Chechnya and In Bosnia-Herzegovina took place, massacres that send shivers in the body and shake the 10 conscience. With this, bin Laden and Zawahiri, who is widely believed to be bin Laden's pen, justified defensive jihad, while blaming the Zionist-Crusader alliance for every fight against Muslims. But the fourth jihad, the jihad of the sword, is a defensive jihad only, that is against those who take up arms against Muslims. In 1996, the target was only the American military in Saudi Arabia, with t...