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DUBAI: Osama bin Laden has called on Muslims to help
lift the Israeli blockade on the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, in an audio
message purportedly recorded by the al-Qaeda chief and posted on the
Internet Sunday.
The message, which could not
immediately be authenticated, was addressed to the “Islamic
nation” and posted on a website used by Islamist militants.
It called on Muslims, especially
those in Egypt, to work to break the “unjust blockade” on Gaza,
which has resulted in “dozens of deaths.”
It also cited the participation
of some western leaders in recent celebrations marking the 60th
anniversary of the creation of Israel as “proof that [their]
values of justice, freedom and humanism are mere slogans brandished
about to trick the weak.”
US President George W. Bush was
among top leaders who joined in the anniversary festivities—an
occasion marked by Palestinians as a “catastrophe.”
The new recording upbraided Arab
states for having sold out the Palestinian people, insisting that
Israel owed its continued existence “not to its own power, but to
the fact that [Arab] governments have renounced their struggle”
against the Jewish state.
In order to liberate Palestine
“there is no other path than the battle against the governments
and parties . . . who stand between us and the Jews,” said
the recording.
It also chastised Hezbollah
leader Hassan Nasrallah for ending the Lebanese Shiite militia’s
2006 war against Israel.
“Hassan Nasrallah said he
didn’t need money or men as he had those. If he was sincere why
didn’t he continue the battle for the liberation of Palestine?”
The Internet site had announced
earlier Sunday that it was about to carry a “very strong”
address from “the lion of Islam, Sheikh Osama bin Laden.”
“We will continue the fight
against the Israelis and their allies . . . and we will not give up
one inch of Palestine, God willing, as long as there is one sincere
Muslim on this earth,” the earlier message said.
The al-Qaeda chief has taken
credit for the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States which
killed nearly 3,000 people and triggered the US-led invasion of
Afghanistan.
The Saudi-born bin Laden has a
$25-million bounty on his head but his whereabouts are unknown.
--AFP
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