Letter From Usamah Bin Muhammad Bin Ladin to the American People
“Permission to fight (against disbelievers) is given to those believers) who are fought against, because they have been
wronged, and surely, Allah is Able to give them (believers) victory” [Quran 22:39]
“Those who believe fight in the Cause of Allah, and those who disbelieve fight in the cause of Taguut (anything
worshipped other than Allah e.g. Satan). So fight you against the friends of Satan; ever feeble is indeed the plot of
Satan.”[Quran 4:76]
Some American writers have published articles attempting to explain the motivation behind our fight against the United
States of America and others who have the blood of Muslims on their hands. These articles have generated a number of
replies from a spectrum of people, with a variety of sources from which they quote. Some explanations have been made
based on Islamic Law, yet some quite clearly have not. Here we outline our reply to two questions addressing the
Americans:
Q1) Why are we waging Jihad against you?
Q2) What advice do we have for you and what do we want from you?
The answer to the first question is very simple: Because you attacked us and continue to attack us.
You attacked us in Palestine:
Palestine is a place that has been suffering from military occupation for more than 80 years. The British handed over
Palestine, with your help and your support, to the Jews, who have occupied it for more than 50 years. The Jews attacked
the Palestinians viciously, sparing no method, including killings, crimes, punishments and destruction. The creation,
nurturing, and protection of Israel is a great crime and you are the leaders of this crime.
And of course there is no need to explain and prove the degree of American support for Israel. The creation of Israel is
a crime and it has to be erased. Each and everyone who has polluted him or herself with this crime has to pay for it,
and pay for it heavily.
The absurdity of your claims brings us to tears, as we see that you have still not become bored of your fabricated lies
saying that the Jews have a historical right to live in Palestine as it was promised to them in the Torah. Anyone who
tries to challenge you on this argument is given your historical Sam reference. This fabricated lie is one of the most
faulty ones. The Arabs of Palestine are pure Arabs and are the real Sams (from the Prophet Sam). Muslims are the
followers of Musa (peace be upon him) and it is the Muslims who have inherited the real Torah that has not been changed.
Muslims believe that all the Messengers and Prophets are from Allah, including Ibrahim (Abraham), Musa (Moses), Isa
(Jesus) and Muhammad, peace and blessings of Allah be upon them all. So when those who say that the Torah mentions that
the followers of Musa should live in Palestine, do they not also see that the Muslims are the best suited for this
position?
The blood pouring out of Palestine must be treated - with revenge of equal quantity. And you have to know that the
Palestinians are not crying alone. You must be aware that the women are not becoming widows alone. You must be aware
that their sons are not becoming orphans alone.
You attacked us is Somalia. You have been silent towards, and at times even encouraged Russian atrocities against us in
Chechnya. You have clearly supported Indian butchery against us in Kashmir, and the world has been witness to your
relentless assistance to several Jewish attacks, including killing us in Lebanon.
Under your supervision and instructions, your agent countries continue to attack us and hunt us on a daily basis, hence:
· The policies employed in these countries stop our nation from establishing the Islamic Shariah, thereby causing great
harm to this Ummah.
· The policies employed in these countries makes all of us taste this insult and places us inside the prison of fear.
· The policies employed in these countries steel our Ummah’s wealth and fortunes and sells them to you for a cheap
price, so that a few of the elite may indulge themselves whilst the general population starves to death.
· The policies that are employed in these countries happily surrender to the Jews, and have been handing over to them
most of Palestine, even allowing the existence of Jewish settlements.
· So the removal of these policies is an individual obligation upon us so as to make the Shariah the supreme law and to
regain Palestine. Our fight against theses policies is the same as fighting against you.
· So it is clear that it is essential that we remove these policies to make the Shariah (Law of Allah) the supreme law,
and that we heal the wounds of Palestine. As you are the Chief designers and sponsors for these policies that are
causing immeasurable harm to this Ummah (nation), our fight against these policies is the same fight against you.
You ransack our lands, stealing our treasures and oil, simply because of the pressure you exert via your international
influence and military threats. This theft is indeed the biggest theft ever witnessed in the history of the world.
Your forces occupy our lands spreading your ideology and thereby polluting the hearts of our people. You have laid siege
on our holy places, mocking the sanctity of our mosques. You have done all of this to protect the Jews and safeguard
your pillage of our treasures.
