Bin Laden should be taken ‘seriously’: US
April 23, 2006 (WASHINGTON) — Fugitive Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden should be taken “seriously,” the US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, warned following the broadcast of a new audiotape attributed to bin Laden.
In the tape broadcast Sunday by Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television, bin Laden urged Muslim fighters to go to Sudan to wage war against “crusader thieves,” and slammed the international isolation of the Hamas-led Palestinian government.
Asked for his reaction to the recording, Khalilzad replied: “He wants to be relevant to the situation. He wants to get attention.
“I believe we need to take him seriously,” the US envoy said in an interview with CNN, adding that bin Laden was vying to show through the tape that “he’s still a player.”
The US ambassador said that Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was still leading Al-Qaeda’s insurgency campaign in Iraq.
“There is terror, and Zarqawi has ties to bin Laden, is the leader of the Iraq Al-Qaeda,” Khalilzad noted.
The latest tape was the first purported recording by bin Laden in three months, but it was not clear when the tape was made.
He remains a top fugitive for the administration of US President George W. Bush over four years since the September 11, 2001 attacks.
(ST/AFP)