Cairo – Osama bin Laden promised never to be captured alive and declared that the United States had resorted to the same “barbaric” tactics used by Saddam Hussein, according to an audiotape purportedly by the al-Qaeda leader that was posted today on a militant website.
The tape appeared to be a complete version of one that was broadcast Jan. 19 on al-Jazeera, the pan-Arab satellite channel, in which bin Laden offered the U.S. a long-term truce but also said his al-Qaeda terrorist network would soon launch a fresh attack on U.S. soil.
“I have sworn to only live free. Even if I find bitter the taste of death, I don’t want to die humiliated or deceived,” bin Laden said in the 11-minute, 26-second tape.
In drawing the comparison of U.S. military behavior in Iraq to that of Hussein, the speaker said: “The jihad is continuing with strength, for Allah be all the credit, despite all the barbarity, the repressive steps taken by the American Army and its agents, to the extent that there is no longer any mentionable difference between this criminality and the criminality of Saddam.”
By using that language to describe Hussein, bin Laden appeared to be denying assertions by the Bush administration that the former Iraqi leader had ties to al-Qaeda, ties that were given as one rationale for invading Iraq.
Bin Laden also challenged White House assertions that it was better to fight terrorists in Iraq than on U.S. soil.
“The war against America and its allies has not remained confined to Iraq as he (Bush) claims, but rather Iraq has become a point of attraction and recruitment of qualified forces,” the speaker said.
“What’s more, the mujahedeen, by the grace of Allah, have been able to penetrate time after time all the security procedures undertaken by the oppressive countries of the alliance as evidenced by what you have seen, in terms of bombings in the capital of the most important European states.”
The tape’s release in January came days after a U.S. airstrike in Pakistan that targeted bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, and reportedly killed four leading al-Qaeda figures.
In the full tape, bin Laden mocks Bush’s aircraft-carrier declaration May 1, 2003, that major conflict in Iraq had ended.
“The Pentagon’s figures indicate an increase in the number of your killed and injured in addition to the massive material losses, not to mention the collapse of troop morale and the increase of the suicide rates among them,” he said.
