Following are excerpts of an interview with Al-Qaeda sympathizer Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad on Press TV (Iran), January 8, 2008:

Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad: First of all, Al-Qaeda is a phenomenon. It is not an organization only. If it is an organization only, I have no link to the organization whatsoever, nor to Sheikh Osama bin Laden, nor to anybody in Al-Qaeda. It is the phenomenon of Al-Qaeda – what they believe, and what their own path is, what their own methods are. I believe Al-Qaeda... Every Muslim around the world shares many things with them. They pray toward the Ka'ba – we pray toward the Ka'ba. They pray five times a day – we pray five times a day. They are Muslims – we are Muslims. They fight against occupiers – we fight against occupiers. So we share with them all these Islamic values. But we don't share with them the structures, activities, and actions. Therefore, if you speak about Al-Qaeda as an organization with a particular dogma, a particular thought and method – definitely, I do not have a relationship with Al-Qaeda. Otherwise I do not think I would be at this table. But if you believe in Al-Qaeda as Muslims who believe in the truth, stand against evil powers, like the U.S. power, and against those Western powers who have exploited Muslim resources and occupied Muslim land – that, I think, everybody shares with Al-Qaeda – their own struggles against occupiers.

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I believe Al-Qaeda have their own justification to retaliate against the U.S. power.

Interviewer: But they have killed innocent civilians – people who went to work, people making their own living. People have – They are not your enemy. How can you justify an act against them?

Muhammad: First of all, we should understand that Muslims living in the West, or Muslims wherever they are, are not allowed to attack the people they are living with. Islam forbids them because of something called a covenant – whether that covenant of security is a customary one, like in the form of a visa, or a real one, like political refugees or treaties. Islam forbids Muslims to live among people and then to attack them, whether they are military people, politicians, or civilians—men or women. But at the same time as Muslims in the West are not allowed to carry out attacks, there are Muslims in the Muslim world who are at war with the Western forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. So whenever they are bombed in Iraq or Afghanistan, they have the right to retaliate.

Interviewer: But the [innocent] people have nothing to do with that. It's a matter of government taking decisions, a government giving orders to certain people, to the military: Go and attack a certain target in this country or that country.

Muhammad: I don't believe so.

Interviewer: But people have nothing to do with that. People go to work in the morning, they want to make their living. Do you think they have something to do with these orders that come from the governments?

Muhammad: You see, I think that question can be addressed to the American forces. American forces are now attacking civilians. They are not attacking military people. There is no military... There is no army at war with America on earth. This is the only thing they do – attacking civilian people all the time. They call them Al-Qaeda, but it's an easy... scapegoat, if you like – that these people are Al-Qaeda, but in fact, they are at war against Islam and the Muslims. However, I believe that attacking...

Interviewer: If they were at war against Islam and the Muslims, does Islam justify an aggressive act against innocent civilians, whether in the United States, in London, or elsewhere?

Muhammad: I think we need to correct our terminology. It seems to me that using the word "innocent"... Innocent – as far as Islam is concerned – are the Muslims. That's one. But non-Muslims are really... Their situation is as follows – They are either men – or women and children. If we take aside the women and children – unless the women are fighters – the person who is a non-Muslim has a problem with Islam, because we call him "non-Muslim." He is either under covenant with us, or he is at war with us. If he carries weapons and fights us, Muslims are allowed to fight back. Now when you fight back, there will always be war casualties.

Interviewer: But those who don't carry weapons – what's the Islamic judgment?

Muhammad: You see, we do not fight people who do not fight us. We fight those who fight us. Now when you fight against those who fight us, there will always be – by accident – something we call war casualties...

Interviewer: So what do you consider...

Muhammad: Even the U.S. forces, when they bombed the Iranian airplane, when they shot down the Iranian airplane, at that time, they said: Sorry, it was a mistake, these are war casualties. When they bombed in Sudan, they said: Sorry, some civilians were killed, and these are war casualties. When they bombed in Somalia, in Iraq, and in Afghanistan, they always attack and hit a target, and they always have some people who've been caught in the target. We take this for granted. It's the same thing when the Muslims hit back at an enemy target, there's going to be war casualties. And during the war, people don't make love, they fight.

Interviewer: But in 9/11, they were casualties. It was an attack against innocent civilians.

Muhammad: I don't think so. It was an attack against American targets, in the eyes of Al-Qaeda. I may believe...

Interviewer: What do you... I want to... Do you condone that?

Muhammad: I am not [the kind of] Muslim which allows for me to condone or condemn. This is really wrong. I am subservient to Almighty Allah. If Allah condemns it, I will condemn it. If Allah condones it, I will condone it.

Interviewer: So do you condemn it?

Muhammad: I don't condemn it, because I believe that Allah (forbids) the Muslims in the USA to carry it out. However, Muslims abroad have Islamic justification, according to their own interpretation... I may disagree with them, but they have Islamic justification. I don't condemn them.

