Purported Bin Laden tape offers truce
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-04-15 14:33

In a recording broadcast on Arab satellite networks Thursday, a man who identified himself as Osama bin Laden offered a "truce" to European countries that do not attack Muslims, saying it would begin when their soldiers leave Islamic nations.

Osama bin Laden speaks to journalists in this 1998 photo taken in Khost, Afghanistan. [AP]

The tape, which ran in full at more than seven minutes, also vowed revenge against America for the Israeli assassination of a militant Palestinian leader and denounced the United States as using the Iraq war for corporate profiteering.

"I announce a truce with the European countries that do not attack Muslim countries," the taped message said as the stations showed an old, still picture of al-Qaida leader.

There was no way to verify the speaker's identity.

Several audio and video tapes of al-Qaida's No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahri, have been released in recent months, but Thursday's tape was the first purportedly from bin Laden since September. Then, a video tape showed bin Laden climbing down a craggy mountainside with al-Zawahri.

Ayman Gaballah, editor of Al-Arabiya, said only that the pan-Arab television network received the tape from "our sources." He would not say if the tape was received at its headquarters in the United Arab Emirates or in a bureau elsewhere, such as Pakistan or Afghanistan.

"From the voice, it seems it is bin Laden, but we are not experts to confirm it," Gaballah said.

Al-Jazeera, a Qatar-based satellite station, also aired the tape in full. Its chief editor wasn't immediately available for comment.

The latest message said "the door to a truce is open for three months." This time frame, the voice said, could be extended. "The truce will begin when the last soldier leaves our countries," the speaker said without elaborating.

"They say that we kill for the sake of killing, but reality shows that they lie," the speaker said.

Russians, he said, were only killed after attacking Afghanistan in the 1980s and Chechnya, Europeans after invading Iraq and Afghanistan and the Americans in New York after "supporting the Jews in Palestine and their invasion of the Arabian Peninsula."

"Stop spilling our blood so we can stop spilling your blood," the message added. "This is a difficult but easy equation."

This truce, the message said, was to deny "the war mongers" further opportunities and because polls have shown that "most of the European peoples want reconciliation" with the Islamic world.

In a reference to the attacks on the United States and Spain, the voice said that "what happened on September 11 and March 11 was your goods delivered back to you."

"Security is a need for all humans and we could not let you have a monopoly on it for yourselves," the voice added. "People who are aware would not let their politicians jeopardize their security."

The message also vowed revenge for Israel's killing of Sheik Ahmed Yassin, founder and spiritual leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas: "We vow before God to take revenge for him from America for this, God willing."

The message said that American policy ignores the "real problem," which is "the occupation of all of Palestine."

It denounced the U.S. war on Iraq, saying it was making "billions of dollars" for companies, "whether those that make weapons or those that take part in reconstruction," naming the American firm Halliburton.