Bin Laden said he issued the fatwah because of American support for Israel, which occupies territory claimed by the Palestinians, and in reaction to the presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia. "It is not permissible for any non-Muslim to stay in our country," he said.
Railing against the United States, bin Laden said it "wants to occupy our countries, steal our resources, impose on us agents to rule us based not on what God has revealed." He added, "If American presence continues, then it is natural for reactions to continue against this."
Rejecting the American characterization of him as a terrorist, bin Laden said, "With a simple look at the U.S. behaviors, we find that it judges the behavior of the poor Palestinian children whose country was occupied: if they throw stones against the Israeli occupation, it says they are terrorists whereas when the Israeli pilots bombed the United Nations building in Qana, Lebanon while it was full of children and women, the U.S. stopped any plan to condemn Israel. Wherever we look, we find the U.S. as the leader of terrorism and crime in the world."
In the interview, bin Laden denied he was linked to Ramzi Yousef, the chief conspirator behind the 1993 World Trade Center attack. (In an article that appeared in the winter 1995-96 issue of the National Interest, terrorism expert Laurie Mylroie wrote that a "very persuasive case can be made that Ramzi Yousef is an Iraqi intelligence agent, and that his bombing conspiracies were meant as Saddam Hussein's revenge for the Gulf War.")
But bin Laden did make clear in that interview that American civilians would be future targets. "We do not differentiate between those dressed in military uniforms and civilians; they are all targets in this fatwah," bin Laden said.
If this dedicated enemy of America does indeed prove to be guilty of planning the monstrous attacks of this week, how can the U.S. bring him to justice? Here the problems become far more complex and difficult than the bellicose table-pounding of some pundits would suggest.
Bin Laden has apparently used the Internet as a tool for communicating with his widespread terrorist organization. In February, USA Today reported that bin Laden uses digital encryption tools to hide messages in typical Web pornography and sports chat discussions. These messages may very well include plans for upcoming terrorist attacks.
American intelligence specializes in high-tech surveillance, so if bin Laden's organization is using computers to communicate, it could be its Achilles' heel. But failing a major electronic intelligence breakthrough -- which would be highly unlikely to give his actual location in any case -- locating and wiping out bin Laden's operation will be extraordinarily difficult. First is the issue of dispersal. Bin Laden operates more as a venture capitalist of terror than a military leader, disbursing funds to a loose network of terrorists and operatives scattered around the world. Command structures, such as they are, are set up in classic terrorist "cell" fashion, in which each operative knows only a few others.
Killing or capturing bin Laden himself could be possible, although his constant movements within Afghanistan may make it necessary to send in ground troops. And his elimination could severely hurt his organization -- not least by stemming a key source of funds. But the fact remains that radical anti-American Islamist terrorist operations would probably carry on without him. This makes direct military action, whether "surgical," low-risk operations like cruise missile strikes or full-bore assaults using ground troops, problematic -- how do you hit a "target" that consists of a few men lurking in the alleyways and bazaars of Peshawar or Kabul -- or the streets of Boston or Santa Monica?
And not just there. Bin Laden's operatives are found throughout the world. An article in Jane's Intelligence Review reported that Al-Qaeda "is a conglomerate of groups spread throughout the world operating as a network. It has a global reach, with a presence in Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Turkey, Jordan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Syria, Xinjiang in China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Myanmar, Indonesia, Mindanao in the Philippines, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Yemen, Libya, Tunisia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya, Dagestan, Kashmir, Sudan, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Azerbaijan, Eritrea, Uganda, Ethiopia, and in the West Bank and Gaza."
As for infiltration, the CIA simply lacks the resources, training and willingness to place agents within the shadowy groups in which terror attacks are planned. In "The Counterterrorist Myth," an article by former CIA operative Reuel Marc Gerecht that appeared in the July/August Atlantic, Gerecht argues that American intelligence agencies have almost no Arabic-speaking agents of Arab extraction, and that few operatives would be willing to undertake such dangerous work. He quotes a former senior Near East Division operative as saying, "The CIA probably doesn't have a single truly qualified Arabic-speaking officer of Middle Eastern background who can play a believable Muslim fundamentalist who would volunteer to spend years of his life with shitty food and no women in the mountains of Afghanistan. For Christ's sake, most case officers live in the suburbs of Virginia. We don't do that kind of thing." A younger case officer boils the problem down even further: "Operations that include diarrhea as a way of life don't happen."
Earlier this year, there were reports, which have proven false, that Afghanistan's Taliban rulers might be willing to turn over bin Laden in exchange for a lifting of the international sanctions against Afghanistan. In fact, bin Laden and his followers may be enjoying greater freedom of action in Afghanistan: A recent video shows them firing weapons and assaulting buildings in military exercises, activities supposedly banned by his hosts.
Finally, there are major geopolitical and strategic risks involved in military operations against bin Laden. As Jonathan Broder pointed out in a 1998 Salon article, Clinton's cruise missile strikes against bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan missed the terrorist leader, but succeeded in radicalizing many Muslims who had previously been moderates -- and turned bin Laden himself into a hero. Enraged voices in the United States are calling for immediate military action against ill-defined "enemies," but it will be scant satisfaction to destroy Kabul if 500 new suicide bombers arise from its ashes.
In an article in Wednesday's New York Times, Clyde Haberman asked rhetorically, from the Israeli perspective, "Do you get it now?" -- using the question to tacitly defend the much-criticized Israeli practice of assassinating or "eliminating" Palestinian leaders. Israel has indeed experienced an endless flood of suicide bombers, young men willing to kill themselves to cut down Israelis, and America may indeed "get it now" -- but if our ill-considered actions lead more sectors of the Arab world to hate America as much as they hate Israel, we may get it even more in the future.
Without diplomacy and significant movement on the intractable Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- the single issue that most drives the Arab world's hatred of the U.S. -- military actions that kill innocent people in Islamic countries could end up reaping the whirlwind.
And yet, after the unspeakable evil America has experienced, not to move against bin Laden, if he is indeed guilty, would be as unthinkable as not to move against Hitler.
The decisions that face American strategists and military planners in the months ahead are daunting.
Anthony York contributed to this story.
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Osama bin Laden: A guide to Web resources
There are a number of good background pieces and interviews with bin Laden available on the Web. Frontline dedicated an entire special to the hunt for bin Laden,which included a biography of him as well as an interview by Jeff Taylor.
Another good backgrounder on bin Laden is from APB News. MSNBC has compiled a helpful bin Laden FAQ.
The Anti-Defamation League also has a backgrounder on bin Laden, who has called for the elimination of the state of Israel.
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This story has been corrected.
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