Purported Bin Laden Tape Tells Followers to Prepare for Long Conflict

04/23/2006

First Time Al Qaeda Leader Is Heard Since Jan. 19

By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, April 23, 2006; 2:39 PM

BERLIN, April 23—Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden called upon his Muslim followers to prepare for a long conflict with the Western world in a new audiotape broadcast Sunday, citing a long list of grievances from the Danish cartoon controversy to the conflict in Darfur.

“It is scornful to people that your warplanes and tanks are destroying houses over the heads of our families and children in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya and Pakistan and then you smile at us and say that we are not enemies of Islam but enemies of terrorists,” bin Laden said, according to excerpts of an audiotape attributed to him and broadcast by the al-Jazeera network.

It was the first time that bin Laden has been heard from since Jan. 19, when he offered what he called “a long-term truce” if U.S. and allied forces withdrew from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Prior to that, the 49-year-old Saudi had been silent for more than a year. He has not been seen since he issued a videotape shortly before the 2004 U.S. presidential elections, prompting speculation among analysts and counterterrorism officials that he might have been injured or could have intentionally altered his appearance to avoid capture. Intelligence sources believe he is hiding somewhere in Pakistan.

“What is really worrying about this is that it’s been 4-1/2 years since the 9/11 atrocities and we still have bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman Zawahiri, on the loose, as well as the Taliban leader Mullah Omar,” said M.J. Gohel, a London-based terrorism analyst and chief executive of the Asia-Pacific Foundation, a security think tank. “They still have not been captured. They are still issuing threats. The Taliban is resurgent in Afghanistan. It’s amazing.”

In his most recent remarks, bin Laden called on Muslim jihadis to go to Sudan to fight United Nations forces who are scheduled to take up peacekeeping duties in the war-torn Darfur region later this year. He also turned to Palestinian politics, arguing that decisions by Western nations to stop Palestinian aid programs because of the recent legislative victory by the militant group Hamas amounted to proof of a “Crusader-Zionist war” on Islam.

“They insist on continuing their crusader campaigns against our nation and to loot our wealth and enslave us,” bin Laden said, according to a translation of the audiotape excerpts by Reuters news agency. “Do not be fooled by their words or those of the hypocrites and apostates from our kin.”

“We are aware of the tape and a technical analysis of the recording is being conducted,” a U.S. intelligence official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.