Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden released a new audio statement that
coincides with Israel’s 60th anniversary, urging Muslims to help
lift the Israeli blockade on the Hamas-run Gaza Strip and to fight their
governments to liberate Palestine, AFP reports.
“Dozens of people have died as a result of this unjust blockade” on Gaza, which has been under
the control of the Islamist Hamas movement since June, said the message that
was posted on a website used by Islamist militants late on Sunday. It was
addressed to the “Islamic nation” and called on Muslims, especially those in Egypt, which borders Gaza, to “strive to break the blockade”.
“The Zionist entity [Israel]
owes its survival not to its own power, but to the fact that [Arab] governments
have renounced their struggle,” bin Laden said, calling on Muslim youth to wage
jihad, or holy war.
“I assure you that the Zionist entity would not stand one tenth of the
efforts exerted by the mujahedeen to defeat the Russians in Afghanistan... nor one tenth of what the mujahedeen
are doing today to fight the United States
and its agents in Iraq,”
he added, quoted by the same source. The message also cited the participation
of some Western leaders in celebrations for Israel’s 60th anniversary as “proof
that their values of justice, freedom and humanism are mere slogans brandished
about to trick the weak.”
U.S. President George W. Bush was among top leaders who joined the
anniversary festivities.
In his last message on March 20, bin Laden urged Muslims to
continue the fight against U.S.
forces in Iraq.
The Al-Qaeda chief, who has taken credit for the September 11, 2001 attacks in
the U.S, blamed Arab leaders of backing Israeli assaults on the
Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
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