International
I will fight to death: Osama
ISLAMABAD
Feb. 1.
The terrorist mastermind, Osama bin Laden, used his only television interview after the Sept. 11 attacks to justify the killing of innocents and vowed to pursue his battle with the United States to the death.
``The battle has moved to inside America,'' the alleged mastermind of the attacks on New York and Washington told the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera network in an interview conducted in October but aired for the first time this week. ``We will work to continue this battle, God permitting, until victory or until we meet God,'' Osama said.
Al-Jazeera did not broadcast the hour-long interview and a tape was obtained by the US network CNN, which aired excerpts for the first time late on Thursday, sparking a row between the two international broadcasters. ``I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed,'' Osama said in the interview, which took place at an undisclosed location on Oct. 21, two weeks after U.S.-led forces began a military campaign in Afghanistan against the Taliban regime and Osama's Al-Qaeda network.``The U.S. Government will lead the American people _ and the West in general _ into an unbearable hell and a choking life,'' Osama said in what may have been his last recorded interview. It is not known whether the Saudi-born dissident survived the U.S. bombing of his hideouts in Afghanistan.
Asked about his alleged involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks, he said: ``America has made many accusations against us and many other Muslims around the world. Its charge that we are carrying out acts of terrorism is unwarranted.''
However, Osama added: ``If inciting people to do that is terrorism, and if killing those who kill our sons is terrorism, then let history be witness that we are terrorists.'' — AFP
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