Bin Laden justifies attacks on westerners in new tape

Osama Bin Laden accused the West yesterday of waging a war against Islam and justified attacks on western civilians because they had elected governments that are fighting in Muslim countries.

Bin Laden’s threats came as John Reid, the Defence Secretary, confirmed that the 3,500 British troops in Afghanistan would launch pre-emptive strikes against Taliban and al-Qa’eda forces if it was necessary to safeguard soldiers’ lives.

In a latest tape recording attributed to the al-Qa’eda leader, who is believed to be in hiding along the Pakistan-Afghan border, bin Laden did not repeat the threat to attack the United States he made in a similar message last January but he said western leaders had ignored his truce offers.

“They do not want a truce unless it is from our side only,” he said. “They insist on continuing their crusader campaign against our nation and to loot our wealth.”

He justified attacks against westerners on the grounds that they had voted for governments that are fighting in Muslim countries - and re-elected them in the case of the United States, Britain and Australia.

“The war is a responsibility shared between the people and the governments. The war goes on and the people are renewing their allegiance to its rulers and masters,” he said..

Addressing the West, he said: “Your warplanes and tanks are destroying houses over the heads of our folk and children in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya, and Pakistan. Then you smile at us [Muslims] and say, ‘We are not enemies of Islam but enemies of terrorists’.” This was a lie, he said.

US intelligence agencies said yesterday that they believed the new tape to be authentic.

It appeared to have been made recently, as bin Laden denounces western attempts to cut off funds to the Palestinian government led by the radical Hamas group, saying it was evidence of the “crusader-Zionist war against Muslims”.

A Hamas spokesman was quick to dissociate the movement from bin Laden, saying: “The ideology of Hamas is totally different from the ideology of Sheikh bin Laden.”

Speaking in the Afghan capital, Kabul, Mr Reid said the British mission to the south was to help stabilise and secure the area. It was for US forces to carry out “search and destroy” missions, but he said there would inevitably be “overlap”.

“If they attack us we will defend ourselves and if defending ourselves at the operational level means taking pre-emptive action we will do that,” he said.

“Of course in any mission if there is a threat our troops will take action.

“We would be perfectly happy to leave in three years time without firing a shot because our job is to protect the reconstruction.”

In the recording bin Laden called on “all mujahideen” to prepare for a war in Darfur, western Sudan, where the United Nations is debating whether to send a peacekeeping force. An Islamic government in Khartoum hosted bin Laden for several years in the 1990s.

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