- (AFP) -- Osama bin Laden hailed the spate of terror attacks
in the Arab world and Asia as well as last month's Moscow hostage-taking,
and threatened US allies, in an audiotape attributed to him and broadcast
by Al-Jazeera TV.
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- The speaker lashed out at US President George W. Bush,
calling him the "pharoah of the century," and at his key allies,
whom he called "murderers."
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- "As you assassinate, so will you be (assassinated),
and as you bomb so will you likewise be," the tape said, against the
background of a photograph of the Al-Qaeda terror network's leader, in
turban and kakhi jacket, a rifle at his side.
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- In the message to "the peoples of countries allied
to the United States," he warned them against the "alliance between
their governments and the United States to attack us in Afghanistan."
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- He cited "Britain, France, Italy, Canada, Germany
and Australia."
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- The supposed bin Laden hailed the attacks "on Germans
in Tunisia, on the French in Karachi, on Australians and Britons in Bali,
against the French tanker in Yemen and against the (US) Marines in Failaka
(Kuwait), as well as the recent hostage-taking in Moscow, all of which
were the response of Muslims eager to defend their religion."
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- On October 12, a car-bombing in the Indonesian tourist
resort of Bali left more than 190 people dead, mostly tourists.
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- Four days earlier, a US Marine was killed and another
wounded when Islamist gunmen opened fire on soldiers during military maneuvers
on the Kuwaiti island of Failaka.
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- And on October 6, a French oil tanker was holed by a
bomb off the coast of Yemen, and a Bulgarian sailor killed.
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- The reference to Karachi was to the killing on May 8
of 14 people, including 11 French, on a bus, while that to Tunisia was
of the bombing of a synagogue in Jerba in which 21 people, including 14
Germans, died on April 11.
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- "Australia was warned about its participation (in
the war) in Afghanistan and its ignoble contribution to the separation
of East Timor (from Indonesia). But it ignored this warning until it was
awakened by the echos of explosions in Bali," the speaker said.
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- On October 23, Chechen separatists took several hundred
people hostage in a Moscow theatre. When Russian special forces moved in
three days later, 128 hostages died as well as the 41 hostage-takers.
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- With the exception of the Moscow incident, all the others
have been attributed to Al-Qaeda.
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- "If you suffer to see your (people) killed and those
of your allies in Tunisia, in Karachi, in Falaika, Bali and Amman, remember
our (people) killed among the children of Palestine, in Iraq ... and in
Afghanistan," the speaker said.
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- "As you look at your dead in Moscow, also recall
ours in Chechnya.
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- "For how long will fear, massacres, destruction,
exile, orphanhood and widowhood be our lot, while security, stability and
joy remain remain your domain alone," he asked.
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- "What Bush, the pharoah of the century, did by murdering
our children in Iraq and what Israel, the ally of America, did in bombing
houses of the elderly, women and children in Palestine, using American
planes, was enough for the wise among your leaders to distance themselves
from this criminal gang.
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- "Do your governments not know that the clique in
the White House is made up of the greatest murderers of the century?"
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- Among them, the speaker characterized US Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld as the "butcher of Vietnam who has killed more than
two million people."
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- Saying such an imbalance had come to an end, he added,
"It is high time that equality be established to this effect,"
promising more terrorist operations against Western targets by young Muslims
"committed before God to pursue Jihad (holy war)."
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- In Washington, a US official, asking not to be named,
said the CIA was to analyse the voice on Al-Jazeera's tape to determine
if it was bin Laden's.
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- The Qatar-based satellite channel did not provide any
details on how it obtained the tape but said it showed that bin Laden was
still alive at least until the Moscow hostage-taking in late October or
the October 28 killing of a US diplomat in Amman.
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- On October 6, Al-Jazeera broadcast what it said was another
recording of the Al-Qaeda chief in which he issued a new threat to strike
US economic interests until Washington renounced its "injustice and
hostility" toward Arabs and Muslims.
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- Ever since the US-led attack on Afghanistan late last
year, there has been debate on whether bin Laden, who was in hiding there,
had survived those attacks.
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- A former Afghan commander said in Pakistan on Monday
that bin Laden was still alive and hiding in Afghanistan.
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