You have starved the Muslims of Iraq where each passing hour sees a new grave dug for yet another Iraqi child killed by
you. It is deplorable that 1.5 million children have been killed by you and your siege, without anyone saying anything.
Yet when 3000 of your people died, the entire world woke up and stood to fight, and to date have not stopped their fight
against us. You have agreed with the Jews that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and have set up your embassy there.
And it is with your help and support the Israelis are planning to destroy the Al-Aqsa mosque. You even aided Sharon with
guards so that he was able to enter the Al-Aqsa mosque preparing to capture and destroy it.
The examples here are only a few amongst an ocean of oppression, injustice, slaughter and plunder carried out by you on
our Islamic Ummah. It is therefore commanded by our religion that we must fight back. After all, how can you expect that
after you have attacked us for more than half a century, that we will then let you live in peace?!! What you wish for is
irrelevant, what you must be made aware of is that you should expect nothing less from us than Jihad and resistance.
You may then ask why we are attacking and killing civilians because you have defined them as innocent:
· Well this argument contradicts your claim that America is the land of freedom and democracy, where every American
irrespective of gender, color, age or intellectual ability has a vote. It is a fundamental principle of any democracy
that the people choose their leaders, and as such, approve and are party to the actions of their elected leaders. So ‘In
the land of freedom’ each American is ‘free’ to select their leader because they have the right to do so, and as such
they give consent to the policies their elected Government adopts. This includes the support of Israel manifesting
itself in many ways including billions of dollars in military aid. By electing these leaders, the American people have
given their consent to the incarceration of the Palestinian people, the demolition of Palestinian homes and the
slaughter of the children of Iraq. The American people have the ability and choice to refuse the policies of their
Government and even to change their Government, yet time and time again, polls show that the American people support the
policies of the elected Government.
· The tax paid by the American people is spent against us, building planes to bomb our homes in Afghanistan, building
tanks to strike and destroy our homes in Palestine, to finance the armies that occupy our lands in the Arabian Gulf and
the fleets surrounding Iraq. These tax dollars are given to Israel so that it will be better equipped to attack us and
penetrate our lands. So the American people are Israel's financial source, and through the elected American leaders,
this money is spent on little else but killing our families in our lands.
· Further, the American army is part of the American people. It is these very same people who are shamelessly helping
the Jews fight against us.
· This is why the American people are not innocent. The American people are active members in all these crimes.
· In our religion, Allah, The Lord of the Worlds, gave us the permission and the option to take revenge and return to
you what you gave us. Anyone who tries to destroy our villages and cities, then we are going to destroy their villages
and cities. Anyone who steals our fortunes, then we must destroy their economy. And anyone who kills our civilians, then
we are going to kill their civilians. The American Government and press still cannot answer why we hit them in New York
and Washington. If according to your President, Sharon is a man of peace, then we are also men of peace!!! Since its
inception, America has illustrated that that it does not understand the language of love and manners. So we are using
the language they understand.
Now let's answer the second question: What advice do we have for you and what do we want from you?
The first thing that we are inviting you to is Islam, the religion of Tawheed and no association with Allah. This is an
invitation to the love of Allah, complete submission to His orders, and the discarding of all the opinions, orders,
theories and religions which contradict with Allah’s orders. This is the religion that Allah has chosen to be the
Prophet’s (peace be upon him) religion. Islam is the religion of all the prophets without any difference.
We call you to Islam; the last religion that has replaced all the previous religions; the religion of good manners,
sincerity, mercy, fear of Allah, kindness to others, justice between people, giving the rights to people who deserve
them, protection of people from oppressors and unjust acts; the religion which calls upon its followers to amr bil
maroof (enjoin the good) and nahi an al-munkar (forbid the evil) with hand, tongue and heart. This is the religion of
Jihad in the way of Allah so that Allah’s Word and religion are made Supreme. This is the religion of obligation to
Allah, demanding its followers to act with justice and equality between people without differentiating between their
language, sex or color.
This is the religion that has the Qur'an, the book that has not been changed like the other books. The Qur'an is the
living miracle until the Day of Judgment. Allah has challenged anyone to bring a book like the Quran or even ten versus
like it. To date this challenged has not been met, will not and can not be met, as the Quran is the uncreated Speech of
Allah.
We ask you next to stop your unfair acts, lies, immorality and debauchery.
