Alleged Osama tape: west at war with Islam
(AP)
Updated: 2006-04-23 21:16
Osama bin Laden issued ominous new threats in an audiotape broadcast Sunday,
purportedly saying the West was at war with Islam and calling on his followers
to go to Sudan to fight a proposed UN force.
This is an undated
file photo of Osama bin Laden. The terror suspect purportedly said in an
audio tape broadcast by Al-Jazeera television that the West's decision to
cut off funds to the Palestinians proved that the United States and Europe
were at war with Islam. [AP] | In his first new
message in three months, bin Laden said the West's decision to cut off funds to
the Palestinians because their Hamas leaders refuse to recognize Israel proved
that the United States and Europe were conducting "a Zionist crusader war on
Islam."
"The blockade which the West is imposing on the government of Hamas proves
that there is a Zionist crusader war on Islam," said the speaker on the tape
broadcast by the Al-Jazeera network.
"I say that this war is the joint responsibility of the people and the
governments. While the war continues, the people renew their allegiance to their
rulers and politicians and continue to send their sons to our countries to fight
us."
The authenticity of the tape could not immediately be verified.
Bin Laden also addressed the conflict in Sudan, where he was based before
being expelled under threats from the United States. He then moved to
Afghanistan and is believed to be hiding out in the rugged mountains on the
Pakistani side of their common border.
A three-year conflict between Darfur's rebels and the Arab-dominated central
government has caused about 180,000 deaths — most from disease and hunger — and
displaced 2 million people.
The United Nations has described the conflict as the world's gravest
humanitarian crisis. The United States has described it as genocide.
Negotiators are trying to broker a peace deal between warring factions by an
April 30 deadline. Members of the African Union have agreed in principle to hand
over peacekeeping duties to the United Nations beginning Sept. 30.
"I call on mujahedeen and their supporters, especially in Sudan and the Arab
peninsula, to prepare for long war again the crusader plunderers in Western
Sudan. Our goal is not defending the Khartoum government but to defend Islam,
its land and its people," bin Laden purportedly said.
It was the first purported new message from bin Laden since Jan. 19. In that
audiotape, he warned that his fighters were preparing new attacks in the United
States but offered the American people a "long-term truce" without specifying
the conditions.
That tape was posted in full on a Web site a month later and included a vow
by the terrorist chieftain never to be captured alive.
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