Washington – Osama bin Laden warned that his al-Qaeda network is preparing new terrorist attacks in the United States but indicated the group was open to a truce in response to U.S. public opinion against the war in Iraq, according to an audiotape aired by an Arabic television network Thursday.
U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded that the speaker on the tape is indeed bin Laden, said an intelligence official, who asked not to be identified.
Portions of the tape were broadcast by al-Jazeera satellite television.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan, asked about the tape at a briefing, rejected the vague truce offer, saying bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders are “on the run” and vowing that “we will bring them to justice.”
Regarding the proposed truce, McClellan said: “We do not negotiate with terrorists. We put them out of business. The terrorists started this war, and the president made it clear that we will end it at a time and place of our choosing.”
He declined to comment specifically on the tape’s references to opinion polls showing that the war in Iraq is unpopular.
McClellan said U.S. intelligence experts are trying to determine whether the tape contains any “actionable intelligence.”
The tape marks the first time that bin Laden has been heard from since December 2004, when he urged Iraqis to boycott the January 2005 elections in Iraq and praised attacks by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian terrorist who heads an al-Qaeda affiliate in Iraq.
Since then, all the broadcast messages from al-Qaeda’s top leadership have been delivered by bin Laden’s Egyptian deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, prompting some speculation that bin Laden was dead or incapacitated.
On the tape, bin Laden charges that President Bush is misleading the American people and warns that U.S. forces should leave Iraq and Afghanistan.
He refers to attacks in Europe and threatens more such strikes in the United States.
“Our mujahedeen (Islamic fighters) were able to overcome all the security measures in European countries, and you saw their operation in major European capitals,” bin Laden says, according to a translation by CNN. “As for similar operations taking place in America, it’s only a matter of time. They are in the planning stages, and you will see them in the heart of your land as soon as the planning is complete.”
There was no immediate indication of when the audiotape was recorded. It was aired less than a week after a U.S. airstrike on a suspected al-Qaeda hide- out in a remote area of Pakistan killed at least 13 people but apparently not the main target of the attack, al-Zawahri. Reportedly among those killed were several top al-Qaeda operatives, as well as women and children.
A senior administration official said Thursday that U.S. intelligence would be wary about drawing any conclusions from the audiotape until U.S. intelligence has done its own translation and analyzed the statements in context.
According to the CNN translation, the speaker on the tape warns that “the war against America and its allies will not be confined to Iraq,” which he says “has become a magnet for attracting and training talented fighters.”
References on the tape to attacks in Europe appeared to indicate that it was recorded sometime after four suicide bombers killed 52 people in a July 7, 2005, attack on London’s transportation system.
Al-Jazeera said on its website that the tape dates to December 2005, but it did not say how that conclusion was reached.
“This message is about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and how to end those wars,” the tape begins, according a translation by al-Jazeera. “It was not my intention to talk to you about this, because those wars are definitely going our way. But what triggered my desire to talk to you is the continuous deliberate misinformation given by your President Bush, when it comes to polls made in your home country which reveal that the majority of your people are willing to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq.”
Bin Laden cites unspecified polls that “show the Americans don’t want to fight the Muslims on Muslim land, nor do they want Muslims to fight them on their land.” However, he says, Bush has ignored the polls and “claims that it’s better to fight his enemies on their land rather than on American land.”
A truce would “prevent hundreds of billions (of dollars) from going to influential people and warlords in America – those who supported Bush’s electoral campaign,” bin Laden says on the tape, according to the al-Jazeera translation.
