Bin Laden 'is alive'

2005-12-07 08:18

Dubai - Al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri claimed in a new videotape that the network's leader Osama bin Laden was still alive and leading the "jihad" holy war against the West, the Al-Jazeera channel said on Wednesday.

Zawahiri also called on the al-Qaeda fighters to attack oil installations in Islamic countries "because most of the revenues of this oil go to the enemies of Islam," Al-Jazeera quoted him as saying.

In parts of the videoclips screened by the satellite channel, Zawahiri said "al-Qaeda for holy war is still, thanks to God, a base for jihad. Its prince Osama bin Laden, may God protect him, still leads the jihad."

"All the lies that (US President George W) Bush tries to delude the Americans with, saying that he destroyed half, or three quarters of al-Qaeda are but nonsense merely in his own head," said Zawahiri.

Attack oil installations

Al-Jazeera said the tape appeared on a website. There was no date for the videotape.

US officials believe that Bin Laden, Zawahiri and other key militants have been sheltering somewhere along the mountainous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The al-Qaeda network has claimed terror attacks around the world, including the September 11 2001 attacks on the United States.

The turbaned Islamist also called on al-Qaeda fighters to attack oil installations in Muslim countries, according to Al-Jazeera television which broadcast the video.

Bin Laden has not been heard of since a December 27 2004 audiotape in which he anointed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraq's most wanted man, as al-Qaeda's leader in the war-torn country.

Bin Laden's last video appearance dates back to December 16 last year when he also called on his fighters to strike Gulf oil supplies and warned Saudi leaders they risked a popular uprising.

In Wednesday's tape Zawahiri was quoted by Al-Jazeera as calling for attacks on oil installations in Muslim nations "because most of the revenues of this oil go to the enemies of Islam."

Main strategist

A bespectacled Zawahiri appeared in good health in the new videotape, wearing a traditional white robe and black turban which observers say was an apparent sign of allegiance to the ousted Taliban militia in Afghanistan.

"We want to tell all the Muslims and the mujahedeen (fighters) that al-Qaeda, thank God, is expanding and increasing in strength," he said.

"It has become with God's will a natural popular organisation that is confronting the new Crusader-Zionist campaign to defend all violated Muslim territories."

He said Muslims from all Muslim nations were joining al-Qaeda in "combatting all the apostate and collaborating regimes," referring to Arab and Muslim governments allied to the West.

The United States believes Zawahiri, who has a $25m bounty on his head, is the main strategist and key ideologist in the hierarchy of al-Qaeda.

An eye surgeon by training from a wealthy Egyptian family, he faces a death sentence in Egypt. Before becoming bin Laden's right-hand man, he was the leader of the Jihad group, which spearheaded with the Jamaa Islamiya organisation a wave of attacks that rocked Egypt in the 1990s.

- AFP