About Osama bin Laden

[Rasputin]

Bin Laden name used to lure voters

Philippine elections are largely a battle of name recall, so Agakhan Sharief has chosen a moniker he thinks will capture the attention of voters well beyond his backwater southern province -- Osama bin Laden.

Unlike the world's most-wanted terror suspect, Sharief is known by many in Lanao del Sur province as a peacemaker who has helped broker truces when sporadic clashes have erupted between government troops and Muslim insurgents.

Sporting an 18-inch long beard, turban and a neck scarf similar to that worn by bin Laden in TV images, the 35-year-old Sharief has been campaigning frenziedly for a seat in Lanao's legislative council in May 14 elections.

Posters bear his real name with the explosive moniker plastered in the middle in big, bold letters: "BIN LADEN."

He owes his nickname partly to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Sharief said.

After attending a peace-and-order meeting led by Arroyo in Lanao in 2002, Sharief asked the president to pose for a souvenir picture with him. Somebody in the crowd jokingly told Arroyo that he was known around town by the infamous nickname.

"Oh, I see, the young bin Laden of Mindanao," Sharief quoted Arroyo as saying. The crowd erupted in laughter and applause.

"When I walked out of that meeting, I had a different name -- bin Laden," Sharief told The Associated Press by telephone.

Maj. Gen. Ben Dolorfino, once the head of Lanao marine forces, said Sharief has connections with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, a large rebel group waging a decades-old rebellion for self-rule, and has helped end some clashes between the insurgents and troops.

"He is the other Osama; he's a peacemaker," Dolorfino said.

Sharief, a father of nine and husband of a school teacher, has mixed feelings about bin Laden.

While condemning the killing of innocent people in the September 11 terrorist attacks in the U.S., Sharief said he still is not convinced of bin Laden's involvement. Muslims have the right to struggle for living conditions, he said.

[Rasputin]

[Rasputin]

Bin Laden alive, keeping low profile: Afghan rebel

An anti-U.S. Afghan rebel leader said he had information that Osama bin Laden is alive but keeping a low profile by not issuing statements, according to a video aired on Sunday.

The al Qaeda leader's long silence has fuelled speculation that the world's most-wanted fugitive may have died.

"Based on information I have, I believe Osama is alive," said Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, whose forces operate in southeastern Afghanistan near Pakistan, in the undated video broadcast on Al Arabiya television. His remarks were dubbed into Arabic.

"I also believe that it is good that he ... does not appear in the media, and that it is wise that no statements or tapes are issued even after a long while," said Hekmatyar, without elaborating.

Hekmatyar, a former Afghan prime minister, is on a U.S. wanted list and leads an insurgency separate from the Taliban Islamist movement against the Afghan government and foreign troops under the command of NATO and the U.S. military.

In January, Hekmatyar said fighters loyal to his group had helped bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri escape a massive U.S.-led hunt in eastern Afghanistan in late 2001.

The most recent video of bin Laden was released in late 2004, and the last audio recording surfaced in mid-2006.

Bin Laden is believed to be hiding in remote mountains along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

[Rasputin]

Bin Laden may have arranged family's US exit: FBI docs

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Osama bin Laden may have chartered a plane that carried his family members and Saudi nationals out of the United States after the September 11, 2001 attacks, said FBI documents released Wednesday.



The papers, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, were made public by Judicial Watch, a Washington-based group that investigates government corruption.

One FBI document referred to a Ryan Air 727 airplane that departed Los Angeles International Airport on September 19, 2001, and was said to have carried Saudi nationals out of the United States.

"The plane was chartered either by the Saudi Arabian royal family or Osama bin Laden," according to the document, which was among 224 pages posted online.

The flight made stops in Orlando, Florida; Washington, DC; and Boston, Massachusetts and eventually left its passengers in Paris the following day.

In all, the documents detail six flights between September 14 and September 24 that evacuated Saudi nationals and bin Laden family members, Judicial Watch said in a statement.

"Incredibly, not a single Saudi national nor any of the bin Laden family members possessed any information of investigative value," Judicial Watch said.

