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US rejects bin Laden 'truce'
19/01/2006 20:24 - (SA)
Washington - The White House on Thursday flatly rejected a truce offer made on a purported audiotape by Osama bin Laden and said that US intelligence was trying to verify the recording's authenticity.
"We do not negotiate with terrorists. We put them out of business," said spokesperson Scott McClellan. "We must not stop until they are defeated."
"The intelligence community is continuing to analyse the tape to determine its authenticity and if there is any actionable intelligence. "If there is any actionable intelligence, we will act on it," he told reporters.
An aide to President George W Bush said it was not immediately clear whether the voice was really bin Laden.
The US administration has traditionally been cautious about reacting to such tapes before the veracity is confirmed.
But US officials have been among those who question what has happened to bin Laden, whose last public pronouncement was on December 24 2004. New strikes
This time, the tape warned of new strikes against US territory.
But the voice on the tape, aired on Al-Jazeera a week after a US strike against al-Qaeda militants in Pakistan, also offered the American people a conditional "long term truce".
"The delay in similar attacks is not because of the failure to penetrate security measures taken," said the voice which Al-Jazeera said was the al-Qaeda chief.
"These operations are being prepared and you will see them in your heartland when they are ready," he added.
US forces are still feverishly hunting for bin Laden and his lieutenants in Afghanistan and in remote corners of Pakistan.
After making the "war on terror" unleashed after the September 11 attacks a cornerstone of his presidency, Bush and his administration have had a frustrating hunt for bin Laden. $25m reward
There is a 25 million dollar government reward for bin Laden and the president sporadically talks about near-misses US investigators have had.
In December, Bush Monday recalled a 1998 leak to the press which he said had helped bin Laden evade a US manhunt.
"The fact that we were following Osama bin Laden because he was using a certain type of telephone made it into the press as the result of a leak," Bush said during an end-of-year news conference.
"And guess what happened? Osama bin Laden changed his behaviour. He began to change how he communicated."
"We were listening to him. He was using a type of cell phone, or a type of phone, and somebody put it in the newspaper that this was the type of device he was using to communicate with his team, and he changed."
- AFP
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