- The only western journalist to interview al Qaeda's leader
says the US invasion of Iraq "fulfilled Osama bin Laden's wish."
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- In a recent interview with Australian television, Al
Quds editor Abdul Bari Atwan claimed that the terror leader had sought
to draw US troops into a fight in the Middle East.
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- "He told me personally that he can't go and fight
the Americans and their country. But if he manages to provoke them and
bring them to the Middle East and to their Muslim worlds, where he can
find them or fight them on his own turf, he will actually teach them a
lesson," Atwan said. "It seems the invasion of Iraq fulfilled
Osama bin Laden's wish. That's why the Americans are losing in Iraq."
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- Atwan said al Qaeda did not have any connection to
Iraq before the US invasion, which destabilized the country and allowed
for an influx of foreign fighters who have pledged loyalty to bin Laden's
group.
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- "Iraq is a safe haven for Al Qaeda because it
has about 50 million pieces of arms. It has about five million tonnes of
ammunition left by Saddam Hussein regimes and also the Sunni community,
which was deposed from power by the American invasion, and they were actually
very, very frustrated, very humiliated," he said. "So it was
the best environment for Al Qaeda to set up its bases there."
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- In his 1996 interview, which was reprinted after 9/11,
bin Laden told Atwan that "Iraq is not an option" for al Qaeda
to establish a stronghold.
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- Atwan said bin Laden hoped to get the US mired in a
war in Somalia after al Qaeda shot down an American helicopter, killing
19 soldiers.
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- "He regretted that the Clinton Administration
decided to pull out their troops from Somalia and run away," Atwan
said. "He was so saddened by this. He thought they would stay there
so he could fight them there. But for his bad luck, according to his definition,
they left, and he was planning another provocation in order to drag them
to Muslim soil.
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- "And it seems President Bush did not actually
give him a lot of hard work to plan for this," Atwan continued. "Immediately
after the bombardment of Afghanistan - which actually destroyed 85 per
cent of Al Qaeda infrastructure, personnel, deprived them of a safe haven
- after that huge success against Al Qaeda, President Bush made terrible
mistakes when he sent his troop to invade Iraq, one of the most difficult
countries to be invaded, to be occupied, the worst land for democracy,
human rights. And we can see the outcome."
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