Tape purported to be Osama bin Laden calls on Muslims to fight "enemy" United States

By Hani Bishr, IOL Staff

CAIRO, February 17 (IslamOnline.net) – The audio tape purported to be the voice of Osama bin Laden on Sunday, February 16, raised another round of controversy among Arab analysts and political figures as Washington and London exerted every effort to win over war skeptics against Iraq.

Some writers considered Bin Laden's calls on Muslims to fight against the "enemy" United States and wage a holy war as the only way to win Muslim rights at this critical juncture; an attempt to undermine international solidarity with Iraq in the face of growing U.S. war threats. Others felt the al-Qaeda network leader's statements are nothing but an exploitation of a general state of unrest within Arab and Islamic worlds to wreck havoc.

"The aim of Bin Laden's audio is to justify a potential U.S. aggression against Iraq and weaken world-wide solidarity with Iraq as clearly demonstrated  in weekend demonstrations," Ali Agwa, dean of Mass Media faculty, Cairo University.

The demonstrations amassed more than six million people all over the world, all slamming the U.S. war heading against Iraq and questioning its oil thirst for the country's oil riches.

“Why Bin laden, whom Washington blamed on September 11 terrorist attacks and claimed he has close links with Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime, appeared now at a time a potential military action against Iraq still looming large,” wondered Agwa.

"Bin Laden and Saddam, both are originally American industry, and those seeking to hunt him are the same people helping him in propagating messages meant to justify war against Iraq," he said.

The tape, first published by the Saudi-owned al-Hayat newspaper, follows another tape broadcast last week by Qatar's al Jazeera television in which the Saudi-born bin Laden called on Muslims to stage attacks to prevent a U.S. war on Iraq.

Bin Laden warned in the Sunday audio that an attack on Iraq would be followed by U.S. "aggressions" against more Arab countries such as Egypt, Sudan, Iran and Syria for the benefit of its ally Israel.

"This attack on Iraq is part of a new crusade to prepare the region, after dividing it, for the creation of a Greater Israel. This means the whole region will be ruled by Jews,".

But some contended that the timing of the tape is more associated with security conditions around the al-Qaeda network leader rather than with a surrounding intense political atmosphere.

"Osama bin Laden is wanted from the U.S and finds it difficult to record messages and give them to the media," Wahid Abdel-Mujid, director of Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.

"Bin Laden exploits the current international situation only to spread his ideas. The same tactic is used by most of the political forces in the Arab world like the Islamists, Nasserists and leftists who all have an interest in changing current situation," Abdel-Mujid said, adding this smacks of a political bankruptcy within these forces.

"Bin Laden does not need to attempt to be in the spotlight through this audio release, as he is already in it," Mohamed Al-Musfr, a politics professor at Qatar university said.

Al-Musfr said that to say Bin Laden exploited the current situation to deliver his messages is "far from true, politically speaking."

He conceded that the U.S. has the ability to falsify any evidence to its own advantage, also citing Washington's interpretation of the report of chief U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq to the Security Council.

Washington claimed that chief U.N. weapons inspector's Hans Blix's testimony to the U.N. Security Council on Friday that Iraq has to account for many banned weapons is a clear evidence that Baghdad is in a material breach of the U.N. resolution 1441 which warned of "serious consequences" if the Arab country failed to disarm.

"Bin Laden is a man who sacrificed his money, sons and even his own self to stand firm in the face of the communist hegemony in Afghanistan, and now struggles against the U.S. hegemony in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine. This cannot be described as "exploitation," the Qatari analyst said.

The recording coincided with a state of high alert in the United States and its ally Britain, who both said they had concrete information that al-Qaeda was planning a host of attacks against American targets.

"Bin Laden wants to be part of the media image personally and as a group leader after a number of European countries joined forces against the U.S.," Nabil Abdel-Fatah, an expert in Al-Ahram centre, said, giving a number of reasons behind the appearance of bin Laden's tapes at the time.

Abdel-Fatah said Bin Laden wanted to mobilize al-Qaeda and its sympathizers and awaken sleeping cells in the world.

"He also seeks to make best use of the perceived wedge between Arabs and Muslims and the U.S. administration to wreck havoc and raise peoples against their governments."

"Oh Muslims, do not fear America because we have defeated them repeatedly and they are the most cowardly of people when you meet them face to face," the voice of the recording said.

"It is possible to target the bases and concentrate on the weak points and if one percent of these points were hit, it (America) will stagger and stop ruling the world in an unjust way," it added.

Abdel-Fatah said Bin Laden called the U.S. attacks a new crusade to turn the course of conflict to a religious track, rather than a political one, in an effort to attract as large a number of supporters as he could.

"Regarding this Zionist Crusader war on the nation of Islam, it is the duty of Muslims to fight for the sake of God and to incite the faithful to fight the infidels," the speaker said in the tape.

"It is the utmost duty to fight the enemy that sabotages the world. The only way to deal a decisive blow in the conflict with the enemy is through killing and fighting," he added.

Egyptian lawyer Muntasser al-Zayat, who regularly defends Islamists in court, saw the tape as 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.

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 Egyptian lawyer.

The whereabouts of bin Laden have remained uncertain since the United States unleashed war in October 2001 on the former Afghan regime of Taliban which allegedly sheltered him.

But the new tape, if authenticated, would be the latest proof that bin Laden is still at large escaping the 2001 US military campaign to flush him out from Afghanistan.