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Fri May 7, 2004 11:42 AM ET
By Tabassum Zakaria
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The CIA said
on Friday a recording posted on the Internet was "likely" the voice of al
Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden offering gold as a reward to anyone who kills
top U.S. and U.N. officials.
"After conducting a technical
analysis of the audio recording that surfaced on the Internet yesterday,
CIA's assessment is that it is likely the voice of Osama bin Laden," a CIA
official said.
The recording on an Islamist Web
site on Thursday offered gold to anyone who killed U.S. Iraq administrator
Paul Bremer, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Bremer's deputy and U.N.
envoy to Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi.
The threat prompted Interpol to
call on police and security officers around the world to take
"extraordinary measures" to ensure the safety of U.N. staff, diplomatic
personnel and facilities.
"Interpol has sent an urgent
message to police in its 181 member countries, requesting that they take
all additional steps to help ensure the safety of U.N. officials
worldwide," the world police organization based in Lyon, France, said in a
statement.
The audio recording called for a
jihad, or holy war, against the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq, Iraq's
U.S.-appointed Governing Council and whoever cooperates with them.
"We in al Qaeda organization are
committed to a prize of 10,000 grams of gold to whoever kills Bremer, his
deputy, the commander of American forces or his deputy in Iraq," the voice
said.
"Whoever kills Kofi Annan or the
head of his delegation to Iraq or his representatives, such as Lakhdar
Brahimi, will receive the same prize," the recording said.
U.N. offices in Baghdad were
attacked twice last year, including an Aug. 19 bombing that killed 22
people. The United Nations began work on Thursday on $21 million in
security improvements at its New York headquarters after those attacks and
several others at U.N. offices overseas.
U.S. officials were treating the
threat seriously and while they viewed the recording as containing a lot
of rhetoric, they saw the reward offering as something new.
A European security source said the
reward was a surprising new element because the Jihadist mindset was
usually geared toward getting rewards in paradise.
The offering of a financial reward
was similar to the approach the United States has taken by offering $25
million for information that would help capture bin Laden. U.S. forces
have been searching for the al Qaeda leader in the border region between
Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The United States also offers
rewards for other members of al Qaeda, which is blamed for the Sept. 11,
2001, attacks on the United States that killed nearly 3,000 people.
"The world's governments and
Interpol must make protecting the U.N. and its officials one of our
highest priorities," Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble said, noting
the previous deadly attacks against the United Nations.
© Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.
Osama Letter Found On Dead Man
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia,
(CBS/AP) A suspected
militant killed by Saudi police last weekend was carrying a 6-month-old
letter allegedly written by Osama bin Laden, a Saudi newspaper reported
Tuesday.
The body of the man identified as Yosif Salih Fahd Ala'yeeri, one of 19
militants wanted for alleged ties to al Qaeda, was searched after he was
shot dead following a police chase Saturday, al-Watan newspaper reported,
quoting informed sources.
"The sources revealed that a folded handwritten letter, stained with
blood, signed with the name bin Laden ... was found in the pocket of the
killed," the paper reported.
It said the letter, dated in the Arabic calendar, was a season's greetings
on the Muslim Eid al-Fitr feast, which was celebrated in December. It also
gave a "blessing of the achievements of the groups associated with (bin
Laden)," the sources told the newspaper. The addressee could not be read
because the letter was stained with Ala'yeeri's blood, Al-Watan said.
Ala'yeeri was among 19 al Qaeda operatives wanted by Saudi authorities
following the discovery of a weapons cache in the capital on May 6. The
government said at the time that the militants, 17 of whom were Saudis,
were believed to take orders from al Qaeda leader bin Laden.
The group was also linked to the May 12 bombings at foreign housing
compounds in Riyadh that killed 35 people, including nine attackers.
If the letter is confirmed as being from bin Laden, it not only would
provide evidence the terrorist leader was alive late last year, but that
there are ties between the Riyadh bombings and bin Laden's al Qaeda. Saudi
officials could not be reached for comment. There was no way to
independently verify if the letter really came from bin Laden.
Four of the six identified Riyadh bombers were among the 19 wanted,
according to Saudi authorities.
Thirteen of the group are still sought by the authorities, including an
Iraqi with Kuwaiti and Canadian citizenship.
The newspaper said police worked for hours to detonate explosives
Ala'yeeri had strapped to his body. He was also carrying four
identification cards, a driver's license that does not belong to him, and
a global positioning device, the paper said.
Saturday's car chase began at a checkpoint outside Turba, 124 miles north
of the northern city of Hail.
The Interior Ministry official said that Ala'yeeri and his companion threw
a hand grenade at the police during the chase, killing two officers and
injuring two others.
Ala'yeeri's companion was identified as Abdullah bin Ibrahim bin Abdullah
Alshabrami, who escaped but was later arrested north of Hail, the ministry
said.
