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Bin Laden Urges Muslims To Back Afghan Taliban
PESHAWAR, Pakistan, April 10 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Osama bin Laden Tuesday implored a massive and at times emotional conference to unite behind the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
The Saudi millionaire and alleged U.S. embassy bomber lauded Taliban militia chief Mullah Mohammad Omar as a "champion leader" who deserved the backing of the Muslim world for his efforts to create a pure Islamic state.
"I call upon Muslims all over the world to support him because he is the only person who has established a truly Islamic state," bin Laden said in a message read out to a crowd of some 200,000 people in this northwestern Pakistani city, near the Afghan border.
"Muslim states are not coming up with the kind of support the Afghans require," his message added as he appealed for money to reconstruct war-ravaged Afghanistan.
Earlier Tuesday, Omar slammed the United Nations as a tool of the West and urged resistance from a united Muslim front, state radio in Kabul reported.
"The infidel world is not letting Muslims form a government of their own choice," he was quoted as saying in a message to the conference.
"They want to resist jihad [holy struggle] and destroy the Islamic system. Therefore, under the present critical situation, Muslim unity is needed."
Citing Afghanistan, the Palestinians, Kashmir and Chechnya, Omar said Muslims around the world were subject to aggression by non-Muslim powers.
Several other speakers on the second day of the gathering of conservative Sunni scholars and clerics called for greater solidarity to fight "Western aggression against Islam."
Amid emotional chants of "Allah-o-Akbar" (God is great), Libyan scholar Mohammad Abdullah demanded a "jihad against anti-Muslim forces."
Provoked by speaker after speaker, the crowd also began chanting anti-American slogans such as "U.S. listen to us - we are the death of you."
Most speakers condemned U.N. sanctions against the Taliban for its refusal to deliver bin Laden for trial in the United States, where he has been indicted for allegedly plotting the twin U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa in 1998.
The Taliban, which seized Kabul in 1996 and rules most of Afghanistan with a conservative version of Islamic law, are sheltering bin Laden as an honored "guest" and hero of Islam.
Bin Laden, who is reported to have pledged allegiance to Omar recently, defended the Taliban's destruction of pre-Islamic Buddhist statues in Afghanistan last month.
"By destroying the statues, ending the cultivation of opium poppy and braving organized attacks from anti-Muslim elements, Mullah Omar has proved to be a champion leader. We should all support him," he said.
The BBC reports that bin Laden also urged the gathering to influence young people to go to Afghanistan for military training.
Conference organizers, however, reported to news agencies that no message from bin Laden had been received or played - although the above message was read.
''There are only rumors about Osama... but there has been no message from him,'' conference spokesman Mohammad Rahim Haqqani, said.
However, in a conflicting report, the BBC stated that a recorded message from bin Laden was played at the conference.
The three-day conference opened here Monday to mark the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Sunni Muslim school of Deoband, of which the Taliban are followers.
Witnesses said around 200,000 people, mostly religiously conservative Pakistanis, thronged the venue some 10 kilometers (six miles) outside Peshawar. Organizers put the number at more than a million.
The conference, convened by the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI), a Pakistani religious party and Taliban backer, is being attended by leading scholars and politicians from Pakistan and abroad.
Delegates from Saudi Arabia, Libya, the United Arab Emirates, Bangladesh, Qatar, Afghanistan, India, the United States, Britain, South Africa, Iran, Iraq and China were taking part.
Several Muslim rulers including Libyan leader Moamer Ghaddhafi and Taliban chief Omar were invited, but conference officials have said, "no head of state is attending."
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