A war in the life of Osama bin Laden

Special report

The shadow of terror: Three months on

11 September: 'America was hit by God in one of its softest spots. America is full of fear from its north to its south, from its west to its east. Thank God for that. Our nation has been tasting fear, hatred and injustices for years.'

8 October: 'What the US tastes today is a very small thing compared to what we have tasted for tens of years. Our nation has been tasting this humiliation and contempt for more than 80 years. Its sons are being killed, its blood is being shed, its holy places are being attacked, and it is not being ruled according to what God has decreed. Despite this, nobody cares. A million Iraqi children have thus far died in Iraq, although they did not do anything wrong. Israeli tanks and tracked vehicles also enter to wreak havoc in Palestine, in Jenin, Ramallah, Rafah, Beit Jala, and other Islamic areas, and we hear no voices raised or moves made.'

3 November: 'No evidence proves that what happened in America [is related to] the people of Afghanistan, and the people of Afghanistan have nothing to do with this, but the campaign is going on, exterminating civilians including children, women and innocents.'

11 November: 'I can be eliminated, but not my mission. We'll fight along with [the Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed] Omar until the last drop of our blood ... The twin towers were legitimate targets, they were supporting US economic power. These events were great by all measurement. What was destroyed were not only the towers, but the towers of morale in that country. If avenging the killing of our people is terrorism, then history should witness that we are terrorists. Yes, we kill their innocents, and this is legal, religiously and logically.'

14 December: 'We calculated in advance the number of casualties from the enemy who would be killed, based on the position of the tower. We calculated that the floors that would be hit would be three or four floors. I was the most optimistic of them all [... inaudible...] due to my experience in this field, I was thinking that the fire from the gas in the plane would melt the iron structure of the building and collapse the area where the plane hit and all the floors above it only. This is all that we had hoped for.'