Osama bin Laden challenged by former comrade
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/10/bin-aden-challenge-former-comradeRepentant ex-jihadi Noman Benotman calls for an end to al-Qaida US campaign, saying 9/11 attacks only brought suffering to ordinary Muslims
* Ian Black, Middle East editor
* guardian.co.uk, Friday 10 September 2010 12.27 BST
Is Osama bin Laden willing to listen to constructive criticism from an old friend? If so, a former al-Qaida comrade-in-arms has some advice for him to mark the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, coinciding this year with the row over Qur'an-burning by an obscure American church that could, some fear, give the organisation a new lease of life.
Noman Benotman is a Libyan ex-jihadi who now devotes himself to combating the message of jihadi extremism. He fought with the mujahideen against the Red Army in Afghanistan but broke with Bin Laden in 2000, after urging him to stop his campaign against the United States because, he argued, it was sabotaging the prospects for change in the Arab world.
Chances are that Benotman's latest appeal calling for a unilateral six-month ceasefire will fall on deaf ears in Waziristan, or wherever Bin Laden is hiding these days. Cynics may dismiss it as a propaganda exercise. But it is worth listening to as an eloquent challenge to al-Qaida from one who once embraced its noxious world view: