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This handout provided by IntelCenter and taken from Al-Qaeda's as-Sahab Media in January 2009 shows Osama bin Laden. The United States on Saturday downplayed the latest audio recording by Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, saying there was nothing new about the tape. [Xinhua] |
Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has accused some Arab countries of "complicit" with Israel on the recent military offensive in the Palestinian Gaza Strip that killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, according to an audio tape broadcast by the pan-Arab al-Jazeera TV on Saturday.
"It has been clear that some Arab leaders were complicit with the Zionists against our people," bin Laden said in the short audio recording aired on al-Jazeera, without naming any Arab countries.
He said that Arab leaders were "hypocrites", and "liberating Jerusalem needed honest Arab leadership" to fight and liberate the Arab people.
Bin Laden called the Israeli attack on Gaza as "Gaza's holocaust", saying it was a "historic event and a tragedy" and the Arab world needed a "devoted committee of scholars from the Islamic world to establish an advisory body" on the future of the region, "not leadership that is formed by hypocrites."
He also called for the mujahidin in Iraq and said that al-Qaida would "go to Jordan from the sea to the river to liberate Palestine," according to al-Jazeera.
The audio tape's authenticity could not be verified as the Doha-based satellite TV did not say where it obtained the tape.
This latest tape has been the second of its kind by bin Laden in two months focused on Gaza. In the previous one in January, he also called for jihad against Israel.
The Israeli army waged a 22-day military operation against Gaza Strip that ended on Jan. 18, which it said was aimed at revenging rockets fire from Gaza at Israel. More than 1,400 Palestinians and13 Israelis were killed during the offensive.
(Xinhua News Agency March 15, 2009)