In an interview with the London-based Asharq al-Awsat newspaper,
Ala'yeeri's father said he had not seen his son for years.
"He is dead now, in a way that we wouldn't have hoped to see any of our
country's sons go," Saleh Ala'yeeri said from his home in Dammam, in the
eastern part of the Kingdom.
Also, Saudi authorities in the southern province of Najran foiled "a large
operation to sell (illegal) weapons" last Thursday, a statement by the
ministry issued Monday said. The authorities traced Saeed bin Faraj Al-Mihri,
a Saudi national, as he was trying to sell a truck load of Kalashnikov
rifles and ammunition in Najran, some 500 miles south of the capital, the
statement said. Al-Mihri received 135,000 riyals ($36,000) for the 100
rifles and the ammunition. But he was encircled as he was working out the
deal, and fired at the police, hitting one police vehicle. Al-Mihri was
shot and died of his wounds in the hospital, the statement said.
Najran is on the border with Yemen, which is often cited by Saudi
authorities as a source of smuggled weapons.
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NOVEMBER 13,
02:44 ET
Arab Station Plays 'Bin Laden' Tap
By ROBERT H. REID
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) — An Arab TV station broadcast an audiotape
Tuesday of a voice that a U.S. official said sounded like Osama
bin Laden's. If confirmed, it would provide hard evidence that the
al-Qaida leader was alive as recently as last month.
The speaker, identified by al-Jazeera television as bin Laden and
aired across the Arab world, praised the October terrorist strikes
in Bali and Moscow, and warned U.S. allies to back away from plans
to attack Iraq.
U.S. officials say they have not been able to verify bin Laden's
whereabouts this year. The last certain evidence he was alive came
in a videotape of him having dinner with some of his deputies,
which is believed to have been filmed on Nov. 9, 2001.
In a rambling statement, the speaker referred to the Oct. 12 Bali
bombings ``that killed the British and Australians,'' the slaying
last month of a Marine in Kuwait, the bombing of a French oil
tanker last month off Yemen and ``Moscow's latest operation `` — a
hostage-taking by Chechen rebels.
The audiotape was aired alongside an old photograph of the al-Qaida
leader but there was no new video of him, and the official in
Washington said further technical analysis was needed. Al-Jazeera
said it received the tape on the day it was broadcast.
Speaking in a literary style of Arabic favored by bin Laden, the
voice said the attacks were ``carried out by the zealous sons of
Islam in defense of their religion,'' and that they were a
reaction to what ``(President) Bush, the pharaoh of this age, was
doing in terms of killing our sons in Iraq, and what Israel, the
United States' ally, was doing in terms of bombing houses that
shelter old people, women and children.''
``Our kinfolk in Palestine have been slain and severely tortured
for nearly a century,'' the speaker said. ``If we defend our
people in Palestine, the world becomes agitated and allies itself
against Muslims, unjustly and falsely, under the pretense of
fighting terrorism.''
The speaker then castigated U.S. allies that have joined the war
against terrorism, specifically Britain, France, Italy, Canada,
Germany and Australia.
After listing those countries, he warned: ``If you were distressed
by the deaths of your men ... remember our children who are killed
in Palestine and Iraq everyday.''
``What do your governments want by allying themselves with the
criminal gang in the White House against Muslims? Do your
governments not know that the White House gangsters are the
biggest butchers of this age?
Australia dismissed the apparent threat. ``These kinds of
inflammatory statements just strengthen our resolve to fight and
defeat terrorism,'' Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told CNN.
In Washington, intelligence officials were evaluating the tape.
``It does sound like bin Laden's voice,'' said a U.S. official,
speaking on condition of anonymity. ``We have to complete the
technical analysis,'' the official said.
Audio recordings are easier to make than videotapes which could
reveal whether bin Laden is injured, has significantly altered his
looks, or is in a vulnerable location that could be given away in
a video appearance.
In September, the Al-Jazeera network aired voice recordings
attributed to bin Laden and top al-Qaida operatives. The CIA
authenticated bin Laden's voice then, but officials said the
recordings probably weren't made recently.
Those statements came out around the anniversary of the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and
the start of the war in Afghanistan.
Al-Qaida operatives thought to be alive because of their recent
recordings include bin Laden's No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahri, and his
spokesman Sulaiman Abu Ghaith.
In the al-Zawahri recording, obtained by Associated Press
Television News in early October, he spoke about Iraq, accused
Washington of seeking to subjugate the Arab world on behalf of
Israel — America's strongest supporter in the region — and tried
to assure followers that bin Laden was alive and well.
Experts say bin Laden's al-Qaida network is on a renewed public
relations campaign aimed at keeping itself in the public eye and
associated with events, such as a possible war in Iraq, which
could turn the Arab public against the United States.
———
Eds: Washington reporter John J. Lumpkin contributed to this
report. |
