‘Bin Laden speaks
for Muslim world’

By WND Staff

An author and former congressional expert on international terrorism calls Osama bin Laden the “most popular individual in the Muslim world,” suggesting the West’s strategy of destroying him as the key to winning the terror war may be shortsighted.

Yossef Bodansky, author of “Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America,” last night said on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity & Colmes” program that the man he has tracked for 25 years is lucid, learned and extremely influential — even inspirational — in much of the Islamic world.

Asked what would happen if and when the United States is successful at finding and killing bin Laden, Bodansky said, “Tens of thousands of others would rise to avenge him.”

Bodansky says bin Laden’s jihad against the West has the potential to lead to a world war with Islam. He characterized the United States as “extremely vulnerable” to further terrorist attacks.

“Bin Laden is speaking for them (the Muslim world) more than anyone else to a great extent,” Bodansky said.

Bodansky was director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare and the author of eight books on the subject.

Read “The enigmatic Osama bin Laden” in today’s edition.