Bin Laden Tries to Influence U.S. Election -Analysts
12 minutes ago Top Stories - Reuters
By Heba Kandil
DUBAI (Reuters) - Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) ditched his usual Islamist rhetoric for calculated political language designed to influence next week's U.S. presidential election, Arab analysts said on Saturday.
Bin Laden burst into the U.S. election campaign early on Saturday, issuing his first videotaped message in more than a year to deride President Bush (news - web sites) and warn of possible new Sept. 11-style attacks.
His sudden appearance thrust security to the top of the U.S. campaign agenda just three days before voters cast ballots on Nov. 2 in a presidential race polls show to be a dead heat.
Though the election has focused on national security and the war in Iraq (news - web sites), it was unclear if the tape would help Bush by reminding voters of his fight against terror or help opponent John Kerry (news - web sites) by reminding them that bin Laden was still at large.
"He is using political rhetoric to convince American public opinion ... that they must exert influence on the next president to take a different approach in his Middle East policies," said Egyptian Islamist lawyer Montasser al-Zayat.
Taunting the man who has vowed to take him "dead or alive" for the past three years, a healthy-looking bin Laden said Bush had failed Americans with his Middle East policies and provoked militant groups such as al Qaeda to strike again.
"It was very directed at Americans in particular, not Arabs. In 2001, he was saying this is a religious war and used a lot of Koranic verses -- here he is talking about a clear a political struggle," Cairo-based analyst Dia Rashwan said.
"He read from a written speech, which is rare for him. He was at a podium, not wandering in mountains. There was no weapon at his side. The content was very political," he said.
SEPT. 11
Bin Laden also talked openly of his reasons behind the Sept. 11 attacks which killed around 3,000 people in U.S. cities in 2001, citing Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon.
"As I watched the destroyed towers in Lebanon, it occurred to me to punish the unjust the same way ... to destroy towers in America so that it can taste some of what we are tasting and to stop killing our children and women," bin Laden said.
Bin Laden said Washington had backed Israel's 1982 invasion, and many Arabs perceive the United States as even more supportive today of the Jewish state than two decades ago.
Yasser al-Sirry, a London-based Islamic activist, said: "For the first time, he explained his reason for the Sept. 11 attacks which he said was the injustice of the current American administration."
Analysts said it was clear from the video that bin Laden, who is thought to be hiding in border areas between Afghanistan (news - web sites) and Pakistan, had access to up-to-date media and technology.
"The tape wasn't made by somebody on the run but someone in a safe haven with access to professional equipment," said Mustafa Alani of the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center.
Bin Laden even appeared to have watched U.S. director Michael Moore's film "Fahrenheit 9/11," which shows Bush first hearing news of the Sept. 11 attacks while visiting a school.
Bin Laden said: "It never occurred to us that the commander in chief of the American forces would leave 50,000 citizens in the two towers to face those horrors alone at a time when they most needed him."
"He thought listening to a child discussing her goat and its ramming was more important than the planes and their ramming of the skyscrapers,"he added.
Analyst Rashwan said: "He obviously saw Michael Moore's film, and he is clearly able to follow events."
The video, which Al Jazeera said it received at its Islamabad office on Friday, even came replete with an English-language translation for its full 18 minutes. The Arabic broadcaster only aired about five minutes of the tape.
A State Department official said Washington had asked Qatar's government to stop Al Jazeera airing the tape.
A spokesman for the channel said the tape was too newsworthy to ignore, but declined to say what was in the 13 minutes it did not air.
(Additional reporting by Andrew Hammond in Dubai, Tom Perry in Cairo) |
