Bin Laden vows never to be captured alive

Osama bin Laden vowed never to be captured alive and said the US military had become as “barbaric” as Saddam Hussein in an audiotape posted on a militant website.

The tape was the same as an audio first broadcast January 19 on Al-Jazeera, the pan-Arab satellite channel, in which bin Laden offered the United States a long-term truce but also said his al-Qaida terror network would soon launch a fresh attack on American soil.

Islamic militant web forums often re-post messages from al Qaida leaders to ensure sympathisers can see them. US intelligence officials confirmed that the January 19 tape was bin Laden – making it his first message in more than a year.

“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 26-second tape.

In drawing the comparison to American military behaviour in Iraq to that of Saddam, he said: “The jihad (holy war) is ongoing, thank God, despite all the oppressive measures adopted by the US Army and its agents (which has reached) a point where there is no difference between this criminality and Saddam’s criminality … And I say that, despite all the barbaric methods, they have not broken the fierceness of the resistance.”

Bin Laden also denied Bush administration assertions that it was better to fight terrorists in Iraq than on US soil.

“The reality shows that the war against America and its allies has not been limited to Iraq as he (Bush) claims. Iraq has become a point of attraction and restorer of (our) energies,” he said.

“The mujahideen (holy warriors), with God’s grace, have managed repeatedly to penetrate all security measures adopted by the unjust allied countries. The proof of that is the explosions you have seen in the capitals of the European nations who are in this aggressive coalition,” he said. The statement was among the excerpts that Al-Jazeera aired in January.

The tape’s release in January came days after a US airstrike in Pakistan that was targeting bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, and reportedly killed four leading al Qaida figures, including possibly al-Zawahri’s son-in-law. There was no mention of the attack on the segments that were broadcast.

The last audiotape purported to be from bin Laden was broadcast in December 2004 by Al-Jazeera. In that recording, he endorsed Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi as his deputy in Iraq and called for a boycott of Iraqi elections.