[Mb-civic] On Tape, Bin Laden Warns of Long War - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

On Tape, Bin Laden Warns of Long War
He Accuses the West Of Acting as 'Crusader'

By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, April 24, 2006; A01

BERLIN, April 23 -- Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden urged his followers 
to prepare for a drawn-out conflict with the Western world in a new 
audiotape broadcast Sunday, blaming what he called "a Crusader-Zionist 
war" for a long list of attacks on Islam in places from Darfur to Denmark.

"Your aircraft and tanks are destroying houses over the heads of our 
kinfolk and children in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya and 
Pakistan. Meanwhile, you smile in our faces, saying: 'We are not hostile 
to Islam; we are hostile to terrorists,' " bin Laden said, according to 
excerpts of the audiotape attributed to him and broadcast by the 
al-Jazeera network.

It was the first time bin Laden had been heard from since Jan. 19, when 
he offered "a long-term truce" if the United States and its allies 
withdrew their forces from Iraq and Afghanistan and allowed Islamic 
fundamentalists to rebuild those countries instead.

Before that, the 49-year-old Saudi had been publicly silent for more 
than a year. His face has not been seen since he appeared in a video 
recording broadcast a few days before the 2004 U.S. presidential election.

Intelligence sources said they believe he is hiding in Pakistan, despite 
a global manhunt and a $25 million reward for his capture posted shortly 
after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

In the new remarks, bin Laden complained about Western interference in 
shattered Muslim regions around the world. He urged Muslims to go to the 
war-torn Darfur region of western Sudan to fight international 
peacekeepers, saying their real mission was "to occupy the region and 
steal its oil under the cover of maintaining security there," according 
to a translation of the audiotape by the BBC.

The United States and other Western countries are supporting a plan to 
send U.N. peacekeepers to Darfur, where Arab militiamen backed by the 
Sudanese government are fighting rebel groups. Both sides are Muslim. 
Tens of thousands of people have died in the conflict, and 2 million 
have been displaced.

He also referred to the strife in the Russian republic of Chechnya and 
to the lawless country of Somalia.

"What is the meaning of the silence over the horrible Russian crimes in 
Chechnya and the lynching of Muslims and tearing apart of their bodies? 
What does the humiliation of Muslims in Somalia and the killing of 
13,000 of our brother Muslims there mean?" bin Laden said. He did not 
elaborate on the reference to the deaths in Somalia.

He cited decisions by the United States and European nations to cut off 
aid to Palestinians after the recent legislative election victory by the 
militant group Hamas, formally known as the Islamic Resistance Movement, 
as evidence of a Christian-Jewish conspiracy against Muslims.

"They are determined to continue with their Crusader campaigns against 
our nation, to occupy our countries, to plunder our resources and to 
enslave us," he said.

Al-Jazeera did not divulge how it obtained the tape, and it was unclear 
when it was recorded. But it appears to have been made in the past five 
weeks because bin Laden referred to a raid by Israeli forces on a 
Palestinian prison in Jericho on March 14.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said U.S. intelligence officials 
believe the tape is authentic. "The al-Qaeda leadership is on the run 
and under a lot of pressure," McClellan told reporters traveling with 
President Bush in California. "We are continuing to take the fight to 
the enemy abroad and making it difficult for them to plan and plot 
against Americans."

Counterterrorism analysts said bin Laden was trying to portray himself 
as a champion of oppressed Muslims around the world, even though 
al-Qaeda has avoided involvement in many of the conflicts that he has 
decried. For example, bin Laden has largely ignored events in Sudan 
since he and his network were expelled from the country a decade ago. 
Similarly, al-Qaeda has no record of activity in the Palestinian 
territories.

"Bin Laden is a master craftsman at recognizing issues and knowing how 
to exploit these issues for his own purposes," said M.J. Gohel, a 
London-based analyst and chief executive of the Asia-Pacific Foundation, 
a security policy group. "He's trying to enlarge the global conflict and 
is trying to incite and anger the Muslim world against the West."

Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism specialist and director of the Washington 
office of the Rand Corp., a California-based research group, said 
al-Qaeda is confronting the same challenge that all terrorism networks 
face: how to remain relevant as a radical movement over time.

"It's entirely cynical," he said of bin Laden's rallying cry on behalf 
of Darfur and Hamas. "He's got to say something about someplace. They've 
got to keep talking or else they're going to be irrelevant, especially 
when they're not directly involved in the fighting."

"These are contentious contemporary issues that he can glom onto and 
milk for his own ends," Hoffman added. "It's more rhetorical than 
factual. Bin Laden is no friend of the Sudanese. They told him to leave 
in 1996 and took his money. And Hamas has basically told al-Qaeda to 
mind its own business."

Counterterrorism officials and analysts said al-Qaeda's leaders have 
also become more outspoken in recent months because they fear losing 
their influence in the fragmented world of Islamic fundamentalism. Bin 
Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian physician, have 
been effectively sidelined since the Sept. 11 attacks while other 
radical groups and figures, such as Hamas and Jordanian fighter Abu 
Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq, have stolen the limelight, the analysts said.

Zawahiri, for instance, has issued a dozen audio and video recordings in 
the past year, attempting, as bin Laden has, to insert al-Qaeda into a 
host of regional conflicts and urging Muslims to boycott elections in 
Iraq, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Although Zawahiri has frequently shown his face on television, bin Laden 
has not appeared in a video since October 2004. Terrorism analysts and 
Islamic fundamentalist leaders are divided as to why. Some speculated 
that bin Laden may have been injured or could have altered his 
appearance to avoid detection. Others said bin Laden fully reveals 
himself only on special occasions for maximum effect, such as his cameo 
days before the U.S. presidential election.

Despite being on the run, bin Laden and Zawahiri have both devised a 
reliable and secure system for distributing messages to a global 
audience that intelligence agencies have failed to trace.

Appearing Sunday on Fox News, Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), chairman of 
the House intelligence committee, said bin Laden's most recent tape was 
part of al-Qaeda's "ongoing and very sophisticated communications 
effort" and that the terrorists realize much of today's fighting "is 
about winning the hearts and minds of moderate Islam, and they are 
focused on that."

Hoekstra said his committee was planning hearings on al-Qaeda's Internet 
activities shortly after Congress returns from its Easter recess. "They 
use the right words," Hoekstra said. "They use instantaneous response. 
They are quick in getting new messages up on the net."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/23/AR2006042300447.html?nav=hcmodule
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