SHEIK:… Everybody praises what you did, the great action you did, which was first and foremost by the grace of Allah. This is the guidance of Allah and the blessed fruit of jihad… As far as Sheik Suleyman Ulwan is concerned, he gave a beautiful fatwa, may Allah bless him. Miraculously, I heard it on the Quran radio station. It was transcribed word by word. The brothers listened to it in detail. I briefly heard it before the noon prayers. He [Ulwan] said this was jihad and those people were not innocent people [World Trade Center and Pentagon victims]. He swore to Allah.

BIN LADEN: (Inaudible)… we calculated in advance the number of casualties from the enemy, who would be killed based on the position of the tower. We calculated that the floors that would be hit would be three or four floors. I was the most optimistic of them all. (Inaudible)… due to my experience in this field, I was thinking that the fire from the gas in the plane would melt the iron structure of the building and collapse the area where the plane hit and all the floors above it only. This is all that we had hoped for.

SHEIK: Allah be praised.

BIN LADEN: We were at (inaudible) when the event took place. We had notification since the previous Thursday that the event would take place that day. We had finished our work that day and had the radio on. It was 5:30 p.m. our time. I was sitting with Dr. Ahmad Abu al-[Khair]. Immediately, we heard the news that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. We turned the radio station to the news from Washington. The news continued and no mention of the attack until the end. At the end of the newscast, they reported that a plane just hit the World Trade Center.

SHEIK: Allah be praised…

SULEYMAN (Abu Guaith, bin Laden’s press spokesman): I was sitting with the sheik in a room, then I left to go to another room where there was a TV set. The TV broadcasted the big event. The scene was showing an Egyptian family sitting in their living room, they exploded with joy. Do you know when there is a soccer game and your team wins, it was the same expression of joy. There was a subtitle that read: “In revenge for the children of Al Aqsa, Osama bin Laden executes an operation against America.” So I went back to the sheik [bin Laden] who was sitting in a room with 50 to 60 people. I tried to tell him about what I saw, but he made gesture with his hands, meaning: “I know, I know…”

BIN LADEN: He did not know about the operation. Not everybody knew (inaudible). Mohamed [Atta], from the Egyptian family [the Qaeda Egyptian group], was in charge of the group.

SHEIK: A plane crashing into a tall building was out of anyone’s imagination. This was a great job. He was one of the pious men in the organization. He became a martyr. Allah bless his soul…

BIN LADEN: The brothers, who conducted the operation, all they knew was that they have a martyrdom operation, and we asked each of them to go to America but they didn’t know anything about the operation, not even one letter. But they were trained and we did not reveal the operation to them until they are there and just before they boarded the planes.

BIN LADEN: (Inaudible)… then he said: Those who were trained to fly didn’t know the others. One group of people did not know the other group. (Inaudible.)

BIN LADEN: We were at a camp of one of the brother’s guards in Kandahar. This brother belonged to the majority of the group. He came close and told me that he saw, in a dream, a tall building in America… At that point, I was worried that maybe the secret would be revealed if everyone starts seeing it in their dream. So I closed the subject. I told him if he sees another dream, not to tell anybody, because people will be upset with him.

BIN LADEN: They were overjoyed when the first plane hit the building, so I said to them: be patient.

BIN LADEN: The difference between the first and the second plane hitting the towers was 20 minutes. And the difference between the first plane and the plane that hit the Pentagon was one hour.

SHEIK: They [the Americans] were terrified, thinking there was a coup.