The 2002 letter read thus, “Palestine has been under occupation for decades, and none of your presidents talked about it until after September 11 when Bush realised that your oppression and the tyranny against us were part of the reason for the attack. You have to implement a roadmap that returns the Palestine land [sic] to us, all of it, from the sea to the river; it is an Islamic land not subject to being traded or granted to any party.”

Two disquieting thoughts emerge from Osama’s letter: One, the war in the Middle East will end only when Israel ceases to exist, as the Jewish nation purportedly exists on the “Islamic land”. Two, the Al Qaeda terrorist has, in two decades since unleashing terror through the skies in New York, has become a hero for a section of people living in peace and material comforts of the West……”