CAIRO — Osama bin Laden said in a new audiotape that President Barack Obama’s strategy in Afghanistan is “hopeless” and called on Americans to resolve the conflict with al-Qaeda by ending the war there and breaking the U.S. alliance with Israel.
In the message marking the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the al-Qaeda leader avoided his usual rhetoric of jihad and instead took a more analytical tone, saying al-Qaeda’s differences with the U.S. stem from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
But analysts said Monday that the message’s tone and its unusually short length — far shorter than others released by al-Qaeda to mark the anniversary — was an indication that al-Qaeda was struggling to maintain interest.
“You might interpret this as a sign of weakness, the suggestion being that they don’t really want to fight the U.S.,” Jeremy Binnie, an analyst with Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Center, said of bin Laden’s tone.
In the audiotape, posted late Thursday on Islamic militant websites, bin Laden sought to depict Obama as merely continuing the policies of Preident George W. Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney in Afghanistan.
“If you end the (Afghan) war, so be it, but otherwise we will continue the war of attrition against you,” he said, addressing the American people. “You are waging a hopeless and losing war.”
But bin Laden used most of the message to detail the reason for al-Qaeda’s campaign against the United States.
“The cause of our disagreement with you is your support to your Israeli allies who occupy our land of Palestine,” he said, adding that this support “pushed us to undertake” the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
