Al Jazeera's Ahmed Zidane opens his heart to Echourouk

Al Jazeera correspondent to Pakistan, the Syrian reporter Ahmed Mofek Zidane counts among the fistful journalists who interviewed the former Al Qaeda leader Oussama Bin Laden in Kandahar, Afghanistan in 2001.

• He had also encountered a number of Taliban ledears and published several books namely: The unveiled Bin Laden and “ Taliban: The second empire”. In a wide- ranging interview with Echourouk, he  talks about Bin Laden as well as other issues in relation to Al Jazeera asd well as the popular uprisings that torment his home country Syria.
• Echourouk: You are among the fewest journalists, who met Oussama Bin Laden, What are the memories that you still recollect and maybe you didn’t ever revealed?
• Zidane: The Bin Laden I met was a quite different personality from the one portrayed as bloody ruthless terrorist; he was calm and receptive to his companions. He had a wider vision of the Arab world he was convinced that the Arab nations were complementary to each other and cannot live as separated entities.
• Echourouk: How did you deal with the US version about his killing?
• Zidane: Frankly speaking I was doubtful at the beginning and didn’t believe it, firstly because I was far from Pakistan and couldn’t contact my sources; secondly, I couldn’t believe that a personality like Oussama Bin Laden could dwell near Islamabad and moreover, a military zone. The US versions were contradictory but I was finally convinced by his death in the wake of the communiqué released by Al Qaeda on the internet.
• Echourouk: You have conducted interviews with Taliban leaders based in Pakistan, haven’t you got hints from them suggesting that Oussama was maybe dwelling in Pakistan?
• Zidane: Definitely no, they were always avoiding talking about the issue most of them were ignoring his whereabouts, maybe a handful of Taliban activists were aware about the issue.
• Echourouk: Bin Laden wanted to involve the US in Afghanistan in order to defeat it, as he put it in the interview and confirmed to you by the British reporter Robert Fisk, did Bin Laden have an active role in this war while the US portrayed his as an old and helpless man in the last video?
• Zidane: That was Bin Laden’s main intent; they have carried out the attack over the US embassies in Central Africa with the aim to prompt US military intervention in Afghanistan.  
• Echourouk: How do you believe the future  of Al Qaeda will be after the killing of its spiritual leader?
• Zidane: I think that Al Qaeda’s future is bound to the Arab revolutions everybody has to bear in mind that change can only succeed through peaceful processes.  And I seize this opportunity to say that the failure of a peaceful transition in Syria could lead to unrests in the whole region.
• Echourouk: Syria is witnessing a popular uprising since a while, what’s really happening there?
• Zidane: In Syria there is a clash between the people and the regime like everywhere in the Arab world but maybe things are more sensitive in this country on account of its geographical situation.
• Echourouk: Some say that the foreign intervention in Libya was prelude for another one in Syria, could the protesters there is ask for a foreign intervention to protect the civilians?
• Zidane: The international reactions over the events in Syria are blurring , the Syrian people is not  asking any foreign intervention on its soil all they need is freedom and the Arab help to press this tyrannical regime to depart.