CAIRO — Osama bin Laden threatened in a new message released Thursday to kill any Americans al-Qaeda captures if the U.S. executes the self-professed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks or other al-Qaeda suspects.
In the 74-second audiotape aired on al-Jazeera television, the al-Qaeda leader explicitly mentions Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who was captured in Pakistan in 2003. He is the most senior al-Qaeda operative in U.S. custody and is currently detained at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
In 2008, the U.S. charged Mohammed with murder and war crimes in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. Pentagon officials have said they will seek the death penalty for him. Four alleged fellow plotters also are in custody.
“The White House has expressed its desire to execute them. The day America makes that decision will be the day it has issued a death sentence for any one of you that is taken captive,” bin Laden said, addressing Americans.
After his March 2003 capture in Pakistan, Mohammed described himself as the architect of numerous terrorism plots and even claimed that “with my blessed right hand,” he had decapitated Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Pearl was found beheaded in Pakistan in 2002.
The U.S. is still considering whether to try Mohammed and the four others in a military tribunal.
Al-Qaeda is not known to be holding any Americans now. But the Haqqani group — the Pakistan-based Taliban faction closest to al-Qaeda — is holding U.S. soldier Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl, who was captured in Afghanistan in June 2009. It released a video of him in December.
Bin Laden also said President Barack Obama is following in the footsteps of his predecessor George W. Bush by escalating the war in Afghanistan, being “unjust” to al-Qaeda prisoners and supporting Israel in its occupation of Palestinian land.
