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Bin Laden's fate still unknown
07/12/2005 17:01 - (SA)
Dubai - Al-Jazeera television has admitted a videotape of Osama bin Laden's right-hand man, claiming the al-Qaeda leader is still alive, is actually three months old - leaving the question, where exactly is the Western world's most wanted man?
Al-Jazeera said the videotape, aired on Wednesday, dated back to September.
The tape showed al-Qaeda number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, saying Bin Laden was still alive and leading 'jihad' against the West.
Ahmad Sheikh, Al-Jazeera editor-in-chief said: "We got the videotape in September, and back then we aired what we thought were the important parts.
"There was a misunderstanding today, and we aired these extracts by mistake."
The extracts aired in September showed Zawahiri claiming al-Qaeda responsibility for the deadly bombings in London in July.
US officials believe Bin Laden and other key al-Qaeda militants are hiding out along the mountainous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
However, Bin Laden's last video appearance was on December 16 last year, when he called on his fighters to strike Gulf oil supplies and warned Saudi leaders they risked a popular uprising.
Before this, he was heard on 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.
In the clips aired on Wednesday, Zawahiri is seen calling for attacks on oil installations in Muslim nations "because most of the revenues of this oil goes to the enemies of Islam".
Zawahiri said: "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.
"We want to tell all the Muslims and the mujahedeen (fighters) that al-Qaeda, thank God, is expanding and increasing in strength."
The US believes he is the main strategist and key ideologist in the hierarchy of al-Qaeda.
Zawahiri has a $25m (about R162m) bounty on his head.
- AFP
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