A man identified as Osama bin Laden bitterly criticised the Saudi regime in an audiotape posted on an Islamic website on Thursday.
The voice sounds like the al-Qaeda terror chief’s, and the tape was posted on a site known as a clearinghouse for militant Islamic comment.
The speaker says that while Saudi leaders blame ”holy warriors” for trouble in the kingdom, ”the truth is that the whole responsibility falls on the shoulders of the regime”.
The speaker, in calm and even tones, accuses Saudi rulers of ”violating God’s rules”, a common theme of statements from Bin Laden, who accuses Saudi rulers of being insufficiently Islamic and too close to the ”infidel” United States.
”The sins the regime committed are great … it practised injustices against the people, violating their rights, humiliating their pride,” the speaker says. He also accuses the Saudi royal family of misspending public money while ”millions of people are suffering from poverty and deprivation”.
The main statement is preceded by Qur’anic verses, a rhetorical device typical of Bin Laden.
On December 6, five militants shot their way into the compound of the US consulate in Jedda, Saudi Arabia, killing five non-American employees.
Saudi Arabia cracked down on Muslim extremists after the May 2003 bombings of three residential compounds in Riyadh brought terrorism home to the kingdom, but has not been able to contain the violence.
Bin Laden, believed hiding in the mountains along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, last reached out to his followed in October, with a videotape aired on the Arabic television station Al-Jazeera.
In that statement, he for the first time clearly took responsibility for the September 11 attacks on the US and said the US can avoid another such strike if it stops threatening the security of Muslims. — Sapa-AP