Letter from Mullah Omar to Marco Travaglio My name is Omar, Mullah Omar. I'm 44 years old, 4 wives, several children, are in Kandahar, so I'm an Arab. At 20 he was fighting the Red Army (I've literally put through the nose), now fighting the United States, the British and their allies. When you fight the Soviets, you Westerners really like the weapons the past you there. I know Bin Laden since the Soviet invasion, when he liked you a lot. But we have nothing in common: he is an Arab, a caliph full of Saudi petrodollars. There help against the Red Army and later ...
gave us a lot of money to build roads, bridges, schools and hospitals. For this he was much loved by the Afghans, and when I walked into Kabul in 1996, I left him there. But in '98 his presence in Afghanistan began to create problems because he was accused by the Americans of plotting him with Al Qaeda attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. In fact, Clinton began bombing Afghanistan in the heap in the Khost area: hundreds of civilians died while Bin Laden, there was not. Between my Government and Clinton there was a negotiation rather long, but yes, the documents of the Department of State, the Americans dealt with the Taliban. They had my number. So much so that I sent my right arm Wakij Ahmed in Washington, to meet Clinton twice: on November 28 and December 18 '98. Clinton Bin Laden wanted to kill him, or at least espellessimo the country. We could not deport him: he was too popular. We offered to provide the details of its hiding place, so that the U.S. could strike without fail. As long as the stop assailing. But Clinton, inexplicably, rifiutò.Poi our relations worsened again, but not because we put the burka on women or because they destroy the Buddhas or pulverize because the TV: no. It was because I refused to entrust the construction of the mega gas pipeline linking Turkmenistan with the Pakistan to U.S. multinational Unocal. The Americans are tied to the finger, also were hanged because nell'Unocal Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice and the current Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who was a consultant. Now pretend to fall away so much for the opium, but you know who was to propose to suspend and cancel the cultivation of opium in Afghanistan? I was. I proposed to stop poppy cultivation in exchange for our international recognition and they said spades. Then I blocked unilaterally in 2000 the cultivation of opium, amid protests by hundreds of thousands of Afghan farmers who live in that: But the Koran forbids produce and consume drugs, and for me the Qur'an is a serious matter. Result: the price of opium has skyrocketed. A terrible loss for large international drug trafficking mafias. Be a coincidence, but less than a year after you have attacked. Now, Afghanistan "liberated" and "democratic", it produces more opium than before: 87% of world opium comes from our paese.Dopo September 11, Americans have asked us to deliver new Bin Laden. We asked for evidence that he was involved in September 11. Do not have the dates and we do not we have given Bin Laden. And they attacked us. Although there was only one Afghan commandos in the Twin Towers, there was only one Afghan into any cell of Al Qaeda vanquished in the following years: there were Saudis, Egyptians, Jordanians, Tunisians, Algerians, Moroccans, Yemenis. Afghans ever, and even Iraqis. Yet you have just invaded Iraq and Afghanistan. Have you ever thought of bombing Sicily to five years to dig out Bernardo Provenzano? Yet Provenzano was a fugitive for 43 years, Bin Laden only a paio.Noi we are not a nation of terrorists. The first car bomb exploded in Afghanistan last year, in 2006, after five years of employment. A little 'because you have upset all traditions as well. A little 'because many terrorists come from abroad. A little 'because with the Russians, at least, they did so, the war, because their troops were in the area. With the Americans it is impossible to dart 10 000 meters on B52 and bombard us that we can not even see them. One day a year ago, an American Predator, without crew or pilot, bombed a Pakistani village, Domadola, on the border with Afghanistan, and I think that Al Zarqawi were there. He killed 18 civilians, including 8 women and 5 children. The Predator was remotely controlled from a base in Nevada: The pilot was sitting in the base of Nevada and acted via satellite. It 's the "asymmetric war", you put the bombs and morti.Dite us that we keep our women covered too. Maybe. But you exaggerate in the other direction: possible that you have a woman to go on TV, should get in a bathing suit, perhaps with the crucifix hanging in the midst of boobs? Do not have a more decent place to put the son of God? It 's true, I do not recognize the separation between religion and politics. But on this I see that we are becoming quite similar. Even you in Italy rely heavily religious leaders, I greet you in Parlamento.Ora. But let me thank you for the service which, unwittingly, have made me and all the Taliban in 2001, when we have driven out of Kabul, we were on the balls to almost all Afghans. Now that you have known and the Afghans have seen the work the so-called Democratic President Karzai, that of oil, we have become popular. So much so that I continue to turn a bicycle and sidecar, and I do not nothing happens. On my head there's a bounty of 50 million dollars, but nobody has ever thought of betraying to pocket. I leave you with a thought of your holy, you should know well, Augustine of Hippo. It 'taken from De Civitate Dei: "Once he was brought before Alexander the Great made a famous pirate prisoner. Alex asked, 'Why pirate haunt the seas with such boldness and freedom?'. The pirate replied: 'For the same reason you infest the land. But since I do it with a small ship, I am called pirate as you do it with a large fleet are called Emperor '. "
