The Hindu : International : Osama threatens more attacks

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Oct 31, 2004

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International

Osama threatens more attacks

By Atul Aneja

MANAMA, OCT. 30. With four days left for the American presidential elections, the Al-Qaeda chief, Osama bin Laden, has made a timely appearance on a videotape, where he alludes to masterminding the September 11 attacks on U.S. targets three years ago, and warning that similar strikes were possible in the future.

`Flawed policies'

Osama appearing on videotape aired on Friday by the Al Jazeera television station blamed Washington's flawed policies as responsible for another possible disaster awaiting the United States.

Osama, who looked in good health, addressed the American people directly.

"Oh American people, my talk to you is about the best way to avoid another Manhattan; about the war, its causes and results".

He blamed the U.S. President, George Bush for giving his group the rationale for considering another attack. "Despite the fact that we are into the fourth year after September 11, Mr. Bush is still misleading you and hiding the real reason from you, which means that the reasons to repeat what happened remain."

The Al -Qaeda chief, however, hinted that an end to the U.S.-led "war on terror" would make the American people secure.

`Security in your hands'

"Your security is not in the hands of (John) Kerry, (Mr.) Bush or Al-Qaeda. Your security is in your own hands. Any presidential mandate which does not play havoc with our security would automatically ensure its own security."

In an audiotape broadcast by Arab satellite stations on April 15, Osama had offered truce to European countries, if they stopped attacking Muslims. Osama said the destruction of tower blocks in Lebanon, following Israel's U.S.-endorsed invasion of that country in 1982 gave him the idea of retaliating with an attack on "towers in America."

"As I watched the destroyed towers in Lebanon, it occurred to me to punish the unjust the same way ... to destroy towers in America so that it can taste some of what we are tasting and to stop killing our children and women. We fought you because we are free and do not accept injustice".

Referring to the situation in Iraq, Osama said U.S. continued to legitimise the killing of innocent Muslims, including children in that country.

He stressed that the U.S. targeted Iraqi children by dropping millions of tonnes of bombs, with the sole purpose of replacing an old agent with a new one to plunder Iraq's oil wealth.

`Poor leadership'

Accusing Mr. Bush of poor leadership, Osama said that the President was too slow to react to the first attack on the World Trade Center.

"We had agreed with Mohammad Atta [the hijackers' leader on September 11]... that he finishes all operations in 20 minutes before Bush and his administration take notice," he recalled.

"It never occurred to us that the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. armed forces would leave 50,000 of his citizens in the two towers to face these horrors alone at a time when they were most in need of him".

"He [Bush] reckoned that it was more important to preoccupy himself with the talk of the little girl about her goat ... than with the planes and their strike on the skyscrapers, giving us three times the time required to carry out the operations, thanks be to God."

The comment referred to the time when Mr. Bush continued to read a story to school children despite being informed that the World Trade Center had been attacked.

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