New Bin Laden Tape Calls for Iraq Truce

Television station Al-Jazeera yesterday aired an audiotape purportedly from Osama bin Laden, saying al Qaida is making preparations for attacks in the United States, but offering a “truce” to build Iraq and Afghanistan.

The voice in the tape said heightened security measures in the United States are not the reason there have been no attacks there since the September 11 2001 suicide hijackings.

Instead, the reason is “because there are operations that need preparations, and you will see them,” he said.

“Based on what I have said, it is better not to fight the Muslims on their land,” he said. “We do not mind offering you a truce that is fair and long-term. … So we can build Iraq and Afghanistan … there is no shame in this solution because it prevents wasting of billions of dollars … to merchants of war.”

The speaker did not give conditions for a truce in the excerpts aired by Al-Jazeera.

Earlier security officials in Pakistan claimed that an al Qaida explosives and chemical weapons expert and a relative of the terror network’s No. 2 leader were among four top operatives believed killed in a US missile strike in the country last week.

Pakistani authorities have said four or five foreign militants were killed in last Friday’s attack in Damadola, a village near the Afghan border.

Officials say the airstrike targeted – but missed – al Qaida No 2 leader Ayman al-Zawahri.

It also killed at least 13 local people, outraging many in the Islamic country.

The security officials named four al Qaida figures thought to have been in the village at the time of the attack, saying that their bodies were believed to have been taken away by sympathisers.