Bin Laden Vows More Attacks on U.S. – Paper

A Saudi-owned newspaper published Sunday excerpts of what it said was a new audio recording by Osama bin Laden in which he vowed to wage more attacks against American targets throughout the world. In the recording, which was obtained by the London-based Al Hayat newspaper, the Saudi-born militant urged Muslims to set aside their fear of the United States and fight it, saying Washington was planning to invade more Arab states after Iraq. Al Hayat said it obtained the recording off an Islamist Web site affiliated with bin Laden’s Qaeda network. The paper did not identify the site and access to Islamist Web sites that have in the past published al Qaeda statements are frequently blocked by Internet hackers. Al Hayat did not provide a text of the speech, but said the Qaeda leader had made the 50-minute recording on the occasion of last week’s Muslim feast of Eid al-Adha. “In the recording, Osama bin Laden pledges to maintain the fight against Americans in the world calling on Islamic nations to defeat the Americans,” Al Hayat said. If authenticated, the recording would be the most recent proof that bin Laden had escaped the 2001 U.S.-led military campaign to flush him and his Qaeda operatives from Afghanistan. It follows another audio tape broadcast last week by Qatar’s al Jazeera television network in which the Saudi-born militant called on Muslims to use suicide attacks and bombings to prevent a U.S. war on Iraq. Full Story