‘America Will Not Live in Peace . . . ‘

Here is the text of Osama bin Laden’s taped remarks, which aired on an Arab television station after the U.S. and British strikes Sunday. The remarks appear to have been made before the strikes. The text is translated from Arabic by Reuters and Associated Press.

I bear witness that there is no God but Allah and that Muhammad is his messenger.

There is America, hit by God in one of its softest spots. Its greatest buildings were destroyed, thank God for that. There is America, full of fear from its north to its south, from its west to its east. Thank God for that.

What America is tasting now is something insignificant compared to what we have tasted for scores of years. Our nation [the Islamic world] has been tasting this humiliation and this degradation for more than 80 years. Its sons are killed, its blood is shed, its sanctuaries are attacked and no one hears and no one heeds.

God has blessed a group of vanguard Muslims, the forefront of Islam, to destroy America. May God bless them and allot them a supreme place in heaven, for he is the only one capable and entitled to do so. When those have stood in defense of their weak children, their brothers and sisters in Palestine and other Muslim nations, the whole world went into an uproar, the infidels followed by the hypocrites.

Millions of innocent children are being killed as I speak. They are being killed in Iraq without committing any sins and we don’t hear condemnation or a fatwa [religious decree] from the rulers. In these days, Israeli tanks infest Palestine--in Jenin, Ramallah, Rafah, Beit Jala and other places in the land of Islam--and we don’t hear anyone raising his voice or moving a limb.

But when the sword fell upon America after 80 years, hypocrisy raised its head up high, bemoaning those killers who toyed with the blood, honor and sanctities of Muslims. The least that can be said about those people is that they are debauched. They have followed injustice. They supported the butcher over the victim, the oppressor over the innocent child. May God show them his wrath and give them what they deserve.

I say that the matter is very clear. Every Muslim after this event [should fight for their religion], after the senior officials have spoken in America, starting with the head of infidels worldwide, Bush, and those with him. They have come out in force with their men and have turned even the countries that belong to Islam to this treachery, and they want to wag their tail at God, to fight Islam, to suppress people in the name of terrorism.

When people at the ends of the Earth, Japan, were killed by the hundreds of thousands, young and old, it was not considered a war crime, it is something that has justification. Millions of children in Iraq is something that has justification.

But when they lose dozens of people in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam [the capitals of Kenya and Tanzania, where U.S. embassies were bombed in 1998], Iraq was struck and Afghanistan was struck. Hypocrisy stood in force behind the head of infidels worldwide, behind the cowards of this age, America and those who are with it.

These events have divided the whole world into two sides. The side of believers and the side of infidels, may God keep you away from them. Every Muslim has to rush to make his religion victorious. The winds of faith have come. The winds of change have come to eradicate oppression from the island of Muhammad, peace be upon him.

To America, I say only a few words to it and its people: I swear to God that America will not live in peace before peace reigns in Palestine, and before all the army of infidels depart the land of Muhammad, peace be upon him.

God is great, may pride be with Islam. May peace and God’s mercy be upon you.