"These documents contain numerous errors and inconsistencies which call to question the thoroughness of the FBI's investigation of the Saudi flights.

"For example, on one document, the FBI claims to have interviewed 20 of 23 passengers on the Ryan International Airlines flight ... on another document the FBI claims to have interviewed 15 to 22 passengers on the same flight."

Asked about the documents' assertion that either bin Laden or the Saudi royals ordered the flight, an FBI spokesman said the information was inaccurate.

"There is no new information here. Osama bin Laden did not charter a flight out of the US," FBI special agent Richard Kolko said.

"This is just an inflammatory headline by Judicial Watch to catch people's attention. This was thoroughly investigated by the FBI."

Kolko pointed to the 9-11 Commission Report, which was the book-length result of an official probe into the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington that killed nearly 3,000 people.

"No political intervention was found. And most important, the FBI conducted a satisfactory screening of Saudi nationals that left on chartered flights. This is all available in the report," Kolko said.

On the issue of flights of Saudi nationals leaving the United States, the 9-11 report said: "We found no evidence of political intervention" to facilitate the departure of Saudi nationals.

The commission also said: "Our own independent review of the Saudi nationals involved confirms that no one with known links to terrorism departed on these flights."

Meredith Diliberto, an attorney with Judicial Watch, said that her group had seen a first version of the documents in 2005, although the FBI had heavily redacted the texts to black out names, including all references to bin Laden.

Nevertheless, unedited footnotes in the texts allowed lawyers to determine that bin Laden's name had been redacted. They pressed the issue in court and in November 2006, the FBI was ordered to re-release the documents.

Diliberto said mention that "either" bin Laden or Saudi royals had chartered the flight "really threw us for a loop."

"When you combine that with some of the family members not being interviewed, we found it very disturbing."

[dosto]

but I know that bin laden is one of the most riches man in the world, and his familly is famous in saudi

[Rasputin]

سنا جایزه دستگیری یا قتل بن لادن را دو برابر کرد


آمریکا هنوز نمی داند اسامه بن لادن کجاست
مجلس سنای آمریکا با 87 رای مثبت در مقابل یک رای منفی جایزه قتل یا دستگیری اسامه بن لادن رهبر شبکه القاعده را دو برابر کرده و به 50 میلیون دلار رسانده است.
رای گیری سنا در خلال هشدارهای تازه دایر بر اینکه القاعده توانایی های خود را برای حمله بازسازی کرده و عوامل آن برای رخنه به خاک آمریکا می کوشند صورت می گیرد.

سناتور بایرون دورگان گفت: "شش سال گذشته است و القاعده اکنون در حال بازسازی اردوگاه های آموزشی تروریستی خود است."

تحلیلگران امور اطلاعات امنیتی روز چهارشنبه به کنگره آمریکا گفتند که القاعده در نواحی دورافتاده پاکستان برای خود مخفیگاه امنی ایجاد کرده است.

پیش نویس یک گزارش تازه سازمان های اطلاعاتی آمریکا که به بیرون درز کرده نیز می گوید که القاعده اکنون از هر زمان دیگری در شش سال گذشته - از پیش از 11 سپتامبر 2001 به این سو - قدرتمندتر است.

مایکل چرتاف، مدیر امنیت داخلی آمریکا، پیشتر در هفته جاری اظهار داشت که "احساسی درونی" به او می گوید که آمریکا ممکن است در چند ماه آینده در خطر جدی تر حمله باشد.

با این حال جورج بوش، رئیس جمهور آمریکا، سعی کرده است از تشویش ها در این زمینه بکاهد.

وی روز پنجشنبه گفت: "این برداشت در پوشش (خبرها) وجود دارد که القاعده ممکن است به اندازه پیش از 11 سپتامبر قوی باشد.... این موضوع اصلا درست نیست."

تصویر یا صدای بن لادن برای بیش از یک سال دیده یا شنیده نشده است اما ایمن الظواهری، معاون وی، در هفته های اخیر چند پیام منتشر کرده که در وبسایت های اسلامگرایان ظاهر شده است.

