Al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden spoke to the American people on the eighth anniversary of 9/11 asserting that the main reason for the al-Qaida attacks on New York and Washington was U.S. support for Israel as well as “some other injustices.”
Interestingly, bin Laden claimed the war between the U.S. and the Islamic "Umma" can stop if the White House eliminated what he called the "Israel lobby." Note that in this speech he doesn't mention the battlefields of Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, and Chechnya, he only targets U.S.-Israeli relations.
Bin Laden insists that Americans needs to know the real causes for this war "which is costing you dearly in blood and wealth. The [past George W. Bush-led] White House convinced you that this war [the war on terror] is necessary for your security." The sentence used by Bin Laden can also mean that what the Barack Obama administration called the "war of necessity," in the past few weeks. Bin Laden asked Americans to hear "both sides" (a concept taken from American political discourse and rarely referred to in jihadist literature).
While over-emphasizing the Israel factor, something unusual for him, actually, bin Laden reminded his audience that for two decades he had claimed that the main cause for his attacks is "America's support to its allies the Israelis." He added that there were also other injustices caused by the U.S., as well, but strangely refrained from citing them.
Such an over-assertion is new in the al-Qaida narrative, for in most of bin Laden's previous speeches, including his declarations of war of 1996 and 1998, Israel was only one, and not the main, root cause for the terror he has unleashed since. His speeches during the fall of 2001 (all available online and in print) focused on the "evil nature" of American policies rather than only on the country's specific support for Israel. Hence, one can see a shift in al-Qaida's strategic communications.
