In an article titled "The Man of the 21st Century," published in the daily Al-Ahram, Egyptian columnist Salah Muntasir speaks admiringly of the September 11, 2001 attacks and writes that Osama bin Laden was the man who changed history in the 21st century, just as Adolf Hitler was the man who changed the 20th century. He also states that global terrorism is the result of propaganda spread by the U.S. in the 1980s calling for jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan. The following are excerpts:
Salah Muntasir
"'Volunteer for jihad against heresy in Afghanistan' – this propaganda was spread by the U.S. in January 1980, one month after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, and it was heeded by various people who thought it was the gate to Paradise. This call gave birth to global jihad, which sadly bore the face of Islam. With the end of the Soviet [era] in Afghanistan, those people thought they could change the world.
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"I spent the last five years of the 20th century studying the events and figures who had made that century, and I enumerated them in my book The Figures Who Changed the 20th Century, published by the Al-Ahram Center for Translation and Publishing. The book enumerated 31 figures, starting with the German leader Adolf Hitler, who started World War II, and whom I named the most prominent figure who changed that century...
"When the 21st century draws to a close and people start listing the prominent figures who had shaped [its] events, they will no doubt [conclude] that Osama bin Laden was the man who changed history on September 11, [2001], and is still changing it 13 years later, with his terrorist attack that was unique not only in its concept, planning and execution but in its immense impact, which made it the first historic event to be broadcast live, and which was so amazing and horrific that, seeing in on the screen, we thought we were watching a movie.
"Thirteen years have passed since the bombing of the World Trade Center, and I can hardly believe that it happened in such a manner and with such ease [on the soil] of the mightiest superpower. Even an advanced children's video game could not have reached the degree of precision achieved by the pilots who hijacked four commercial planes and used two of them to hit the towers head on. [Moreover, it was] the first time they were flying such commercial planes through the New York sky, [yet they were] so calm and confident. True, the world has changed since that event, but we have yet to receive an explanation for that immense precision and for that realistic movie that was not imaginary."