We regret to tell you that you are the worst civilization in the history of mankind:
You are the nation who, rather than ruling by the Law of Allah, choose to implement your own inferior rules and
regulations, thus following your own vain whims and desires. You run a society contrary to the nature of mankind by
separating religion from your policies. So much so that people believe that even if they commit adultery, theft, and
other wicked acts, as long as they go and confess, everything will be okay.
· You are the nation who allows riba (interest on money), even though all the religions, including Christianity, have
forbidden partaking in riba (interest on money). Yet you build your economy and investments on riba (interest on money).
As a result of this, the Jews controlled your economy and then your media and now control all aspects of your life,
making you their servants and achieving their aims at your expense, which is what Binyameen (Benjamin) Franklin warned
you against.
· Your nation encourages drinking alcohol in all its shapes and forms i.e. production, trading and usage. On the one
hand, you have made selling and using some drugs illegal, yet you so often turn a blind eye to this vice. Is it any
surprise that your country has the largest drug addiction problem?
· Your nation allows immoral acts and you assume that these are part of personal freedom, all whilst you continue to
move towards this hell without any concern. Even your policies and rules show no concern for these things. Who can
forget your previous President’s immoral acts committed in the Oval office? After that you did not even bother putting
him on trial and instead allowed him to wriggle himself out of the situation without reprimanding him in any way.
History will remember you for all of this.
Your nation endorses gambling in its all forms. Your companies practice this as well, resulting in the investments
becoming active and the criminals becoming rich.
· Your nation exploits women like consumer products or advertising tools, calling upon customers to purchase them. You
use women to serve passengers, visitors and strangers to increase your profit margins. You plaster your naked daughters
across billboards in order to sell a product without any shame. You have brainwashed your daughters into believing they
are liberated by wearing revealing clothes, yet in reality all they have liberated is your sexual desire. After all this
you say that you are the nation that supports women's freedom.
· You promote immoral acts in all their forms directly and indirectly. With the help of this, you open the door for your
tourists, encouraging them to join you in these immoral acts spreading filth upon whoever comes into contact with you.
· And because of all this, you have been described as the nation of all kinds of different diseases -- diseases that had
never existed in the past. So you have to be proud of yourself, because your evil acts have spread AIDS all around the
world, especially to the poorest countries in the world, killing many millions.
· You are the biggest nation that destroys our natural surroundings and pollutes it with industrial waste. You then
refuse to sign the KITO agreement, so that you can continue to profit from these industries, whilst leaving a world
barely inhabitable for our children.
· Your law is the law of the rich and wealthy people. Behind you, there are the Jews who are controlling your policies,
media and economy.
· The most unique thing about you, is your use of weapons and power everywhere -- not for defensive purposes, but for
destructive ones. It is you who dropped a nuclear bomb on Japan, even though Japan was ready to negotiate an end to the
war. So what is left on the list of the most heinous, evil and unjust acts that you have not done? And you call yourself
the nation of freedom and justice.
· Let us not forget one of your major characteristics, which is your duality in both manners and law. Your manners and
policies have two categories: one for you and one for the others.
(a) You claim freedom and democracy for yourselves, but for others you impose your monstrous policies and governments,
calling the latter your ‘American friends’. Of the ‘American friends,’ which of them applies the democracy and freedom
that you so cherish? When the Islamic party in Algeria wanted to practice democracy and when they won the election, you
instructed your friends, the Algerian army, to crush them, teaching them a lesson from the ‘American book of
democracy’!!!
(b) Your policy on prohibiting and forcibly removing weapons of mass destruction only applies to those countries which
you do not want possessing these weapons. However, for Israel, they can keep and use them for their ‘self defense’.
Anyone else who you suspect might be manufacturing or keeping these kinds of weapons, you call them criminals and you
have to take military action against them.
(c) You are the last ones to respect the resolutions and policies of the UN, yet you claim to want to selectively punish
anyone else who does the same. Israel has, for more than 50 years, been pushing UN resolutions and rules against the
wall with the full support of America.
(d) You search for and imprison war criminals, yet when it comes to your own war criminals you demand that they are
granted immunity. However, history will not forget your killings in Japan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Lebanon and Iraq. This
is a disgrace which will be attached to you forever. It would be enough to mention some of your recent war crimes
against the Muslims in Afghanistan in which densely populated innocent civilian villages were destroyed, bombs were
dropped on mosques causing the roof of the mosque to come crashing down on the heads of the Muslims praying inside. You
are the ones who broke the agreement with the Mujahideen when they left Qunduz, bombing them in the Qila Janghi fortress
killing more than 1,000 people because of suffocation and thirst. Allah knows best how many people have died
under your torture, and torture by the hands of your agents. Your planes are still looking for anyone remotely
suspicious to them, bombing their homes and killing their women and children.
