Usama bin Ladin: "American Soldiers Are Paper Tigers"
Middle East Quarterly
December 1998
In perhaps his most explicit and detailed statement about the United States, Usama bin Ladin spoke on May 28, 1998, in Arabic, to John Miller of ABC News in his hideaway deep in the mountains of southern Afghanistan.1 A Saudi who became active against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, bin Ladin uses his great wealth to advance Islamist causes, primarily through his organization Al-Qa'ida. Although his expressions are stilted and the references sometimes obscure, bin Ladin makes many candid and startling observations in the following interview about the United States that go far to explain his many terrorist assaults on Americans. The interview is reprinted (with minor stylistic alterations) by permission of ABC News.
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NEXT TARGETS
Miller: Describe the situation when your men took on the Americans in Somalia. Were you there?
Bin Ladin: After God honored us with victory in Afghanistan, and justice prevailed against those who slaughtered millions of Muslims in the Muslim republics, Muslim minds no longer believed in the myth of superpowers. The youth no longer saw America as a superpower.
After leaving Afghanistan they headed for Somalia and prepared for a long battle, thinking that the Americans were like the Russians. They were surprised when the Americans entered with 300,000 troops, and collected other troops from around the world-5,000 from Pakistan, 5,000 from India, 5,000 from Bangladesh, 5,000 from Egypt, Senegal, and others like Saudi Arabia. The youth were surprised at the low morale of the American soldiers and realized more than before that the America soldiers are paper tigers. After a few blows, the Americans ran away in defeat.
After a few blows, they forgot about being the world leader and the leader of the new world order. They left, dragging their corpses and their shameful defeat, and stopped using such titles. They learned in America that this name [i.e., God] is larger than them.
When this great defeat took place I was in Sudan, and it pleased me very much, just as it pleases all Muslims. God willing, the next victory will be in Hijaz and Najd, [provinces of] Saudi Arabia, and it will cause Americans to forget the horrors of Vietnam and Beirut....