او در تازه ترین پیامش مسلمانان پاکستان را ترغیب کرد به تلافی یورش خونین نیروهای امنیتی پاکستان به مجتمع مسجد سرخ اسلام آباد علیه پرزیدنت پرویز مشرف طغیان کنند.

[Rasputin]

Bin Laden appears in new al-Qaeda video

A new al-Qaeda videotape posted Sunday on a militant website featured a short, undated clip of a weary-looking Osama bin Laden praising martyrdom.
The bin Laden clip, which lasted less than a minute, was part of a 40-minute video featuring purported al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan paying tribute to fellow militants who have been killed in the country.

Bin Laden glorified those who die in the name of jihad, or holy war, saying even the Prophet Muhammad "had been wishing to be a martyr."

"The happy (man) is the one that God has chosen him to be a martyr," added bin Laden, who was shown outdoors wearing army fatigues and looking tired.

The authenticity of the video could not be verified, but it appeared on a website commonly used by Islamic militants and carried the logo of as-Sahab, al-Qaeda's media production wing. It was not immediately clear when the video of bin Laden was filmed.

Bin Laden was last heard from in a July 1, 2006 audio tape in which he voiced support for the new leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq and warned nations not to send troops to fight a hardline Islamic regime that had recently seized power in Somalia.

Sunday's video, dedicated to Muslims who have left their homes to fight jihad, included a series of animated scenes showing green fields overlaid with Arabic names written in gold, representing Arab fighters who had died in Afghanistan.

Following one such sequence, the self-proclaimed leader of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan appeared praising his fellow fighters.

"Your hero sons, courageous knights have left to the land of Afghanistan ... the land of jihad and martyrdom, answering the call for the sake of God to kick out the occupier who has desecrated the pure soil of Afghanistan," said Mustafa Abu al-Yazeed.

In another clip, a man identified as Mujahid Haidarah al-Hawn was shown sitting in front of a tree with an AK-47 paying tribute to a Syrian fighter, Osama al-Hamawi, who died in an air raid in Afghanistan.

"I lived with him for four years," said al-Hawn, who wore a black scarf to cover his face. "He used to be my emir (commander). .. He was a brother with extreme modesty."

A photo of al-Hamawi's face, apparently taken after his death, was broadcast, showing bruises around his eye and a red gash on his forehead.

A bearded man identified as Abu Yahia al-Libi, a Libyan al-Qaeda operative in Afghanistan, appeared in the video wearing a black turban, saying the Muslim world was "offering the best of its men and sacrificing the good of its sons ... to protect its ideology."

Al-Libi escaped U.S. custody in 2005 and is believed to be behind a suicide bombing that killed 23 people outside the main U.S. base in Afghanistan during a February visit by Vice President Dick Cheney.

Several other al-Qaeda operatives from various countries who had apparently committed suicide attacks in Afghanistan were shown reading statements lashing out at the West before their deaths.

The video also contained a series of clips with militants wearing traditional Afghan dress and carrying rifles and RPG launchers through the mountains. Militants could also be seen exercising in training camps.

At the end of the broadcast, images of the Sept. 11 attacks were shown, and a voice could be heard saying, "In a few days, the crusaders' landmarks were flattened."

[donsaeid]

Is Bin Ladan Really Alive?

YouTube - WhiteHouse Press Corps walks out over Bin Laden questions

[Rasputin]

'بن لادن' آمریکایی ها را به اسلام دعوت کرد


مقام های اطلاعاتی آمریکا هنوز اصالت نوار تازه را تایید نکرده اند
یک نوار ویدئویی تازه که گفته می شود توسط اسامه بن لادن، رهبر القاعده، ضبط شده راه پایان جنگ عراق را گرویدن مردم آمریکا به دین اسلام دانسته است.
مقام های آمریکایی که نخواستند نامشان فاش شود گفتند به اعتقاد آنها گوینده این نوار، که علنا آمریکا را به حملات تازه تهدید نمی کند، واقعا بن لادن است.

این نوار در آستانه ششمین سالگرد حملات 11 سپتامبر 2001 ظاهر می شود. بن لادن از اکتبر 2004 تاکنون در نوارهای ویدئویی دیده نشده بود.

