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Though novel for its open endorsement of indiscriminate killing, Bin

Ladin's 1998 declaration was only the latest in the long series of his public and
private calls since 1992 that singled out the United States for attack.

In August 1996, Bin Ladin had issued his own self-styled fatwa calling on

Muslims to drive American soldiers out of Saudi Arabia.The long, disjointed
document condemned the Saudi monarchy for allowing the presence of an
army of infidels in a land with the sites most sacred to Islam, and celebrated
recent suicide bombings of American military facilities in the Kingdom. It
praised the 1983 suicide bombing in Beirut that killed 241 U.S. Marines, the
1992 bombing in Aden, and especially the 1993 firefight in Somalia after which
the United States "left the area carrying disappointment, humiliation, defeat
and your dead with you."

Bin Ladin said in his ABC interview that he and his followers had been

preparing in Somalia for another long struggle, like that against the Soviets in
Afghanistan, but "the United States rushed out of Somalia in shame and dis-
grace." Citing the Soviet army's withdrawal from Afghanistan as proof that a
ragged army of dedicated Muslims could overcome a superpower, he told the
interviewer: "We are certain that we shall--with the grace of Allah--prevail
over the Americans." He went on to warn that "If the present injustice contin-
ues . . . , it will inevitably move the battle to American soil."

Plans to attack the United States were developed with unwavering single-

mindedness throughout the 1990s. Bin Ladin saw himself as called "to follow
in the footsteps of the Messenger and to communicate his message to all
nations,"

and to serve as the rallying point and organizer of a new kind of war

to destroy America and bring the world to Islam.

2.2 BIN LADIN'S APPEAL IN THE ISLAMIC WORLD

It is the story of eccentric and violent ideas sprouting in the fertile ground

of political and social turmoil. It is the story of an organization poised to seize
its historical moment. How did Bin Ladin--with his call for the indiscrimi-
nate killing of Americans--win thousands of followers and some degree of
approval from millions more?

The history, culture, and body of beliefs from which Bin Ladin has shaped

and spread his message are largely unknown to many Americans. Seizing on
symbols of Islam's past greatness, he promises to restore pride to people who
consider themselves the victims of successive foreign masters. He uses cultural
and religious allusions to the holy Qur'an and some of its interpreters. He
appeals to people disoriented by cyclonic change as they confront modernity
and globalization. His rhetoric selectively draws from multiple sources--Islam,
history, and the region's political and economic malaise. He also stresses griev-
ances against the United States widely shared in the Muslim world. He

THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT

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