Osama bin Laden of Al-Qaida, speaking as if embodying God's will on earth, does not represent the essence of Islam, but is an ultra-extreme and violent fundamentalist.

Bin Ladin errs as far on the fundamental extreme as America errs on the backsliding extreme. {}

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Relevant Articles • Quotes • Osama bin Laden in Prophecy • See also • Related Sites

  "The terrorists practice a fringe form of Islamic extremism that has been rejected by Muslim scholars and the vast majority of Muslim clerics; a fringe movement that perverts the peaceful teachings of Islam."

-- President George W. Bush
(Sept. 20, 2001 address to nation)

Relevant Articles

• The Most Wanted Man in the World (Time) - He lives a life fired by fury and faith. Why terrors $250 million man loathes the U.S.
  
  "Officially, he is committed to preparing for a worldwide Islamic state, but for now he focuses on eradicating infidels from Islamic lands."

• Letter From Afghanistan: A Land of Endless Tears (Time) - The plight of the people of war-ruined Kabul
  
  Afghanistan Under the Taliban:
  bans schooling for girls • bans work for women • prohibits T.V. • prohibits T.V., music, photographs • public executions • men forced to grow beards

• Interview with Bin Laden, Dec. 12, 1998 (ABC) - prefaces every response with "praise be to God," and speaks with a religious fervor that God is behind all they are doing.  America, Britain, and Israel ("Jewish alliance") being the primary enemy of God and impedance to Islam.

Quotes from Osama Bin Laden

   "The pieces of the bodies of the infidels were flying like dust particles.  If you had seen it with your own eyes, your heart would have been filled with joy."

-- Osama bin Laden 
in videotape at son's wedding; regarding attack on U.S.S. Cole inYemen

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   "In today's wars, there are no morals. We believe the worst thieves in the world today and the worst terrorists are the Americans. We do not have to differentiate between military or civilian. As far as we are concerned, they are all targets."

-- Osama bin Laden
to ABC News 1998.

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   "Our work targets world infidels. Our enemy is the crusader alliance led by America, Britain and Israel. It is a crusader-Jewish alliance."

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   "Youths only want one thing, to kill you so they can go to paradise."

-- Osama bin Laden
in fatwa issued in 1996

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   "Terrorism can be commendable, and it can be reprehensible.  The terrorism we practice is of the commendable kind for it is directed at the tyrants and the aggressors and the enemies of Allah."

Osama bin Laden
to journalist John Miller, 1998

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   "Being killed for Allan's cause is a great honor achieved by only those who are the elite of the nation.  We love this kind of death for Allah's cause as much as you like to live.  We have nothing to fear for.  It is something we wish for."

-- Osama bin Laden
in CNN interview, 1997