The Al-Jazeera satellite channel broadcast an audiotape purportedly from al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, in which he urged Muslims to continue fighting a holy war in Iraq and the Middle East rather than cooperate with peace efforts.
The speaker, who referred to recent events -- including the December capture of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, called on Muslims to "continue the jihad to check the conspiracies that are hatched against the Islamic nation." He said the US-led war against Iraq was the beginning of the "occupation" of Gulf states for their oil.
"My message is to incite you against the conspiracies, especially those uncovered by the occupation of the crusaders in Baghdad under the pretext of weapons of mass destruction, and also the situation in [Jerusalem] under the deceptions of the road map and the Geneva initiative,'' the speaker said.
A Mideast peace plan dubbed the Geneva Accord was launched on Dec. 1 by Israeli and Palestinian negotiators. The phrase "road map" refers to a US-backed plan for a Palestinian state by 2005.
The tape's authenticity could not immediately be verified, although the voice on the tape resembled that of bin Laden.
"The CIA and appropriate intelligence authorities are reviewing the tape to check for its authenticity," Allen Abney, a White House spokesman, said on Sunday.
Al-Jazeera played the audiotape while showing a still photo of bin Laden against a dark blue background.
Ibrahim Hilal, Al-Jazeera's editor-in-chief, said the network received the message on Sunday. However, he declined to reveal how it was delivered.
The original message was 47 minutes long but the network aired only 14, Hilal said.
In those excerpts, the speaker urged Muslims to "liberate the Islamic world from the military occupation of the Crusaders."
The speaker criticized leaders of Muslim nations for refusing to pressure the US on the Palestinian issue and for not supporting the Palestinian resistance.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
RSS