(e) You have claimed to be the vanguards of Human Rights. Previously, your Ministry of Foreign affairs used to issue
annual statistics of those countries violating Human Rights. However, all these things vanished when the Mujahideen hit
you, and after that you became of the chiefs of the Human Rights violators, even though previously you had publicly
cursed such policies. So in your country, you started capturing the Muslims and Arabs, placing them into custody without
any reason, any court trial, or even checking their name. Some of the victims of your Human Right violations are in
Guantanomo Bay, which is a real historical embarrassment to America screaming at your faces:
“You hypocrite! what is the value of your signature on Human Rights
agreement?!”
Our third piece of advice is that you should be honest with yourself. Even as I say this, I doubt whether you will, for
if you did honestly look at yourself, you would discover that you are a nation without principles or manners. However,
you are also a people who impose certain values and manners on other people, but believe you are above all of that.
4- We also advise you to stop supporting Israel, end your support of the Indians in Kashmir, the Russians against the
Chechens and to also cease supporting the Manila Government against the Muslims in Southern Philippine.
5- We also advise you to pack your luggage and get out of our lands. We want you to have a successful and happy life, so
don’t force us to send you back in coffins in cargo planes.
6- Bring to an end to supporting your agents in our countries. Don’t interfere in our life, education and politics.
Leave as alone or else you will find us in New York and Washington.
7- It is better for you to deal with us and interact with us on the basis of mutual interests and benefits. You have
been warned not to continue your policy of stealing our treasures and supporting the Jews because this will result in
more disasters for you.
If you fail to respond to all these conditions, then prepare for fight.
· We are the nation of Islamic Monotheism (‘Tawheed’), and we trust and depend (‘Tawakkul’) on Allah and we do not fear
anyone except Allah.
The Quran calls to us:
“Do you fear them? Allah has more right that you should fear Him if you are believers. Fight against them so that Allah
will punish them by your hands and disgrace them and give you victory over them and heal the breasts of a believing
people. And remove the anger of their (believers’) hearts. Allah accepts the repentance of whom He wills. Allah is
All-Knowing, All-Wise.”
[Quran 9:13-1])
· We are the nation of honour and respect:
“But honour, power and glory belong to Allah, and to His Messenger (Muhammad- peace be upon him) and to the believers.”
[Quran 63:8]
“So do not become weak (against your enemy), nor be sad, and you will be superior ( in victory )if you are indeed (true)
believers” [Quran 3:139]
· We are the nation eager for Martyrdom (‘Shahaada’). The nation that looks forward to death rather then living on this
world:
“Think not of those who are killed in the way of Allah as dead. Nay, they are alive with their Lord, and they are being
provided for. They rejoice in what Allah has bestowed upon them from His bounty and rejoice for the sake of those who
have not yet joined them, but are left behind (not yet martyred) that on them no fear shall come, nor shall they grieve.
They rejoice in a grace and a bounty from Allah, and that Allah will not waste the reward of the believers.” [Quran
3:169-171]
· We are the nation of victory and success that Allah has promised us
“It is He Who has sent His Messenger (Muhammad peace be upon him) with guidance and the religion of truth (Islam), to
make it victorious over all other religions even though the Polytheists (Mushrikeen) hate it.” [Quran
61:9]
“Allah has decreed that “Verily it is I and My Messengers who shall be the victorious.” Verily Allah is All-Powerful,
All-Mighty.” [Quran 58:21]
· We are the nation of Islam. The nation that was able to dismiss and destroy the previous evil Empires like yourself.
· The nation that rejects your attacks on her, wishes to remove your evils and fight against you. You are well aware
that from the very core of our soul we despise you.
· If you refuse to listen to our advice, then be aware that you will lose this Crusade Bush began, just like the other
previous Crusades in which you were humiliated by the hands of the Mujahideen, fleeing to your home in great disgrace.
Your end will be like the Soviets who fled from Afghanistan after suffering a colossal military and economic defeat.
This is our message to them answering their inquiries and Inshallah (by the Will of Allah) the victory will be ours.