Osama Bin Laden Issues Fatwa Invites World Muslims Against US In Today's Memory, February 23, 1998

The founder and leader of the al-Qaeda terrorist network, Osama bin Laden. (Wikimedia Commons)

JAKARTA Memories of today, 26 years ago, February 23, 1998, Osama bin Laden issued a phenomenal fatwa against the United States (US). The al-Qaeda founder appealed to Muslims around the world to take up arms against Uncle Sam's country.

Previously, Osama's hatred of the US had peaked. US actions that often interfere in many wars have become a cause. Osama assessed that the US used lethal weapons to repulse its opponents, especially Muslims.

No one denies the status of the US as a superpower. Uncle Sam's country is known as one of the strongest countries in the world. Whoever tries to fight it, will surely be close to defeat.

Osama believes in this. However, the superpower status made Osama see the US as a war criminal. Or in Osama's language as a real terrorist nation. Osama revealed that the narrative was not just an empty message.

The life of a US leader who likes war is a cause. Even not a few Americans interfered in foreign politics in other countries to force their intentions. US action was forced to be paid dearly by many countries. Lives fell, destruction emerged everywhere.

The barbarity got worse again because those who were many victims were women and children. Osama's hatred is increasing as the US becomes Israel's protector. The US is ready to support all kinds of Israeli military aggression against the Palestinian people.

An act the world considers far from humanity. Israel is carrying out a massacre that has left innocent people dead. The death of the Palestinian people is proof that the only thing the US cares about is profit.

The business of many innocent lives is lost, another thing. A series of narratives made the founders of the al-Qaeda terrorist network move against US domination. That justice is a form of his resistance to the real terrorists in the world: US.

The history of the US does not differentiate between civilians and the military, even women and children. They used atomic bombs to fight HUMANism. Can this bomb distinguish between baby and military? America has no religion that can prevent it from destroying everyone. About Israel's cooperation in 1983 with Lebanese Christians who slaughtered Palestinians outside Beirut.

"The important statement is that US action sanctions against Iraq have killed many children. All of this is done in the name of US interests. We believe that the world's biggest thieves and terrorists are Americans. The only way for us to fend off this attack is in the same way," Osama said as quoted by The New York Times newspaper in his report entitled The World; Osama bin Laden, In His Own Words (1998).

Osama's hatred of the US is unbearable. He tried to invite all Muslims in the world to make the US a common enemy, from the government to its people. The doctrine was delivered through a fatwa published by the al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper on February 23, 1998.

The fatwa appealed to all Muslims in the world to take up arms against the US. The result was jarring. The US has become an enemy of Islam. Jihad resistance appears everywhere. In fact, the US has been widely targeted for acts of terrorism.

The most extreme interpretation of the doctrine of jihad in the late 20th century was made by Osama bin Laden through a fatw place dated February 23, 1998. In his fatwa, bin Laden, on behalf of the World Islamic Front: jihad against the Jaws and Crusaders, assumes that jihad in the sense of war against the American military and its civilians is the individual obligation of every Muslim.

These fatwas have sparked violence and acts of terror in various parts of the world. From 2000 to 2003, more than 300 suicide bombings have occurred, and have claimed more than 5,300 people in 17 countries. The peak is the September 11 incident that destroyed twin buildings, the World Trade Center (WTC), and attacks on American military centers, the Pentagon, "explained Mohamad Nur Kholis Setiawan and his friends in the book Meniti Kalam Kerukungan (2010).