جورج بوش رئیس جمهور آمریکا گفت که این پیام "یادآور خطرات جهانی است که در آن زندگی می کنیم."

وی که سرگرم دیداری از استرالیا است گفت: "مهم است که برای حفاظت از خود عزم و اراده نشان دهیم."

مقام های آمریکایی که در حال مطالعه این نوار هستند می گویند برداشت آنها این است که فیلم اخیرا و احتمالا در تابستان جاری ضبط شده است.

بخش کوتاهی از این نوار 30 دقیقه ای بعد از ظهر روز جمعه از شبکه الجزیره پخش شد.

در این ویدئو به نظر می رسد بن لادن پشت میز نشسته باشد درحالی که یک پیراهن سفید و ابایی کرم رنگ به تن دارد. ریش او تیره تر و کوتاه تر از ویدئویی است که در سال 2004 منتشر شد.

در پایین تصویر به زبان انگلیسی نوشته شده است: "پیامی از شیخ اسامه بن لادن به مردم آمریکا".

براساس متن پیاده شده نوار که چندین رسانه در آمریکا به آن دست یافته اند، گوینده آمریکا را علنا تهدید نمی کند و مستقیما نیز خواستار حمله به آن کشور نمی شود.

در عوض وی به مردم آمریکا می گوید آنها در تلاش خود برای قانع کردن دولت بوش به توقف جنگ در عراق شکست خورده اند.

'دو گزینه'

براساس متن نوار که شبکه "ای بی سی" به آن دست یافته، وی می گوید: "این یکی از بزرگترین اشتباهات شما بود که از کسانی که این جنگ را راه انداختند نه حساب خواستید نه مجازاتشان کردید."

"به بوش اجازه دادید دور اول (ریاست جمهوری) را کامل کند و عجیب تر اینکه او را برای بار دوم انتخاب کردید، که آشکارا از طرف شما اجازه یافت ... به قتل مردم ما در عراق و افغانستان ادامه دهد."

وی به مردم آمریکا گفت که برای پایان دادن به جنگ عراق دو راه وجود دارد: "اولی از طرف ماست و آن اینکه همچنان کشتار شما و نبرد با شما را تشدید کنیم."

وی می گوید راه دوم طرد نظام دمکراتیک آمریکا و گرویدن همه به اسلام است.

"حالا دیگر برای شما و همه مردم جهان اهمیت نظام دمکراتیک روشن شده است: اینکه این نظام چگونه با منافع مردم و خون آنها از طریق فدا کردن سربازان و توده ها، برای دستیابی به منافع شرکت های عمده بازی می کند."

گوینده ادامه می دهد: "از شما دعوت می کنم اسلام را در آغوش گیرید."

در متن نوار همچنین به نیکلا سارکوزی رئیس جمهور فرانسه اشاره شده است که نشان می دهد پس از ماه مه ضبط شده است.

'توطئه های تازه'

خبرنگاران می گویند یک ویدئوی تازه از بن لادن به ابطال شایعات درباره مرگ رهبر القاعده کمک خواهد کرد.

وزارت امنیت میهنی آمریکا گفت که هیچ اطلاعات موثقی از تهدیدی بالقوه در پی انتشار ویدئو در دست نیست.

تام کیسی معاون سخنگوی وزارت خارجه آمریکا گفت: "فکر نمی کنم چیزی باشد که او بتواند بگوید یا انجام دهد که از عزم ما یا عزم شرکای بین المللی ما را برای مقابله با افراط گرایی بکاهد."

اما به گزارش خبرگزاری فرانسه مایکل هیدین، رئیس سازمان اطلاعات مرکزی آمریکا، در یک سخنرانی در روز جمعه در شورای روابط خارجی در نیویورک اخطار داد که القاعده درحال توطئه چینی برای حملات تازه به آمریکا است.

وی گفت: "تحلیلگران ما با اطمینان زیاد ارزیابی می کنند که رهبری مرکزی القاعده درحال برنامه ریزی برای توطئه ای با تاثیری شدید علیه خاک آمریکاست."

"القاعده بر اهدافی متمرکز است که تلفات انبوه، ویرانی چشمگیر و پس لرزه های اقتصادی شدید به بار آورد."

