London bomber: Why I did it

2005-09-02 07:49

Dubai - In a posthumous message, one of the four London suicide bombers said he was driven to his actions in response to the "atrocities" committed against Muslims.

Speaking in English with a northern accent, the turbaned man said on the Al-Jazeera channel to be Mohammad Sidique Khan: "I and thousands like me have forsaken everything for what we believe in. Our driving motivation does not come from tangible commodities that this world has to offer. Our religion is Islam."

The man said he was inspired by bin Laden, Zawahiri and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaeda's frontman in Iraq whose group has taken credit for many of the deadliest attacks in the country in the past two years.

"Your democratically elected governments continue to commit atrocities against my people over the world.

You kill civilians, we kill civilians

"Their support makes you directly responsible just as I am directly responsible for protecting and avenging my Muslim brothers and sisters," he said, in an apparent message to Western countries.

"The martyr Mohammad Sidique, one of the knights of the blessed raids on London," read an inscription on the tape, which showed him against the background of a coloured tapestry.

Sidique Khan, a 30-year-old British national of Pakistani origin, was named as one of the four suicide bombers who carried out the coordinated attacks in the British capital. Al-Qaeda second in command Ayman al-Zawahiri emerged days before the anniversary of September 11 to threaten more anti-Western attacks like the July strikes on Britain, in a videotape aired by Al-Jazeera which also showed one of the London bombers.

"The lands and interests of the countries which took part in the aggression against Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan are targets for us," Zawahiri warned in the tape broadcast by the Qatar-based news channel late on Thursday.

Zawahiri hailed the July 7 "conquest" in London as similar to those in Madrid last year and the United States on September 11 2001, appearing to take responsibility for the rush-hour bombings on underground trains and a bus which killed 52 people.

"Just as they made rivers of blood flow in our countries, we will make volcanoes of anger erupt in their countries," Osama bin Laden's right-hand man said, shown with an automatic rifle at his side.

Zawahiri's threats came 10 days before the fourth anniversary of the September 11 attacks claimed by his terror network.

Zawahiri linked the London bombings to the spurning by European governments of a truce offer by bin Laden last year.

Zawahiri accused Blair, Bush's staunchest ally in the Iraq war, of taking his people for "fools" by insisting that the London attacks had "nothing to do with the crimes he committed in Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq."

As for their contention that "striking civilians is not the right response to the crimes of Bush and Blair, we say that it is only fair to respond in kind."

- AFP