Dubai | Sunday
THE heavy US aerial bombardment of Afghanistan has signally failed to silence Osama bin Laden who taunted the world superpower again on Sunday via a simple video message aired by an Arab television station.
The representative for his Al-Qaeda group warned of more hijacked jetliner attacks to come against the United States and Britain in a new incendiary statement couched in religious cant.
”The storm of airplanes will not be calmed, if it is God’s will,” bin Laden aide Suleiman Abu Ghaith said in a pre-recorded message broadcast in the early hours by the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera satellite station.
”The storm will not calm, especially as long as you (United States and Britain) do not end your support for the Jews in Palestine, lift your embargo from around the Iraqi people, and have left the Arabian peninsula, and stop your support of the Hindus against Muslims in Kashmir,” he said in Arabic.
The White House, also facing fears of bio-terrorism as cases of anthrax multiply, dismissed the threats as ”propaganda”, but was clearly listening.
”It’s just propaganda,” said White House representative Jennifer Millerwise, adding that the president’s office would issue no further comment at the moment.
The ease with which bin Laden has managed to air his vitriolic statements to the world has greatly annoyed the US administration, even though it is not known when or where they have been recorded.
The big US television networks, repeatedly scooped by Al-Jazeera, have been pushed to agree to no longer air Al-Qaeda statements in full and stayed silent.
Some officials have even suggested bin Laden is instructing followers via coded messages within the statements.
Al-Jazeera, the sole television broadcasting from Kabul, has thrown a defence of press freedom back in the face of America and continued to run the statements obtained by its journalists in Afghanistan.
”We tell and recommend Muslims in the United States and Britain, and those who reject the American policies, not to take airplanes and not to live in towers and high buildings,” Abu Ghaith warned.
He was referring to the suicide hijackings of four US airliners on September 11. US-led forces unleashed an aerial onslaught against Afghanistan on October 7 to force the ruling Taliban regime to hand over bin Laden, the Saudi-born dissident who is the main suspect in the terror attacks.
According to one of bin Laden’s sons, Abdullah, ”America and Britain will never track down my father … He has vanished into the landscape — he is invisible,” Britain’s Sunday Mirror tabloid reported.
Al-Qaeda, meanwhile, has continued to make threats and in the fourth such statement, the representative singled out US President George W. Bush and his father, the former president, as well as ex-president Bill Clinton, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for ”the worst crimes” against Muslims.
Abu Ghaith, a Kuwaiti, ”ordered” US and British citizens, as well as Arab allies of the anti-terror coalition, to leave the Arabian peninsula.
The soiling of the cradle of Islam by infidels has been a rallying cry of Al-Qaeda and won considerable popular Arab support.
A Canadian aircraft technician was shot dead on Wednesday night and his Filipino wife was badly wounded near Kuwait City by a man who shouted ”Allahu Akbar” (God is Greatest) three times as he fled the scene.
Security forces have not ruled out a link to the US-led air strikes.
Al-Qaeda also urged Muslims to continue to protest and ”maintain the pressure” on their governments amid the military strikes.
”We salute the young fighters who have pushed back the aggression of the oppressors, and killed them,” said the representative, sitting in a tent with a Kalashnikov rifle.
”We salute the Muslim crowds who have protested against this aggression and we call on them to maintain the pressure, especially after the foreign affairs ministers of Muslim countries expressed their support for this unjust campaign,” he added.
Abu Ghaith also directly addressed US secretary of state.
”I am addressing my statement to the American minister of foreign affairs Colin Powell who doubted our last statement and our promise that thousands of young Muslims want to die (as martyrs) and the storm of airplanes will not stop,” he said.
”Powell and the other members of the American administration know that when Al-Qaeda promises, it delivers,” he said.
Abu Ghaith warned in the last Al-Qaeda message on October 9 that the United States would face further attacks by hijacked planes and urged ”all Muslims” to join in a jihad, or holy war, against America.
However, Powell the next day dismissed the threats.
”It’s a chilling challenge,” Powell said. ”But I assure you we will meet that challenge. We will pursue this campaign until that spokesman will no longer have any reason to make such boasts.” – Sapa-AFP
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