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Obama wants Bin Laden executed
12/07/2008 09:05 - (SA)
Washington - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said in interview excerpts released on Friday that al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden should be executed, if he is ever captured alive.
The Illinois Senator told CNN that the accused mastermind of the September 11 attacks in 2001 should face the full weight of US and global justice.
"I am not a cheerleader for the death penalty," Obama said.
"I think it has to be reserved for only the most heinous crimes, but I certainly think plotting and engineering the death of 3 000 Americans justifies such an approach."
"I think this is a big hypothetical, though - let's catch him first," he said.
"We have failed to seriously go after al-Qaeda over the last five years because of the distraction of Iraq, I think we are now seeing the consequences of that in Afghanistan."
In a debate during the Republican presidential primary season, Obama's general election rival Senator John McCain also vowed to bring bin Laden to justice, and follow him to the "Gates of Hell."
Obama's tough talk came after he accused the Bush administration of diverting resources from the war in Afghanistan launched after the 2001 attacks to fight what he saw as an unnecessary war in Iraq.
He has vowed to start pulling US troops out of Iraq at the rate of one or two brigades a month, and sending more soldiers to Afghanistan, if he is elected president in November.
Obama is expected to visit Afghanistan and Iraq within the coming weeks, though full details have not been released for security reasons.
- AFP
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US Elections Special Report
