Bin Laden urges Europeans to stop fighting alongside US

Al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden called on Europeans to stop helping the United States in the war in Afghanistan, according to excerpts of a new audiotape broadcast on Al-Jazeera television.

Bin Laden said it was unjust for the United States to have invaded Afghanistan for sheltering him after the September 11 terror attacks, saying he was the “only one responsible” for the deadly assaults on New York and Washington in 2001.

The message, broadcast yesterday, appeared to be another attempt by bin Laden to influence public opinion in the West.

In 2004, he offered Europeans a truce if they stopped attacking Muslims, then later spoke of a truce with the US.

In both cases, al-Qaida then denounced those areas for not accepting its offer.

The terror leader said Afghans have been caught up in decades of struggle, first “at the hands of the Russians … and before their wounds had healed and their grief had ended, they were invaded without right by your unjust governments.”

He said that two separate injustices were visited upon Afghanistan as the Taliban was toppled in 2001: First, the war was “waged against the Afghans without right”, and second, coalition troops have not followed the “protocol of warfare,” with the result that most bomb victims have been women and children.

“I have personally witnessed incidents like these, and the matter continues on an almost daily basis,” he said.

US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack dismissed the new tape as typical of bin Laden’s tactics and expressed faith in the European allies.

“I think our Nato allies understand quite clearly what is at stake in Afghanistan as well as elsewhere around the world in fighting the war on terror,” he told reporters.

“It’s going to require a sustained commitment over a period of time and we have seen that kind of commitment from our European allies.”

FBI analysts were reviewing the tape but were not immediately able to say how long it was or when it might have been recorded nor could they provide other details.

Spokesman Richard Kolko said it was being examined “to determine if it is authentic and for any intelligence value.”

“As the FBI has said since 9/11, bin Laden was responsible for the attack,” Kolko said in a statement.

“In this latest tape, he again acknowledged his responsibility. This should help to clarify for all the conspiracy theorists, again – the 9/11 attack was done by bin Laden and al-Qaida.”

This has been the deadliest year in Afghanistan since the US-led invasion in late 2001, with more than 6,100 people killed – including more than 800 civilians – in militant attacks and military operations, according to an Associated Press tally of figures from Afghan and Western officials.

In the new tape, bin Laden said European nations joined the US invasion of Afghanistan “because they had no other alternative, only to be a follower.”

Al-Jazeera aired two brief excerpts of the audiotape, titled Message To The European Peoples, which al-Qaida had announced on Monday that it would release soon.

Bin Laden issued four public statements earlier this year – on September 7, September 11, September 20 and October 22.

The September 7 video was his first in three years and was issued to mark the sixth anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

Al-Qaida has dramatically stepped up its messages – a pace seen as a sign of its increasing technical sophistication and the relative security felt by its leadership.

Bin Laden is believed to be hiding along the Afghan-Pakistan frontier.

Bin Laden’s message was the 89th this year by al-Qaida’s media wing, Al-Sahab, an average of one every three days, double the rate in 2006, according to IntelCenter, a US counterterrorism group that monitors militant messaging.