July 11, 2002
'Osama, aides in good health'
DUBAI: A top al-Qaeda official emerged on television overnight to reconfirm the good
health of Osama bin Laden and his associates. "Sheikh Osama bin Laden, Mulla Omar
and the symbols of Jihad, including Ayman al-Zawahri and Sheikh Suleiman Abu
Ghaith, are in good health," Abu Laith Allibi said in a tape aired by the Middle East
Broadcasting Centre (MBC), which said it was made several weeks ago.
"I also want to reassure the Mujahideen about the fact that Mulla Omar has been able
to assemble the Mujahideen, who have been scattered and who are in the process of
regrouping," warned Allibi, a Libyan, who joined the Afghan Mujahideen in the 1980s to
fight against the Soviet occupation.
Ayman al-Zawahri, who is considered to be al-Qaeda's number two, and the network's
spokesman Suleiman Abu Ghaith, have in recent months relayed the same message
of bin Laden's fitness through videotapes to Arab satellite channels, notably Qatar's
Al-Jazeera and MBC.
"These declarations are a way of proving the survival (of al-Qaeda officials). It's a
message to say: 'We are still here'," said Saudi researcher Turad al-Amri, who heads
the independent Riyadh-based Said al-Amri centre for strategic and security studies.
There, feel better now. |
