Al-Qaeda warns Americans
2004-04-27 20:40
Dubai - An audiotape attributed to senior al-Qaeda member Abdul Aziz al-Muqrin urged Muslims to avoid US military and civilian sites and warned Americans will be targeted "everywhere" and "more severely" this year.
"Muslims should stay away from American civilian and military places and gatherings," said the voice on the tape carried by Islamist websites, including www.al-ansar.biz.
"We warn Americans against maintaining their presence in the Arabian Peninsula, and establishing bases, pursuing their occupation of Muslim countries, supporting the Jews in Palestine and the apostate and dictatorial governments" in Islamic countries, added the voice purported to be that of Muqrin.
The authenticity of the tape could not be verified.
"We continue to attack Americans everywhere in the world until they stop their aggression and withdraw their soldiers from Muslim territory," the voice threatened.
A Saudi, Muqrin was reported to have taken over as al-Qaeda's chief of operations for the Gulf, replacing Khaled Ali bin Ali Haj, a Yemeni, who was shot dead by police in Riyadh on March 15.
"The Jews, Americans and the Crusaders in general remain the target of our next operations, which this year will be more severe," added the voice, attributed to "Abu Hajer Abdul Aziz Muqrin".
It also denied that his group, "The Mujahedeen in the Arabian Peninsula," was "responsible" for a car bomb attack last Wednesday on the Saudi capital which left five dead and 145 people wounded.
The Riyadh attack has been claimed by an extremist group linked to al-Qaeda, and which calls itself "The Brigade of the Two Holy Mosques in the Arabian Peninsula", in a statement published on Islamist websites following the blast.
Police and residents in Saudi Arabia said that security forces pursued a major operation on Tuesday against at least four suspected terrorists who have fled to a rugged, cave-riddled enclave northwest of Riyadh.
A member of the security forces involved in the search, launched late on Sunday, said that three of four suspects, who included Muqrin, were believed to figure on the Saudi interior ministry's list of most-wanted terror suspects issued last December.
The list has been reduced to 18 following the deaths or surrender of eight of the suspects.
- AFP