Osama and Sudan

[Annie]

Ignore at your own peril:


http://austinbay.net/blog/?p=1055

4/23/2006
Why is Osama declaring war on the world?
Filed under:

* General

— site admin @ 11:48 am

Salah Nasrawi reports for the Associated Press that bin Laden is urging jihadis to head for Sudan. Why? To prepare to wage holy war against…get ready… The United Nations.

The AP’s lede:

Osama bin Laden issued ominous new threats in an audiotape broadcast Sunday, saying the West was at war with Islam and calling on his followers to go to Sudan to fight a proposed U.N. force.

In his first new message in three months, bin Laden said the West’s decision to cut off funds to the Palestinians because their Hamas leaders refuse to recognize Israel proved that the United States and Europe were conducting “a Zionist crusader war on Islam.”

The AP report says the tape was broadcast on Al Jazeera and there is reason to believe the voice on the tape is bin Laden’s (though of course that is no certainty). An Israeli spokesman said that the bin Laden now wants to direct attacks toward Israel because Al Qaeda is increasingly unpopular in the Arab world.

The report adds:

Recent media reports in the Middle East have said al-Qaida is building cells in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and Sudan.

As for Sudan:

A three-year conflict between Darfur’s rebels and the Arab-dominated central government has caused about 180,000 deaths _ most from disease and hunger _ and displaced 2 million people.

The United Nations has described the conflict as the world’s gravest humanitarian crisis. The United States has described it as genocide.

Negotiators are trying to broker a peace deal between warring factions by an April 30 deadline. Members of the African Union have agreed in principle to hand over peacekeeping duties to the United Nations beginning Sept. 30.

“I call on mujahedeen and their supporters, especially in Sudan and the Arab peninsula, to prepare for long war again the crusader plunderers in Western Sudan. Our goal is not defending the Khartoum government but to defend Islam, its land and its people,” bin Laden purportedly said.

“I urge holy warriors to be acquainted with the land and the tribes in Darfur.”

Al-Qaida has targeted Western forces in Africa before _ including its attacks against U.S. troops trying to bring peace to Somalia in 1993.

The reports ends with this clash of civilizations jab:

The Al-Jazeera news reader said bin Laden, in a portion of the tape not aired by the Qatar-based broadcaster, scoffed at Saudi King Abdullah for his calls for a “dialogue among civilizations” and blasted liberal-minded Arab writers for taking part in the “Western cultural invasion” of Muslim lands.

If the tape is authentic — and that is a big if– the call for an anti-UN jihad in Darfur is another self-inflicted information warfare wound by Al Qaeda.

Bin Laden is upset because the UN intends to take control of the Darfur peacekeeping mission. The African Union (AU) is in charge of the current peacekeeping operation, and it has failed to stop the slaughter.

That’s one reason this latest tape is an agitprop error: most of the world’s opinion leaders, including the liberal and left-wing “internationalistas” who spend a great deal of air time, ink, and electrons excusing Arab terrorists (particularly Hamas) have made the Darfur horror a cause celebre (ironically excusing one band of Islamic extremists while damning another). Here’s a second reason bin Laden’s made a political error: The peacekeeping mission is meant to protect Muslims, so once again Al Qaeda is promoting the murder of Muslims– what the US has been pointing out to the Muslims of the world since September 12, 2001. For three years StrategyPage has been reporting that the Sudanese war in Darfur is a Muslim against Muslim war. The Islamist Janjaweed militias (backed by the Sudan Islamists in Khartoum) have been attacking Muslim farmers –predominantly black African Muslims– in the Darfur region. Of course, the black African Muslims aren’t quite “Muslim enough” for the Sudanese Islamists. (There are, of course, complex ethnic, tribal, and political factors in play, but the Muslim on Muslim mass murder is a fact.)

In the 1990s Sudan served as a haven and a base for bin Laden and key Al Qaeda cadres. This latest bin Laden tape serves the current interests of the Sudanese Islamists who are trying to thwart the UN takeover of the peacekeeping effort. Bin Laden certainly owes the Sudanese Islamists a personal as well as a political debt, so we may be witnessing a bit of “pay off” in the statement.

 

[Annie]

More:

http://tigerhawk.blogspot.com/2006/04/bin-laden-changes-subject.html

Sunday, April 23, 2006
Bin Laden changes the subject
By TigerHawk at 4/23/2006 02:51:00 PM
Osama Bin Laden has opened his pie hole again via Al Jazz. Walid Phares of the newly re-launched Counterterrorism Blog has summarized bin Laden's key points, at least as revealed in the fragments broadcast on al Jazeera, to wit:

1. Hamas: Despite the fact that we (including Ayman Zawahiri) warned (Muslim Palestinians) not to take part in elections in general, the victory of Hamas shows that there is a "Crusader Zionist War against Islam." Cutting foreign aid to the Palestinians because of Hamas victory proves that war.

2. The public (in the West and the US), despite our warnings, continues to reelect these Governments, pay taxes to these Governments, and send their children to fight against us. They (civilians) are therefore part of the war against us. They are responsible for any harm that would be caused to them.

3. Sudan: The Bashir Government is failing in stopping the Crusader War in Sudan. The Crusaders (Britain) has pushed the southerners (Blacks) to separate. The US has armed them and is supporting them. And now, because of tribal tensions in Darfour, the Crusaders are planning on intervening there. We are calling on the Jihadists to fight them in Darfour and Southern Sudan.

4. Long War: We're calling on all Jihadists, particularly in Sudan and the Arabian Peninsula to prepare themselves for a long war.

5. Danish Cartoons: We are asking the Danish Government to remit the Cartoonists to al Qaida.

6. Saudis: We criticize the Saudi Monarch for refuting the idea of Clash of civilization. There is a clash led by the West against Islam.

7. Arab Liberals: Jihadists must silence the Arab and Muslim liberals. (A list has been established, but it wasn't aired).

8. Education: We warn from any change that would affect the educational curriculum in the Arab and Muslim world.

9. Arab TV: We warn against those TV stations airing into the region and propagating Crusader propaganda.

10: Truce: We offered a truce to the West (US and Europe) but their public refused to accept it. They will only blame themselves.

​

Apart from the list's comic aspects, it is fascinating for its omissions. Why didn't bin Laden talk about Iraq?

Less than 2 1/2 years ago, al Qaeda broke the news to the Taliban that it was diverting resources to Iraq so as to humiliate the American "Crusaders."

All this was on the orders of bin Laden himself, the sources said. Why? Because the terror chieftain and his top lieutenants see a great opportunity for killing Americans and their allies in Iraq and neighboring countries such as Turkey, according to Taliban sources who complain that their own movement will suffer... Bin Laden believes that Iraq is becoming the perfect battlefield to fight the “American crusaders” and that the Iraqi insurgency has been “100 percent successful so far,” according to a Taliban participant at the mid-November meeting who goes by the nom de guerre Sharafullah.
​

Al Qaeda drew a line in the sands of the Sunni Triangle, and the United States Army and Marines walked right across it. First, al Qaeda tried to kill Americans, per bin Laden's orders. It largely failed. Then al Qaeda went after America's allies, and succeeded only in turning public opinion against itself in every Muslim country it attacked. After thirty months of battlefield defeats and political embarrassments, bin Laden won't even mention Iraq in one of his rare public utterances, and he rallies his troops to fight a war where American soldiers aren't. How humiliating. How delightful.

Al Qaeda has lost in Iraq, and bin Laden is desperate to change the subject. He and his organization are at grave risk of being discredited, and when that happens it will be much harder for al Qaeda to attract recruits, raise money, or deal with governments.