بن لادن در آخرین ویدئوی قبلی که در آستانه انتخابات ریاست جمهوری 2004 آمریکا منتشر شد، نسبت به حملات تازه به آمریکا هشدار داده بود.

وی در نواری صوتی که در ژانویه 2006 منتشر شد به رویدادهای قابل تشخیص از جمله وضعیت سومالی اشاره کرد که نشان می داد نوار به تازگی ضبط شده است.

ایمن الظواهری، رهبر شماره دو القاعده، در ویدئوهای بیشتری ظاهر شده است. وی اخیرا در یکی از این ویدئوها یورش نیروهای پاکستانی به یک مسجد تندروها در اسلام آباد در ماه ژوئیه را مذمت کرد.

سنای آمریکا در ماه ژوئیه جایزه ای را که برای دستگیری یا مرگ بن لادن تعیین کرده بود از 25 میلیون دلار به 50 میلیون دلار افزایش داد.

[Rasputin]

Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden praised as a "champion" one of the September 11 hijackers in a new video released on Tuesday, the sixth anniversary of the devastating attacks on the United States.

He also called on Muslim youths to join a "caravan" of martyrs, in the second Al-Qaeda video in just five days featuring the Western world's most wanted man, who had not previously been seen for almost three years.

Bin Laden hailed the hijacker, identified as Walid al-Shehri, as a "young man who personally penetrated the most extreme degrees of danger and is a rarity among men: one of the 19 champions (may Allah have mercy on them all)," according to the video released by IntelCenter, a US-based organisation that monitors Islamist militant websites.

Shehri, a Saudi national, was aboard American Airlines Flight 11 which crashed into the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001, one of the 19 hijackers involved in the attacks.

In the video, Shehri was shown warning the United States: "We shall come at you from your front and back, your right and left.

"How could we desire anything other than your (Americans) killing, when our Lord has ordered us thus."

The 47-minute video was sixth such last will and testament issued by a 9/11 hijacker, 15 of whom hailed from Saudi Arabia, bin Laden's birthplace.

"I tell every young man among the youth of Islam: it is your duty to join the caravan until the sufficiency is complete and the march to aid the High and Omnipotent continues," said bin Laden.

"So go forth and disperse the darkness of kufr (disbelief)," added the Saudi extremist who was shown in a still photograph wearing a white robe topped by a beige cloak and with his beard trimmed and dyed in black.

Bin Laden last appeared in a video on Friday, the first sighting of the man since October 2004 when he had threatened new attacks against the United States just days before the US presidential election.

Bin Laden describe Shehri as a "magnificent" man who "would think about how to help his religion and please his Lord and who strive to defend his ummah (Islamic nation)."

Bin Laden also appeared to be urging Muslims to take action to free Muslim women whom he claimed were held in US prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan and in Israeli jails.

"How can we sit today when the free women are in the prisons of the Nazarenes and the Jews in Iraq, Palstine and Afghanistan... It is compulsory for us to help and liberate them," he said.

"We are now at the tail-end of the nations, and our rulers are vassals of the rulers of the Nazarenes," he added.

In Friday's video, the elusive Al-Qaeda chief mocked the United States as "weak" and vowed to escalate fighting in Iraq.

Experts warned that the first video, which was presented as a "message to the American people," contained hints that Al-Qaeda was planning another attack on US targets.

According to Azzam Tamimi, head of the London-based Institute of Islamic Political Thought, the beard dye was a "sign of war."

But the US Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell on Monday swiftly rejected any possibility that the hair on his chin was intended to send any signal to his Al-Qaeda members.

"So far, we do not think there's been a signal. He's done this periodically, as has (Ayman al-) Zawahiri (the group's second-in-command), and there has not been a correlation necessarily between one of these tapes or a public statement and a particular event," McConnell said.

In the September 11, 2001 attacks, Al-Qaeda slammed two jets into the World Trade Centre towers in New York, one crashed into the Pentagon in Washington and another crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after a passenger uprising.

Almost 3,000 people were killed in the worst attack on America since Pearl Harbor.