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Iraq Qaeda leader issues tape on 9/11 anniversary

Posted on: Sunday, 11 September 2005, 16:33 CDT

By Yara Bayoumy

DUBAI (Reuters) - Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq accused U.S. and Iraqi forces of using toxic gas in an attack on a northern town, in an audio tape posted on a Web site on the fourth anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

A speaker sounding like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Washington's most wanted man in Iraq, said in an undated recording that foreign forces wanted desperately to leave Iraq after suffering heavy losses, and that they would inevitably face defeat.

"In Tal Afar, the Crusaders went in waves using the most destructive of weapons and the most poisonous of gasses," said the speaker on the recording, about 10 minutes long, posted on Sunday on an Islamist Web site that often carries messages from al Qaeda and other insurgent groups in Iraq.

"They (the Crusaders) are now back in Tal Afar, after they have failed many times before, where they tasted humiliation and defeat. They came back and destroyed the city to finish off the mujahideen.

"Your enemy today is living its worst days in Iraq. They are trying to get out of Iraq, but they cannot find the way to do it," the speaker said.

"Oh mujahideen, beware, pick up your weapons and be prepared for the moment ... for the time for the divisive battle has almost come."

U.S. and Iraqi troops have launched an offensive against rebels and foreign fighters they say have infiltrated Tal Afar and are using the northern town as a conduit for equipment and men crossing illegally from Syria to fight the Shi'ite and Kurdish-led Iraqi government and occupying U.S. forces.

Iraq's government said on Saturday, when the bulk of the fighting drew to a close, that as many as 141 insurgents had been killed and 197 were captured, many of them Arabs from countries other than Iraq.

The speaker on the tape blasted Iraqi security forces for collaborating with "infidel" American forces, saying they were corrupt and responsible for the deaths of Sunnis.

"Where are the rights of the Sunnis? They are the ones who are being killed, and thousands of them have been displaced, only because they're Sunnis."

The Iraqi government is facing a Sunni Arab insurgency which it says is behind attacks on Iraqi police and soldiers and U.S. troops on a daily basis across the country.

The speaker also said the deaths after Hurricane Katrina in the United States were the answer to the prayers of those oppressed in Iraq or Afghanistan.

"The storm that hit the United States was the result of every mother or father's prayer, or an orphaned son, or a woman whose honor was taken away in Iraq or Afghanistan."

Source: REUTERS

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