In a purported audio tape by Osama Bin Laden, the fugitive leader of al-Qaeda, warned Iraq's Shia majority yesterday of retaliation over attacks against the country’s Sunni Arabs, and said that al-Qaeda fighters would battle the United States anywhere in the world.
"We will fight (U.S.) soldiers on the land of Somalia ... and we reserve the right to punish it on its land and anywhere possible," said the speaker on the tape, sounding like Bin Laden.
In the audio message posted Saturday on the Internet, addressing fighters in Somalia and Iraq, Bin Laden called Shia leaders traitors and renegades.
Bin Laden said that the Sunni Arab minority in Iraq was being "annihilated" by U.S. occupation forces with the help of Shia leaders.
"It is not possible that many of (the Shia) violate, alongside America and its allies, (the Sunni cities of) Ramadi, Fallujah, Mosul .... (and) that their areas would be safe from retaliation and harm," he said.
This is Bin Laden’s second Internet broadcast in two days.
In the 19-minute recording, al-Qaeda leader also warned the world community against sending troops to Somalia, where Islamists have fought their way to power in Mogadishu.
"We warn all of the countries in the world not to respond to America by sending international troops to Somalia."
He urged Somalis to back the Council of Islamic Courts movement so as to build an Islamic state in Somalia.
A U.S. intelligence official speaking on condition of anonymity confirmed that the man speaking on the tape was Bin Laden.
"At this point there's no real reason to believe that this tape would not be authentic, given there has not been a false tape attributed to Bin Laden in our experience," the official claimed.
Last month, Council of Islamic Courts, led by Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, banished secular warlords from the Somali capital, Mogadishu. Aweys is on the U.S. list of people "linked to terrorism" since shortly after the 11 September 2001 attacks, however no evidence has ever proved the U.S. claim.
Bin Laden's message to the Somalis may not be welcomed by Somalia's new lslamist leaders, according to the BBC, for they have been trying hard to convince Washington and African governments that they pose no threat and that they only seek bringing stability to Somalia.
On Friday, another purported Bin Laden tape was released in which he praised Abu Mus’ab Al Zarqawi, the alleged al-Qaeda leader in Iraq recently killed by U.S. forces.
Saturday's broadcast was Bin Laden's fifth in 2006. But al-Qaeda leader didn’t appear in any video images since October 2004.
• Bin Laden tapes are phony
Kevin Barrett, a Ph.D. Islamologist and Arabist, was quoted earlier this yearl, while commenting on one of Bin Laden’s tapes, as affirming that 9/11 and the American President George W. Bush’s so-called "war on terror" have nothing to do with Islam.
“The trouble is, it's all based on a Big Lie. Take the recent "Bin Laden" tape, please! That voice was no more Bin Laden than it was Rodney Dangerfield channeling my late Aunt Corinne from Peoria. I recently helped translate a previously unknown Bin Laden tape, a real one from the early '90s, back when he was still alive. I know the guy's flowery religious rhetoric. The recent tape wasn't him.”
Professor Bruce Lawrence, the top American Bin Laden expert and head of Duke University's religious studies department, shares same opinion. He even suggests that Bin Laden could be dead.
Every supposed Bin Laden audio or video tape since 2001 has been blatantly bogus, Professor Lawrence asserts.
Dr. Barrett says that the last authentic statement that Bin Laden issued was his post-9/11 comments to Pakistani journalists: “I stress that I have not carried out this act, which appears to have been carried out by individuals with their own motivation. … I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September attacks in the United States. … I had no knowledge of these attacks.”
"We will fight (U.S.) soldiers on the land of Somalia ... and we reserve the right to punish it on its land and anywhere possible," said the speaker on the tape, sounding like Bin Laden.
In the audio message posted Saturday on the Internet, addressing fighters in Somalia and Iraq, Bin Laden called Shia leaders traitors and renegades.
Bin Laden said that the Sunni Arab minority in Iraq was being "annihilated" by U.S. occupation forces with the help of Shia leaders.
"It is not possible that many of (the Shia) violate, alongside America and its allies, (the Sunni cities of) Ramadi, Fallujah, Mosul .... (and) that their areas would be safe from retaliation and harm," he said.
This is Bin Laden’s second Internet broadcast in two days.
In the 19-minute recording, al-Qaeda leader also warned the world community against sending troops to Somalia, where Islamists have fought their way to power in Mogadishu.
"We warn all of the countries in the world not to respond to America by sending international troops to Somalia."
He urged Somalis to back the Council of Islamic Courts movement so as to build an Islamic state in Somalia.
A U.S. intelligence official speaking on condition of anonymity confirmed that the man speaking on the tape was Bin Laden.
"At this point there's no real reason to believe that this tape would not be authentic, given there has not been a false tape attributed to Bin Laden in our experience," the official claimed.
Last month, Council of Islamic Courts, led by Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, banished secular warlords from the Somali capital, Mogadishu. Aweys is on the U.S. list of people "linked to terrorism" since shortly after the 11 September 2001 attacks, however no evidence has ever proved the U.S. claim.
Bin Laden's message to the Somalis may not be welcomed by Somalia's new lslamist leaders, according to the BBC, for they have been trying hard to convince Washington and African governments that they pose no threat and that they only seek bringing stability to Somalia.
On Friday, another purported Bin Laden tape was released in which he praised Abu Mus’ab Al Zarqawi, the alleged al-Qaeda leader in Iraq recently killed by U.S. forces.
Saturday's broadcast was Bin Laden's fifth in 2006. But al-Qaeda leader didn’t appear in any video images since October 2004.
• Bin Laden tapes are phony
Kevin Barrett, a Ph.D. Islamologist and Arabist, was quoted earlier this yearl, while commenting on one of Bin Laden’s tapes, as affirming that 9/11 and the American President George W. Bush’s so-called "war on terror" have nothing to do with Islam.
“The trouble is, it's all based on a Big Lie. Take the recent "Bin Laden" tape, please! That voice was no more Bin Laden than it was Rodney Dangerfield channeling my late Aunt Corinne from Peoria. I recently helped translate a previously unknown Bin Laden tape, a real one from the early '90s, back when he was still alive. I know the guy's flowery religious rhetoric. The recent tape wasn't him.”
Professor Bruce Lawrence, the top American Bin Laden expert and head of Duke University's religious studies department, shares same opinion. He even suggests that Bin Laden could be dead.
Every supposed Bin Laden audio or video tape since 2001 has been blatantly bogus, Professor Lawrence asserts.
Dr. Barrett says that the last authentic statement that Bin Laden issued was his post-9/11 comments to Pakistani journalists: “I stress that I have not carried out this act, which appears to have been carried out by individuals with their own motivation. … I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September attacks in the United States. … I had no knowledge of these attacks.”
eace: :salamext:
