Reports speculating that Osama bin Laden is ill are false, his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, said in a recording aired on Wednesday. Zawahri also denounced the United Nations and vowed to attack Jews both within and outside Israel in the 104-minute audio recording posted on the internet.
“Sheik Osama bin Laden is in good health,” Zawahri said. “The ill-intentioned always try to circulate false reports about him being sick.”
Speaking of the United Nations, he said that it is “an enemy of Islam and Muslims,” adding, “It has legalized the creation of the state of Israel and its seizure of Muslims’ land,” He also said that the United States had “legalized the crusader presence” in Afghanistan and Iraq.”
He defended attacks on United Nations offices in in Algiers, which killed 41 people in December 2007, and the 2003 bombing of a United Nations building in Baghdad, which killed 22.
Zawahri also called for attacks on Jews. “We promise our Muslim brothers that we will do our utmost to strike Jews in Israel and abroad with help and guidance from God.” Al Qaeda will turn to fight Israel after winning the war in Iraq, he said, adding that the United states had begun to collapse.
“The myth of unipolar world is over,” he said. The Sept. 11 “strikes on New York and Washington are identifying marks of this collapse, but empires do not collapse in a minute and could take decades. The collapse of the Soviet Union is the closest example.”
Zawihri also reiterated al Qaeda calls to Muslims to topple Western-allied governments and to attack Western and Israeli interests in Islamic countries. “We call the nation in Egypt and other parts to hit crusader and Jewish interests wherever they are to force the invaders to leave Muslim land, and to stop supporting corrupt regimes,” he said.
“Severity of repression might delay change but it cannot stop it.” and he added, “What matters is to prepare for change, being patient, willingness to make sacrifice and seizing opportunities.”
He defended terror attacks in Iraq and North Africa in which civilians were killed. “We do not kill the innocent,” he said. “We fight those who kill the innocent — the Americans, the Jews, the Russians, the French and their agents.”