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I can tell you one thing. We don't play around. We are the most active on university campuses. We are the most [accepted] by the people in the West and people who embrace Islam, with our platform – not those moderate "chocolates" who want to please the West, or those who integrated in the West... That's why, if you look at the studies on the university campuses, I am the most active one. People want to embrace Islam on our own platforms, and God is the one who guides them. So we do not carry Islam by speaking about 9/11. We carry Islam by speaking about the existence of God, the meaning of life, where we come from, why, where we are going to. We give sound reason of Islam to the people in intellectual logical debate. I believe thought is the way for revival, not the sword. However, the sword sometimes needs to be used, when people themselves are aggressors. You can't tell me that when they occupied our lands – whether [they are] Israeli forces or American forces – we're going to give them flowers and ice cream. We have the right to fight back against occupiers. However, Al-Qaeda do not believe that the war is restricted only to the area where they come under attack. They believe they attack the enemy – as they define them as enemy – wherever they are, the way America fights against Al-Qaeda wherever they are. So they are both involved in acts of terrorism. I believe the camp of the West, which is led by George Bush... He is the head of the terrorists, or terrorism, in that non-Muslim camp. And the same thing with the Islamic camp – the head of that Islamic camp is Osama bin Laden. It's another act of terrorism and violence. Both of them are involved in acts of terrorism. Each one justifies it. One justifies it in the name of man – sovereignty for man – and one justifies it in the name of Allah – sovereignty for Almighty Allah. One believes – and I believe – that his act of terrorism is a form of a praised act in Islam, not a dispraised one, whereas the acts of terrorism and violence of the U.S. forces, American forces, is a form of dispraised acts of violence and terrorism. Not all violence is bad. Sometimes doctors may use violence to save lives. Sometimes, the mujahideen, or the resistance, in South Lebanon use violence to protect life, but Israeli violence [is meant] to kill life. This is the difference between the two forms of violence. You cannot condemn any form of resistance, any form of violence. You can condemn killing in cold blood. You see, those innocent people, whether Muslims or non-Muslims... Those who are with you under covenant status – you can condemn it. If Al-Qaeda was just going out and killing innocent people, or killing people who are living with them under covenant, we will condemn Al-Qaeda. We are not people who follow bin Laden as if he is a prophet of the End of Time, or the Mahdi, or the Revivalist. We believe he is a mujahid, a fighter. He fought against the Soviet Union when they occupied Afghanistan, and he fought as well with his brothers against the American forces.

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First of all, this idea of civilians and military men – we should think about it a little bit, deeply. Otherwise it is a very pathetic thought. Why? Somebody comes and occupies my land, wearing his military clothes. I cannot fight him if he takes it off and wears pajamas after that. You see, I cannot imagine how somebody could... His uniform makes his life have no sanctity, and without uniform, his life has sanctity... or has no sanctity. In Islam, we don’t see it like this. You are either at war with us, and you reject having a treaty with us, or you accept it. If you reject it, we have the right to fight you back, and if you fight us, we can fight you back. If you have a treaty with us, we will never fight against you, unless you are occupiers, like in the case of Israel. The case of Israel is the same case of American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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The Islamic rules regarding the people who occupied Muslim land are that they are a target for the Muslims, wherever they are. Unless there are covenants to prevent that, I think this is the difference between what I believe and maybe what other people believe. Plus, Al-Qaeda and the Muslims in general are supposed to fight not for the sake of the land. You see, it seems to me that somehow, those who believe in resistance—muqawama – believe in fighting for their land. What is really a piece of... I'm sorry about that. We don't fight for land.

Interviewer: What do you consider Hizbullah – fighting for a land or fighting for Allah, for God?

Muhammad: I believe that those who've been created from mud should not fight for mud, [or else their lives will] become muddy lives. Allah created us from mud. We don’t fight for the sake of Shab'a Fields [sic] or Palestine, or Iraq as Baghdad. If you don't fight to make the word of Allah the highest, it will never count as fighting for the sake of Allah.

Interviewer: So you think that Hizbullah is not working for the sake of God?

Muhammad: I believe Hizbullah is a Lebanese resistance movement and a nationalistic resistance movement. They never declared they want to establish Islam. I've never heard it. I've never seen it. They fight only purely to liberate Shab'a, or even if they have any other land, but not for the sake of establishing the Islamic state. They never say that. Unless they say it under the table, I don't know. But I am judging Hizbullah in Lebanon. Hizbullah in Lebanon wants to remove the Lebanese constitution, and bring about an Islamic constitution? I hope that's the case – but if that is not the case, I can't put words in their own mouths.

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Interviewer: So that's why you don’t go to the South and fight the Israeli occupation forces?

Muhammad: I'd go there, but I don’t think Hizbullah can carry or handle our cause there. If we fight to establish Islamic law and order in Lebanon – I think Hizbullah would stop us first, because Hizbullah is part of the indigenous Lebanese nationalistic pattern, which believes in the Lebanese constitution, whereas Al-Qaeda doesn't believe in that. Al-Qaeda doesn't fight for the sake of Baghdad. What a silly thing to fight for. We fight for Islamic world order to be established in the entire Iraq.

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In Islam, the Prophet Muhammad fought against civilian people. I think maybe you've never read about Islam properly. [In the case of the Jewish] Bani Nazir tribe – three people betrayed the Prophet Muhammad, and all the other civilians from the tribe did not betray him. Only three – but they were the leaders. The others – they just left them. The Prophet sent his companions, they put [the tribe] under siege, and he said to them: Spoil their water, cut their trees, burn their tents, and throw them out. When they fought against them, and threw the catapult on them, they said: We found among those who'd been killed, women and children. He said: They are a part of them, but never target them. Meaning they could be hit as part of the target. It was the same thing with the Bani Qurayza tribe. This was a well-known case. Seven hundred from the Jewish community had been slaughtered in front of the Messenger Muhammad. The Messenger of love and peace is the Messenger of war as well. I think that if we try to just please the West, and say there is nothing called jihad, and nothing called fighting, only love, I think we will be involved all the time in mut'a relations [for the sake of pleasure] with the Western people. We are talking about Islam. Islam talks about fights more than it talks about love.

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Interviewer: You want to terrify non-Muslims?

Muhammad: I believe the issue of fear is very healthy. God created us with instincts and with all that we need. We have survival instincts. We have fear all the time as well, and that fear is very healthy.

Interviewer: In that case, you name it...

Muhammad: If you fear ignorance, you seek education. If you fear poverty, you start to work.