To: gerard mangiardi who wrote (585014 ) 6/24/2004 12:45:53 PM From: DavesM Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 769670 The following text is a fatwa, or declaration of war, by Osama bin Laden first published in Al Quds Al Arabi, a London-based newspaper, in August, 1996. The fatwa is entitled "Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places." Note that the "Land of two Holy Places" is Saudi Arabiapbs.org This is from bin Laden's second fatwa or declaration of war against the United States, from Feb 1998. Where bin Laden re declares war on the United States, and clarifies his complaints. Remember, U.S. troops were in Saudi Arabia to contain Iraq, and to enforce UN Sanctions. "First, for over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples. If some people have in the past argued about the fact of the occupation, all the people of the Peninsula have now acknowledged it. The best proof of this is the Americans' continuing aggression against the Iraqi people using the Peninsula as a staging post..." "Second, despite the great devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people by the crusader-Zionist alliance, and despite the huge number of those killed, which has exceeded 1 million... despite all this, the Americans are once against trying to repeat the horrific massacres, as though they are not content with the protracted blockade imposed after the ferocious war or the fragmentation and devastation..."pbs.org re: "Would like to see evidence of that statement."