New Bin Laden Tape Unnoticed for Days at Qatari TV Station

The latest videotaped message from Osama bin Laden lay unnoticed for two days on a desk at the Al Jazeera television network in Qatar before someone realized its importance, a station official said Thursday.

The tape from the world’s most- wanted man, containing a fresh salvo of fiery anti-Western rhetoric, had been brought by courier from Pakistan, only to be overlooked on a secretary’s desk.

Once it came to light Wednesday, the pan-Arab station immediately aired excerpts of the statement by the man Washington holds responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

Here are excerpts of Bin Laden’s videotaped comments:

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If their economy ends, they will busy themselves away from the enslavement of oppressed people. . . . It is important to concentrate on the destruction of the American economy.

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Our terrorism is against America. Our terrorism is a blessed terrorism to prevent the unjust person from committing injustice and to stop American support for Israel, which kills our sons.

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If America had sound evidence that those who carried out the attacks were Europeans, such as the IRA [Irish Republican Army], then it would possess many ways to solve this problem. But since there was a mere suspicion that indicated the Islamic world, the real ugly face and the crusader hatred against the Islamic world were revealed.

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They [the hijackers] used the enemy’s planes and studied at enemy schools, without the need for training camps. But God helped them and taught this cruel lesson to those arrogant people who see freedom only for the white race and keep other nations humiliated and oppressed.

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Of those who left behind their universities, homes, families and relatives to support God’s religion and the oppressed, it is illogical to say that they go now to kill the innocent as some claim. History says America was supporting anyone who fought the Russians, but when God helped the Arab holy warriors to aid the oppressed in Palestine--those heroes and innocents--America got angry and turned against anyone who had fought in Afghanistan.

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The tape also included a verse, dedicated to the Sept. 11 hijackers. Apparently speaking of the United States, or “the oppressor,” Bin Laden’s poem said this:

Hurricanes blew to strike their castle and tell them: “We won’t stop the attacks until you leave our lands.”