|
US 'using Saddam's tactics'
20/02/2006 14:53 - (SA)
By Steven R Hurst
Cairo - Osama bin Laden promised never to be captured alive and declared the United States had resorted to the same "barbaric" tactics used by Saddam Hussein, according to an audiotape purportedly by the al-Qaeda leader that was posted on Monday on a militant website.
The tape appeared to be a complete version of one that was first broadcast January 19 on Al-Jazeera, the pan-Arab satellite channel, in which bin Laden offered the United States a long-term truce but also said his al-Qaeda terror network would soon launch a fresh attack on American soil.
"I have sworn to only live free. Even if I find bitter the taste of death, I don't want to die humiliated or deceived," bin Laden said, in the 11 minute 26 second tape.
In drawing the comparison to American military behaviour in Iraq to that of Saddam, the speaker said:
"The jihad is continuing with strength, for Allah be all the credit, despite all the barbarity, the repressive steps taken by the American army and its agents, to the extent that there is no longer any mentionable difference between this criminality and the criminality of Saddam."
'Point of attraction'
By using that language to describe Saddam, bin Laden appeared to be deny assertions by the Bush administration that the former Iraqi leader had ties to al-Qaeda - ties that were given as one rationale for invading Iraq.
Bin Laden also denied Bush administration assertions that it was better to fight terrorists in Iraq than on US soil.
"The war against America and its allies has not remained confined to Iraq as he (Bush) claims, but rather Iraq has become a point of attraction and recruitment of qualified forces," the speaker said.
"What's more, the Mujahedeen, by the grace of Allah, have been able to penetrate time after time all the security procedures undertaken by the oppressive countries of the alliance as evidence by what you have seen, in terms of bombings in the capital of the most important European states."
The tape's release in January came days after a US airstrike in Pakistan that was targeting bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, and reportedly killed four leading al-Qaeda figures, including possibly al-Zawahri's son-in-law. There was no mention of the attack on the segments that were broadcast.
In the full tape that was posted on Monday, bin Laden engaged in renewed propaganda, mocking US President George Bush's aircraft carrier declaration in April 2003 that major conflict in Iraq had ended.
It was the first tape from the al-Qaeda leader in more than a year.
- AP
|
News
