Quote:
Originally Posted by tariq353

Rediff.com » News » The Osama bin Laden I knew

Pakistani journalist and Rediff.com contributor Hamid Mir interviewed Osama bin Laden thrice.

Mir, who works for Pakistan's Geo TV network, was the only journalist to interview bin Laden after 9/11.

Hamid Mir, who is writing bin Laden's biography, reveals what the world's most wanted terrorist was really like.

"I was the son of a rich father, I could have spent my life luxuriously in Europe and America, like many other wealthy Saudis. Instead I took up arms and headed for the mountains of Afghanistan. Was it personal interest that drove me to spend each moment of my life in the shadow of death? No!"

"I was merely discharging a religious obligation by waging jihad against those who attacked Muslims. It does not matter if I die in the course of fulfilling this responsibility. My death and the death of others like me will one day awaken millions of Muslims from their apathy."

Osama bin Laden told me this one morning in March 1997 in the caves of the Tora Bora mountains in eastern Afghanistan. I was the first Pakistani journalist to interview bin Laden.

In May 1998 I interviewed him a second time in a hideout near Kandahar airport, Afghanistan, for many hours. He mentioned his possible death again and again to me in that long conversation and said, "Yes I know my enemy is very powerful, but let me assure you, they can kill me, but they cannot arrest me alive."

I received his messenger a few hours after the 9/11 attacks and he praised all those who conducted those attacks, but he never accepted the responsibility for the 9/11 attacks. It confused me. I tried to meet him again. I took the risk of entering Afghanistan in November 2001 when American warplanes were targeting Al Qaeda and the Taliban from Jalalabad to Kabul.

I was lucky and met him a third time on the morning of November 8, 2001. I was the first and only journalist to interview him after 9/11. Intense bombing was going on inside and outside the city of Kabul. He welcomed me with a smile and said, "I told you the last time that the enemy can kill me, but they cannot capture me alive. I am still alive."

After the interview he again said, "Mark my words Hamid Mir, they can kill me anytime, but they cannot capture me alive. They can claim victory only if they get me alive but if they just capture my dead body, it will be a defeat."

"The war against the Americans will not be over even after my death. I will fight till the last bullet in my gun. Martyrdom is my biggest dream and my martyrdom will create more Osama bin Ladens."




http://www.rediff.com/news/slide-sho...e8c5799f61c62a


I hope this open's some people's eyes up about this man. He didn't want to "implement shariah law" everywhere or force people to convert to Islam, he had all the money and power in the world to live the luxury and easy life. Instead he chose the hard path, to fight back, stand up to the American's and become a Mujahedeen.

How would you react, if your country got invaded, if your sisters and wives got raped and then mercilessly killed? Under Sharia Law, Bin Laden had every right to fight back against the American oppressors. His ONLY MISTAKE, was killing innocent people.

There was nothing selfish in this man. The American's raided his home in the night, whilst he was armless - and like he said, he let them kill him but he never let them take him alive.

Minus the killing of innocents May Allah(Swt) rise more Bin Laden's in this world.