gave us a lot of money to build roads, bridges, schools and hospitals. For this he was much loved by the Afghans, and when I walked into Kabul in 1996, I left him there. But in '98 his presence in Afghanistan began to create problems because he was accused by the Americans of plotting him with Al Qaeda attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. In fact, Clinton began bombing Afghanistan in the heap in the Khost area: hundreds of civilians died while Bin Laden, there was not. Between my Government and Clinton there was a negotiation rather long, but yes, the documents of the Department of State, the Americans dealt with the Taliban. They had my number. So much so that I sent my right arm Wakij Ahmed in Washington, to meet Clinton twice: on November 28 and December 18 '98. Clinton Bin Laden wanted to kill him, or at least espellessimo the country. We could not deport him: he was too popular. We offered to provide the details of its hiding place, so that the U.S. could strike without fail. As long as the stop assailing. But Clinton, inexplicably, rifiutò.Poi our relations worsened again, but not because we put the burka on women or because they destroy the Buddhas or pulverize because the TV: no. It was because I refused to entrust the construction of the mega gas pipeline linking Turkmenistan with the Pakistan to U.S. multinational Unocal. The Americans are tied to the finger, also were hanged because nell'Unocal Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice and the current Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who was a consultant. Now pretend to fall away so much for the opium, but you know who was to propose to suspend and cancel the cultivation of opium in Afghanistan? I was. I proposed to stop poppy cultivation in exchange for our international recognition and they said spades. Then I blocked unilaterally in 2000 the cultivation of opium, amid protests by hundreds of thousands of Afghan farmers who live in that: But the Koran forbids produce and consume drugs, and for me the Qur'an is a serious matter. Result: the price of opium has skyrocketed. A terrible loss for large international drug trafficking mafias. Be a coincidence, but less than a year after you have attacked. Now, Afghanistan "liberated" and "democratic", it produces more opium than before: 87% of world opium comes from our paese.Dopo September 11, Americans have asked us to deliver new Bin Laden. We asked for evidence that he was involved in September 11. Do not have the dates and we do not we have given Bin Laden. And they attacked us. Although there was only one Afghan commandos in the Twin Towers, there was only one Afghan into any cell of Al Qaeda vanquished in the following years: there were Saudis, Egyptians, Jordanians, Tunisians, Algerians, Moroccans, Yemenis. Afghans ever, and even Iraqis. Yet you have just invaded Iraq and Afghanistan. Have you ever thought of bombing Sicily to five years to dig out Bernardo Provenzano? Yet Provenzano was a fugitive for 43 years, Bin Laden only a paio.Noi we are not a nation of terrorists. The first car bomb exploded in Afghanistan last year, in 2006, after five years of employment. A little 'because you have upset all traditions as well. A little 'because many terrorists come from abroad. A little 'because with the Russians, at least, they did so, the war, because their troops were in the area. With the Americans it is impossible to dart 10 000 meters on B52 and bombard us that we can not even see them. One day a year ago, an American Predator, without crew or pilot, bombed a Pakistani village, Domadola, on the border with Afghanistan, and I think that Al Zarqawi were there. He killed 18 civilians, including 8 women and 5 children. The Predator was remotely controlled from a base in Nevada: The pilot was sitting in the base of Nevada and acted via satellite. It 's the "asymmetric war", you put the bombs and morti.Dite us that we keep our women covered too. Maybe. But you exaggerate in the other direction: possible that you have a woman to go on TV, should get in a bathing suit, perhaps with the crucifix hanging in the midst of boobs? Do not have a more decent place to put the son of God? It 's true, I do not recognize the separation between religion and politics. But on this I see that we are becoming quite similar. Even you in Italy rely heavily religious leaders, I greet you in Parlamento.Ora. But let me thank you for the service which, unwittingly, have made me and all the Taliban in 2001, when we have driven out of Kabul, we were on the balls to almost all Afghans. Now that you have known and the Afghans have seen the work the so-called Democratic President Karzai, that of oil, we have become popular. So much so that I continue to turn a bicycle and sidecar, and I do not nothing happens. On my head there's a bounty of 50 million dollars, but nobody has ever thought of betraying to pocket. I leave you with a thought of your holy, you should know well, Augustine of Hippo. It 'taken from De Civitate Dei: "Once he was brought before Alexander the Great made a famous pirate prisoner. Alex asked, 'Why pirate haunt the seas with such boldness and freedom?'. The pirate replied: 'For the same reason you infest the land. But since I do it with a small ship, I am called pirate as you do it with a large fleet are called Emperor '. "
Sincerely, Mullah Omar
