Terror mastermind Osama Bin Laden in a speech in 1993, invoked Mahatma Gandhi, the symbol of peace and non-violence, as he asked his supporters to boycott American goods, a recording has revealed. According to audio tapes of the Al-Qaida chief Bin Laden, he sought inspirations from the Indian leader's struggle against the British.
After the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, Laden was forced to flee the city of Kandahar, where he had been based since 1997. Several compounds were hastily vacated, including one opposite the Taliban foreign ministry inside which 1,500 cassettes were discovered.
They soon passed many hands from an Afghan family to a cassette shop and then to a CNN cameraman, finally making its way to the Afghan Media Project at Williams College in Massachusetts, who asked Flagg Miller — an expert in Arabic literature and culture from the University of California, Davis — to unravel them, the BBC reported.
In a tape discovered, according to a speech, Osama said, "Consider the case of Great Britain, an empire so vast that some say the sun never set on it," says Laden. "Britain was forced to withdraw from one of its largest colonies when Gandhi the Hindu declared a boycott against their goods. We must do the same thing today with America.”
Laden however made no mention of violence till 1996, according to the tapes.
