11.30am

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Bin Laden: 'I will never be taken alive'

Staff and agencies
Monday February 20, 2006


Osama bin Laden vowed never to be taken alive in an audiotape broadcast on a militant website today.
In the recording - which appeared to be a fuller version of a tape broadcast last month - the al-Qaida leader said the US military in Iraq had resorted to the same "barbaric" tactics used by the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

"I have sworn to only live free. Even if I find bitter the taste of death, I don't want to die humiliated or deceived," bin Laden said in the 11-minute recording, which has yet to be authenticated.

In drawing a comparison between US military behaviour in Iraq and that of the Saddam era, he said: "The jihad is continuing with strength, for Allah be all the credit, despite all the barbarity, the repressive steps taken by the American army and its agents, to the extent that there is no longer any mentionable difference between this criminality and the criminality of Saddam."

Bin Laden said the Iraq conflict had "become a point of attraction and recruitment of qualified forces".

"What's more, the Mujahideen, by the grace of Allah, have been able to penetrate time after time all the security procedures undertaken by the oppressive countries of the alliance as evidence by what you have seen, in terms of bombings in the capital of the most important European states."

He also mocked the US president, George Bush, for declaring in April 2003 that major conflict in Iraq had ended.

"The Pentagon's figures indicate an increase in the number of your killed and injured in addition to the massive material losses, not to mention the collapse of troop morale and the increase of the suicide rates among them," he said.

In last month's tape, broadcast on al-Jazeera, Bin Laden offered the US a truce but also said al-Qaida would soon launch a new attack on US soil.

The tape was released on January 19, days after a US airstrike targeting Ayman al-Zawahri, Bin Laden's deputy, in Pakistan.

The strike - which killed four leading al-Qaida figures, possibly including al-Zawahri's son-in-law - was not mentioned on the segments of tape broadcast.

Last month's tape broadcast was the first message from the al-Qaida leader in more than a year - the longest period without one since the September 11 2001 attacks on the US. The CIA authenticated the voice as that of bin Laden, an agency official said.

The al-Qaida leader is believed to be hiding in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

who cares what a bunch of terrorists say?

I can believe that part

Of course you can, put down the kool aid.

....I'm not holding a kool aid, Billy.

I am just astounded that many libs, and I am not talking about you specifically, will read something and focus on the 1 anti Bush or anti Republican thing they can find. Its disgusting.

That whole rant is anti Bush, Billy. I focused on the 1 part I thought was accurate.

No no no no, there is a difference between the anti-Bush nonsense a homicidal maniac spews and that which American leftists spew.

what about homicidal American leftist maniacs?

That question is irrelevant.

How so?

Its off topic, a red herring, it has nothing to do with the subject?

...are you telling me that homicidal maniacs and American leftists are two mutually exclusive groups of people? that no one person could be both?

Oh theyre definatly often 1 and the same.

But again this line of questioning is called a red herring. It take focus off of what we are talking about. Which was the fact that you looked at an article filled with the ravings of some nut and focused on the 1 thing you could agree with him on because it was Anti Bush. Trademark thing of the deranged left.

I didn't agree with him on that because it was anti-Bush. That notion is silly, because the whole thing is anti-Bush. Are you trying to tell me it's not?

I agreed with him on that because I thought it was accurate.

No its not. Not in the same sense of American anti-bushism which is what I am accusing you of. I dont blame muslims for hating Bush and being so Anti American. They percieve us as thier enemy we are occupying several of thier countrys.

When American Leftists though wish to see America fail just because its thge opposite position of Bush, I see deranged lunatics though.

I am not a Bush fan or supporter, but I will be damned if I am gonna side with the opposite of everything the guy does just because I want to pretend I am morally superior to red staters. SOME of the shit Bush is doing is actually good.

I thought that part was accurate, which is why I said I believe it. I wasn't practicing 'American anti-Bushism,' and I don't want to see America fail. If you don't believe that then live with your delusions.

Oh I assure you I dont believe it and I dont think its really a deluision either. Its probably just something you havent come to terms with yet.

If I had ever voted I would have never under any circumstances voted for John Kerry, we would probably be invaded by now.

What would have changed in the security of the USA? Do you think that the agressive foreign policy of Bush makes things better?