Latest recording bids to exploit anger over floods

AL-QAIDA leader Osama bin Laden sought to drum up support by taking advantage of Pakistan’s flood tragedy with a new audiotape released yesterday criticising Muslim governments for their slow response and calling for the creation of a new relief body to aid Muslims.

It was the third message in recent weeks from al-Qaida figures concerning the massive August floods that displaced eight million people in Pakistan, signalling a concentrated campaign by the terror group to exploit public discontent and present itself as protectors of the poor.

“What governments spend on relief work is secondary to what it spends on its armies,” bin Laden says on the 11-minute tape called Reflections on the Method of Relief Work. The authenticity of the tape could not be immediately verified.

The top al-Qaida leader said a new “well-funded” relief organisation should be created to study Muslim regions near bodies of water to prevent future flooding, to create development projects in impoverished regions and to work on farming and agriculture to guarantee food security.

He called on Muslim merchants to direct their resources to cultivating agricultural land in countries like Sudan that aren’t used for farming.

The audiotape was posted on Islamic militant websites, according to the US-based SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadi forum.

Yesterday’s message was the first from bin Laden since an audiotape released in March, in which he threatened retaliation if the US executes Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, the self-professed architect of the 9/11 attacks.