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Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2003

"I read the transcript of what bin Laden, or who we believe to be bin Laden, will be saying on Al Jazeera during the course of the day, and you will be seeing this as the day unfolds, where once again he speaks to the people of Iraq and talks about their struggle and how he is in partnership with Iraq," Powell told the Senate Budget Committee.

The Tape

The Arab TV network Al-Jazeera on Tuesday night aired the tape, in which a voice, apparently that of bin Laden, urged Muslims worldwide to unite behind Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

He described the shelling he and his terrorist underlings took in Afghanistan after 9/11 and said: "If we are in the trenches, they cannot get us. The enemy is going to waste their ammunition for nothing.

"Anyone who helps America, from the Iraqi hypocrites [opposition] or Arab rulers ... whoever fights with them or offers them bases or administrative assistance, or any kind of support or help, even if only with words, to kill Muslims in Iraq, should know that he is an apostate.

"We would like to confirm at this time the lies of America and their allies and what they are trying to do. We want you to be faithful in your fight, to believe in your God, the one and only God.

"Fight the agents of the devil, because the devil will be overcome and defeated. God will give us victory."

He urges Iraqis to murder against Americans.

"We stress the importance of suicide bombings against the enemy, these attacks that have scared Americans and Israelis like never before."

Discussing the shelling of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, he says his survival is proof that Iraq will defeat America and its allies.

"It is going to be a great battle, and we are going to defeat the enemy.

"I am going to mention previous battles. The trenches were long, and we were hit with heavy bombardment in October 2001. But on the 13th of Ramadan, we experienced heavy shelling because the American leadership wanted to exterminate us. They were killing us every minute. The Air Force was flying overhead, and with all this shelling, we were able to defend this small piece of land ....

"We were hit continuously with modern bombs. And ... we were able to hold our position, and we kept repulsing them. They were going back carrying their dead.

"The Americans were unable to take over our position. They were unable to take that position from our small group of mujaheddin fighting in temperatures below 10 degrees. We lost many people, but they were accepted by God as martyrs. In that battle, a small number of warriors were unbeatable.

"So if people hold their positions ... and we hope our brothers in Iraq will do the same ... if we are in the trenches they cannot get us. The enemy is going to waste their ammunition for nothing."

Fox News Channel quoted U.S. officials as saying that a conclusive analysis of the 16-minute audiotape could take as long as 48 hours, but the voice was almost certainly bin Laden's.

Will the Appeasers Be Satisfied?

If verified, the tape would go a long way in proving the Bush administration's assertion that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and bin Laden are now working in concert against the interests of the United States and its allies.

"I think when Secretary Powell went to New York and talked about the evidence we have of ties between Iraq and al-Qaeda, he did so on the basis of knowledge, on the basis of fact, and he would not have said it if he didn't mean it and if the United States government and others around the world didn't have cause to know it," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Tuesday.

"And so what the secretary has alluded to this morning gives further proof of the concerns that we have about Iraq and al-Qaeda linking up."

The White House did not offer information on how the United States obtained knowledge of the tape. It said that "these tapes float around from time to time, and there's conversation about them, information is provided or shared about them, and indeed Al Jazeera plays them."

The evidence Powell shared last week at the United Nations on the links between Iraq and al-Qaeda had largely been confined to aerial photographs of a poisons- and explosives-training camp near the Iran-Iraq border operated by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a senior operative in bin Laden's organization.

Powell said last week that Zarqawi had sought and received medical treatment in Baghdad last spring.

Zarqawi is also believed to the mastermind behind the killing of Laurence Foley, a senior official from the U.S. Agency for International Development, in Jordan last October.

The tape would also be the first broadcast to the world from bin Laden since an audiotape of what U.S. officials believe to be his voice was released last fall.

Copyright 2003 by United Press International.

All rights reserved.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:

Al-Qaeda

Bush Administration

Middle East

Saddam Hussein/Iraq

War on Terrorism

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