Laden asks European countries to quit Afghanistan
This still video image obtained from the IntelCentre allegedly shows American Abu Ibrahim Amriki in a Taliban video released on Friday. The video also threatens Germany and shows German landmarks, Munchen, according to IntelCentre.Photo: AFP
al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden has called on European countries to end their alliance with the United States and withdraw their forces from Afghanistan, the SITE Intelligence Group monitoring service said on Friday. "An intelligent man doesn't waste his money and sons for a gang of criminals in Washington, and it is a shameful thing for a person to be in a coalition whose supreme commander has no regard for human life and intentionally bombs villagers from the air," the US-based SITE quoted bin Laden as saying. Attacks in London and Madrid would be understood by Europeans if they were to see what the United States did in Afghanistan, the al-Qaeda chief said in a new audio message released on Jihadi Internet forums. Its authenticity cannot be independently verified. The audio message, posted on Friday, was contained in a near-five minute video from the As-Sahab media branch of al-Qaeda showing only a still image of bin Laden, SITE said, noting that English- and German-language subtitled versions of the video were posted. "Were you to see what your American ally and his helpers did in northern Afghanistan, and how they packed thousands of Taliban into freight containers like sardines and locked them inside until they died or were thrown into the river, you would understand the causes of the bloody events in Madrid and London," the video quoted bin Laden as saying. "If today Europe is suffering the travails of the economic crisis, and the heart of Europe is no longer number one in world exports, and America is reeling from the haemorrhage caused by the economic war, then how do think you will fare after America pulls out?" he said, according to the video. He threatened that al-Qaeda would retaliate "from the oppressor on behalf of the oppressed," the subtitles showed. The release of the message comes two days before Sunday's German general election. In the past week three German-language videos by al-Qaeda militants have surfaced in what the German government said on Friday marks an "abstract threat" against the country. Last week al-Qaeda operative Abu Talha al-Almani warned Germany in a video to change its government in the election and withdraw its 4,200 troops from Afghanistan or face being attacked at home. Friday's audio message is the second this month purportedly by bin Laden. On September 14, As-Sahab issued a video containing an audio statement by bin Laden in which he said Obama was "powerless" to halt the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and must rethink his policy on Israel. Bin Laden said that among "some other injustices," US support for Israel motivated al-Qaeda to launch the September 11 attacks, IntelCentre US monitoring group reported. Bin Laden has a 50-million-dollar bounty on his head and has been in hiding for the past eight years. Intelligence officials, military analysts and other experts have long believed he is holed up along the remote mountainous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
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