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. Cavalry of Islam be mounted! This is a difficult time, so you yourself must betough.You should know that your coming-together and cooperation in order toliberate the holy places of Islam is the right step towards unification of the wordof our umma under the banner of God s unity.At this point we can only raise ourpalms humbly to ask God Almighty to provide good fortune and success in thismatter.Source: Bruce Lawrence (ed.), Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama Bin Laden(London: Verso, 2005), pp.23 30. Document 3Declaration of the World Islamic Front(February 23, 1998)If the 1996 Declaration of Jihad was Osama bin Laden s personal declara-tion of war against the West and Israel, the Declaration of the World IslamicFront in 1998 was a group declaration of war by al-Qaeda and its support-ers.Signatories of the declaration included bin Laden; Ayman al-Zawahiri,amir, or head, of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad; Abu-Yasir Rif ai Ahmad Taha,a leader of the Egyptian Islamic Group; Sheikh Mir Hamza, secretary of theIslamic Party of Religious Leaders in Pakistan; and Maulana FazlurRahman, a leader of the opposition in Pakistan s National Assembly.Byhaving allies, bin Laden was able to answer criticism that he lacked the reli-gious credentials to issue a judicial ruling, or fatwa.This document is anopen declaration of hostilities by al-Qaeda and its allies that was to leaddirectly to the events of September 11, 2001.Praise be to God, revealer of the Book, controller of the clouds, defeater of fac-tionalism, who says in His Book: When the forbidden months are over, whereveryou find the polytheists, kill them, seize them, besiege them, ambush them. Prayers and peace be upon our Prophet Muhammad bin Abdallah, who said: Ihave been sent with a sword in my hands so that only God may be worshipped,God who placed my livelihood under the shadow of my spear and who condemnsthose who disobey my orders to servility and humiliation. Ever since God made the Arabian peninsula flat, created desert in it and sur-rounded it with seas, it has never suffered such a calamity as these Crusaderhordes that have spread through it like locusts, consuming its wealth and destroy-ing its fertility.All this at a time when nations have joined forces against theMuslims as if fighting over a bowl of food.When the matter is this grave and sup-port is scarce, we must discuss current events and agree collectively on how bestto settle the issue. 336 The 9/11 EncyclopediaThere is now no longer any debate about three well acknowledged and com-monly agreed facts that require no further proof, but we will repeat them so thatpeople remember them.They are as follows:Firstly, for over seven years America has occupied the holiest parts of the Islamiclands, the Arabian peninsula, plundering its wealth, dictating to its leaders, humil-iating its people, terrorizing its neighbours and turning its bases there into a spear-head with which to fight the neighbouring Muslim peoples.Some might have disputed the reality of this occupation before, but all the peo-ple of the Arabian peninsula have now acknowledged it.There is no clearer proofthan America s excessive aggression against the people of Iraq, using the Peninsulaas a base.It is true that all its leaders have rejected such use of their lands, but theyare powerless.Secondly, despite the great devastation inflicted upon the Iraqi people at thehands of the Judeo-Crusader alliance, and despite the terrible number of deathsover one million despite all this, the Americans are trying to repeat these horrificmassacres again, as if they are not satisfied with the long period of sanctions afterthe vicious war, or with the fragmentation and destruction.Today they come to annihilate what is left of this people and humiliate theirMuslim neighbours.Thirdly while these wars are being waged by the Americans for religious andeconomic purposes, they also serve the interests of the petty Jewish state, divert-ing attention from its occupation of Jerusalem and its murder of Muslims there.There is no better proof of this than their eagerness to destroy Iraq, thestrongest neighbouring Arab state, and their efforts to fragment all the states inthe region, like Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Sudan, into paper mini-states whoseweakness and disunity will guarantee Israel s survival and the continuation of thebrutal Crusader occupation of the Peninsula.All these American crimes and sins are a clear proclamation of war againstGod, his messenger, and the Muslims.Religious scholars throughout Islamic his-tory have agreed that jihad is an individual duty when an enemy attacks Muslimcountries.This was related by the Iman ibn Qudama in The Resource, byIman al-Kisa i in The Marvels, by al-Qurtubi in his exegesis, and by the Sheikhof Islam when he states in his chronicles that As for fighting to repel an enemy,which is the strongest way to defend freedom and religion, it is agreed that thisis a duty.After faith, there is no greater duty than fighting an enemy who is cor-rupting religion and the world. On this basis, and in accordance with God s will, we pronounce to all Muslimsthe following judgment:To kill the American [sic] and their allies civilians and military is an indi-vidual duty incumbent upon every Muslim in all countries, in order to liberate theal-Aqsa Mosque and the Holy Mosque from their grip, so that their armies leaveall the territory of Islam, defeated, broken, and unable to threaten any Muslim [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]