AL-QAEDA FOUNDER Osama bin Laden yesterday threatened to kill US captives if the alleged mastermind of the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington is executed.
In an audio tape broadcast by al-Jazeera, bin Laden said, “The White House has declared its wish to execute [Khaled Shaikh Mohammad]. The day the United States takes such a decision, it would also be taking the decision that any of you falling into our hands will be executed.”
Mohammad, captured in Pakistan in 2003, and four co-accused are due to stand trial in the US but there is an ongoing debate over whether they should appear before a civilian court or a military tribunal. Prosecutors are expected to call for the death penalty for the strikes on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, in which nearly 3,000 people died.
Although al-Qaeda itself may not have US prisoners, a Pakis- tani affiliate, the Hakkani Taliban faction, is holding a soldier seized in Afghanistan last June.
Bin Laden said US president Barack Obama was “walking in the footsteps” of his predecessor by pursuing the war in Afghanistan and “supporting Israel in its continuous occupation of Palestine”. Washington’s politicians “used to think that the oceans protect the US from the rage of the oppressed until our reaction was loudly heard” on September 11th, 2001.
Experts at a US monitoring agency said the tape “appears to be authentic”. It is the first since a January 24th message in which bin Laden claimed responsibility for an alleged Christmas day bomb attempt on a US airliner coming in for a landing at Detroit.
In that tape bin Laden warned that the US risked further attacks unless the Obama administration ended its backing for Israel. In an earlier message in January bin Laden blamed western industrial countries for climate change.
In the view of Abdel Bari Atwan, editor of al-Quds al-Arabi, a London-based Arabic daily, bin Laden believes he can exploit wan- ing Arab and Muslim enthusiasm for Mr Obama due to the stalled Palestinian-Israeli peace process, Israeli actions in Jerusalem, and threats to Jerusalem's Aqsa mosque, the third holiest site for Muslims.
Although al-Qaeda franchises are multiplying in the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere, bin Laden could also be stepping up the frequency of messages in order to remain personally relevant. While he has issued three audio tapes this year, there were only four in 2009 and in 2008.
