Thursday, January 19, 2006

bin Laden offers truce in new video

Well, I guess this means he's not dead.

Jan. 19 (Bloomberg) -- A man identified as Osama Bin Laden warned of more al-Qaeda attacks against the U.S., while offering a "long-term truce" linked to the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq and Afghanistan, according to an audiotape aired today.

"We are preparing new strikes," said the man purporting to be the al-Qaeda leader, in the tape broadcast by al-Jazeera television. "You'll see them sooner rather than later, as Iraq isn't the only battleground as you have seen with other recent attacks in European territory."

Al-Jazeera aired several segments of the tape. The Doha, Qatar-based broadcaster didn't say how it obtained the tape, whether it had been verified as genuine, or when and where it had been recorded. Bin Laden was last heard from in a 2004 audiotape in which he named Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to lead al-Qaeda in Iraq.

"We propose a long-term truce to allow the reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan which have suffered so much from the war," said the man, who directed the taped message at "the American people." The withdrawal of U.S. forces was only one of several "conditions," he said. Portions of the tape aired by al-Jazeera didn't include details of the conditions.


"If you withdraw we will not attack you anymore."

Riiiiiiight. I bet he had to call his terrorist cells in the US about those attacks "sooner rather than later." If only we had some sort of system in place to listen to international phone calls to and from people with suspected terrorist ties...

Oh, wait...

UPDATE: The other Cake or Death says the CIA authenticates the tape as Osama.