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A two-decade-old letter penned by slain Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden justifying the attacks on the World Trade Centre has recently gone viral online. The missive, titled “Letter to America, '' published in 2002, was recently unearthed from the Guardian website and shared on TikTok.
Guardian was forced to take down the letter after several TikTokers seemingly concurred with the Al-Qaeda leader’s views about the West and the Jews amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict.
In the letter, Osama Bin Laden listed a litany of grievances against America while justifying the September 11 attacks that cost the lives of nearly 3,000 people. Among a lengthy list of grievances against the West, Osama Bin Laden wrote that the September 11 attacks were carried out because of America’s support of Israel. Part of the lengthy letter read:
“They threw hundreds of thousands of soldiers against us and have formed an alliance with the Israelis to oppress us and occupy our land; that was the reason for our response on the eleventh.”
The letter went viral after a TikToker with nearly 12 million followers, Lynnette Adkins, urged her followers to look into the letter that she suggested explained Hamas's attack on Israel.
“I need everyone to stop doing what they’re doing right now and go read ‘Letter to America,’ I feel like I’m going through an existential crisis right now.”
Shortly after, several people began circulating the letter online, contextualizing its contents - specifically the anti-Israel message - to the ongoing war. Concerns were raised after TikTokers began supporting the slain Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden's views that seemingly endorsed anti-Semitism.
They expressed that they did not completely disagree with his defense for committing atrocities on September 11. Shortly after, Guardian took down the letter and in a statement to The Wrap said:
“The transcript published on our website 20 years ago has been widely shared on social media without the full context.”
After Guardian deleted the letter TikTokers accused the media of "silencing the truth." However, the letter is easily available online in PDF format. Guardian deleted the letter after the transcript from their site was used to propagate anti-Semitism. The publication instead directed the readers to a page that fully contextualized the letter.
Netizens react as TikTokers seemingly embrace Osama Bin Laden's Guardian letter to America
As Osama Bin Laden's Guardian letter to America went viral online, gaining support from TikTokers over the slain Al-Qaeda leader's views, a dismayed social media user commented:
“I’m done. We as a planet deserve better”
Several people were also left stunned as TikTokers seemed to embrace the letter penned by an extremist leader propagating violence and threatening innocent civilian lives over alleged crimes committed by the Western government against the Middle East. One such response from a TikToker read:
“We’ve been lied to our entire lives, I remember watching people cheer when Osama was found and killed.”
Several netizens slammed TikToker's response to the letter: A netizen wrote:
"When I was Muslim I listened a few of Osama Bin Laden speechs because it was going around Muslim circles. I also heard Abdulrahman al-Awlaki speechs as well. BUT never was I crazy enough to like agree with any of the nonsense they were saying. And to think these random TikTokers are like thinking it's trendy, cool and hip to look up to maniacs like that. It's just nuts. People are just insane."
It should be noted in the letter that Osama Bin Laden also wrote that Al-Qaeda did not kill people without justifiable cause while referencing the government in the West.
"Be assured that we do not fight for mere killing but to stop the killing of our people. It is a sin to kill a person without proper, justifiable cause, but terminating his killer is a right."
However, the justification did not explain the killing of over 3000 innocent civilians at the World Trade Center who were not all government employees and were involved in the decisions pertaining to foreign policy.
