Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. (Archives)
Last update - 22:19 20/03/2008
Bin Laden tape: Iron and fire needed to liberate Palestine
By The Associated Press
Tags: Al-Qaida, Bin Laden, EU
Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden called on Palestinians to use "iron and fire" to end an Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip and liberate their country, in what the pan-Arab television network Al-Jazeera described as a new audio recording.
"My speech is about the Gaza siege and the way to retrieve it and the rest of Palestine from the hands of the Zionist enemy," bin Laden said. "Our enemies did not take it [Palestine] by negotiations and dialogue but with fire and iron. And this is the way to get it back," bin Laden said in the tape.
He also urged Muslims to keep up the struggle against U.S. occupation forces in Iraq as a way of "liberating Palestine."
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"The nearest field of jihad today to support our people in Palestine is the Iraqi field," bin Laden said.
"We tell our brothers in Palestine who could not join the jihad in the land of Al-Quds [Jerusalem], to get rid of illusions of political parties and groups which are mired in trickery of the blasphemous democracy and to take their positions among the ranks of the mujahideen in Iraq," he said.
"Such a Palestinian fight in Iraq should be concentrated on and supported by all Muslims, especially from neighboring countries," bin Laden added and also called on people of Syria, Lebanon Jordan and Saudi Arabia to help in support of their mujahideen brothers in Iraq.
If Thursday's recording proves to be that of bin Laden, it will be the second audio tape released by the al-Qaida leader in as many days. Al-Jazeera did not say how it obtained the recording.
Earlier Thursday, Italian security officials said they were treating bin Laden's new accusations against Pope Benedict's involvement in a campaign against Islam as a serious threat, the Ansa news agency reported, quoting a source at the interior ministry's anti-terrorism unit.
An interior ministry spokesman said security officials will meet on Friday to examine the previous taped message released Wednesday by the al-Qaida leader, in which he said offending cartoons of Islam's Prophet Mohammad were part of a "new crusade" against Islam involving Pope Benedict.
Bin Laden addressed the "wise men" of the European Union in this audio message, posted on extremist Web sites late Wednesday, slamming the publication of drawings insulting to the Prophet Mohammed and vowed a strong reaction.
The message, which appeared on a militant Web site that has carried Al-Qaida statements in the past and bore the logo of the extremist group's media wing al-Sahab, showed a still image of bin Laden aiming with a AK-47.
A voice believed to be Bin Laden's described "the attacks of the Europeans on women and children," but said these "paled [in comparison] when you went overboard in your unbelief and freed yourselves of the etiquettes of dispute and fighting and went to the extent of publishing these insulting drawings, this is the greatest misfortune and the most dangerous."
Bin Laden went on to describe the cartoons as taking place in the framework of a "new Crusade against Islam," in which the Pope has played a large and lengthy Role, and warned the Europeans that a reaction would come.
"The response will be what you see and not what you hear and let our mothers bereave us if we do not make victorious our messenger of God," he said, without specifying what action would be taken.
The five minute message, which featured English subtitles, is bin Laden's
first for 2008 and follows up an hour-long, audio missive from Dec. 27 in
which he warned Iraq's Sunni Arabs against fighting Al-Qaida in Iraq and vowed new attacks on Israel.
The United States Central Intelligence Authority officials Thursday confirmed the voice on the tape was indeed that of the Al-Qaida leader responsible for the September 11 terror attack on New York's World Trade Center which killed over 2,500 people.
The message came as the Muslim world marked the Mulid al-Nabi, the birthday of the Prophet Mohammed.