Bin Laden: Bush is "the Pharaoh of the century"

DUBAI, February 16 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Osama bin Laden has vowed to pursue his struggle against the United States in a new audio tape recording, Al-Hayat newspaper reported Sunday, February 16.

Bin Laden also warned that Arab countries such as Egypt, Syria and Sudan, as well as Iran would be the next U.S. targets after Iraq. He, moreover, branded U.S. President George W. Bush as "stupid" and "the Pharaoh of the century," the daily said.

The tape urged Muslims "to be convinced of the possibility of defeating the Americans", citing a list of attacks against U.S. interests across the globe in recent years.

The leader of al-Qaeda network condemned the "crusades" waged by Washington in the Arab world, the London-based daily said.

A U.S.-led war in Iraq "will only be a stage in a series of planned attacks targeting other countries, including Syria, Iran, Egypt and Sudan."

According to the newspaper, the recording will be broadcast on Islamic websites starting Sunday.

Al-Hayat said that Bin Laden spoke about the situation in Afghanistan and adding that there is activity for the Al Qaeda there and promised that he would at a later point give details about battles between Al Qaeda and the American Forces in the Tora Bora region and Shahi Kot.

Bin Laden slammed the Arab leaders as well as their curbing for the activities of Islamists.

The new crusade, Bin Laden said, aims at preparing the atmosphere for the creation of the larger state of Israel, and he also praised those who carried out the September 11 attacks saying that they had "destroyed the American idol" and "rubbed its nose in the dirt".

The tape, obtained by Al-Hayat in Cairo, follows another recording broadcast by the Al-Jazeera Arab satellite television network on Tuesday, on which a voice believed to be that of bin Laden called on Muslims to launch suicide attacks and defend Iraq against a feared U.S. attack.

On Thursday, February 13, Al-Jazeera satellite television denied having handed the U.S. government an audiotape attributed to terror mastermind Osama bin Laden before it was aired.

Reports to this effect are "mere slander aimed at discrediting the channel and denting its huge popularity," chief executive Mohammad Jassem al-Ali told AFP.

Speaking to IslamOnline after the tape was aired, Egyptian lawyer Muntasser al-Zayat, who regularly defends Islamists in court, saw in the tape no proof at all of an alliance between Saddam and bin Laden.

"What bin Laden is saying is we hate Saddam, he's a tyrant. However, if the Americans attack Iraq, we have to fight them, not for Saddam's sake, but for Iraq's and for the sake of opposing the U.S. plot against Muslims," he told AFP.

In the said tape, the speaker, allegedly bin Laden, stressed that "this Crusader war (On Iraq) concerns all Muslims, whether Saddam remains in power or not."

"Bin Laden is not alone in saying this, that's the feeling of all Arabs and Muslims," added the lawyer, who has extensive experience of Egypt's Islamic Jihad group, led by bin Laden's top aide Ayman al-Zawahiri.

The whereabouts of bin Laden, who organized the September 11 terror attacks on the United States, have remained uncertain since the United States unleashed war in October 2001 on the Taliban Islamic militia which sheltered him in Afghanistan.