TERRORISM: BIN LADEN SAYS HE WON'T BE TAKEN ALIVE

Rome, 20 Feb.
(AKI) - Osama bin Laden, the leader of the al-Qaeda terrorist network, has said that he will never be taken alive. In a tape which was posted on a militant website on Monday, bin Laden also said the United States had used the same "barbaric, repressive" tactics that were used by Saddam Hussein. The message in the 11 minute 26 second tape, is the complete version of a broadcast that was first aired on the Arabic language satellite channel, Al-Jazeera on January 19. Below is the entire text of the message.

In the name of Allah, the compassionate, the merciful, from Osama bin Mohammed bin Laden to the American people, peace be upon he who follows the guidance.

This message of mine concerns the war in Iraq and in Afghanistan, and how it can be stopped.

I had not intended to speak to you in this regard, because the the matter is settled as far as we are concerned, and iron is blunted only by iron, and because our situation is going from good to better, and your situation is the exact opposite of that.

However, my enthusiasm for discussing it was awakened by the repeated fallacies of your president Bush, in his comments on the results of your opinion polls, which show that the vast majority of you want the troops to be pulled out of Iraq.

That he objected to this desire, and said that forced withdrawal, sends the wrong message to the enemy and that is better for us to fight them on their soil than for them to fight us on ours.

Before I respond to these fallacies, I say that the war in Iraq is blazing fiercely, and the operations in Afghanistan are continuously escalating in our favour and for Allah is our praise.

And the Pentagon numbers indicate an increase in the number of your killed and injured, in addition to the massive material losses, not to mention the collapse of troop morale over there and the increase in the suicide rate among them.

You can imagine the state of psychological collapse which befalls this soldier as he plucks the body parts of his companions after they were ripped apart by the mines.

And after this experience, the solider is caught betweeen two fires. If he refuses to leave his military barracks for the patrols, he will be hit by the butcher of Vietnam's harsh punishments. While if goes out, he will be devoured by the duel of mines. So he is stuck between two things, the sweetest of which is bitter, which puts him under awful psychological pressure, fear, humiliation and coercion and his people don't care about him.

So the only solution he finds is to commit suicide, and this is what you have been hearing about. The suicide is a powerful letter to you, which he wrote with his life and blood as pain and regret gripped him.

For you to rescue whatever can be rescued from this hell, the solution is in your hands, if the situation at all matters to you.

As for the news of our brothers, the mujahadeen, it differs from what the Pentagon makes public. For it indicates that what is carried by the media, is no more than a tenth of the truth, about what is happening on the ground.

And among the things which deepen the doubts about the information provided by the White House administration, is its targeting of those media outlets which transmit some of the facts from the ground. And recently it has surfaced in documents that the butcher of freedom in the world, had resolved to bomb the head offices of the Al-Jazeera satellite channel in Qatar, after he had bombed its offices in Kabul and Baghdad, although it, as it stands, is the instrument of your servants there.

And from another perspective, the Jihad is continuing with strength, and for Allah has all the credit, despite all the barbaric, repressive steps taken by the American army and its agents to the extent that there is no longer any mentionable difference between this criminality and the criminality of Saddam.

The criminality has gone as far as raping women and holding them hostage in place of their husbands who has neither strength nor power except with Allah. As for the torture of men, it has now come to the use of burning chemical acids and electric drills in their joints and if they despair of them, they sometimes place them heads down until death. And if you wish, read the humanitarian reports about the atrocities in Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and Bagram.

So I say that despite all these barbaric methods, they have not dulled the resistance and the mujahadeen are strengthening and increasing by the grace of Allah. In fact, reports indicate the rapid defeat and failure of the project of the sinister quartet of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz. While the declaration of the defeat and the task of staging it is a matter of time, which depends to some extent on the awareness of the American people of the size of this tragedy.

Thinking people are aware that Bush doesn't have a plan to achieve his so-called victory in Iraq. And if you are to compare the small number of Americans killed before the day Bush made his foolish, fake, staged declaration on the aircraft carrier about the end of major combat operations, with the many times greater number of killed and injured in the minor operations, you would realise the truth of what I say.

Bush and his administration possess neither the will nor desire to leave Iraq, for their own dubious reasons.

Starting over again, I say the results of the surveys please rational people, and that Bush's objection is erroneous. The facts on the ground bear witness, that the war against America and its allies has not remained confined to Iraq as he claims, but rather Iraq has become a point of attraction and recruitment for qualified forces.

And from another perspective, the mujahadeen by Allah's grace, have been able to penetrate time after time all the security procedures undertaken by the oppressive countries of the alliance, as evidenced by what you have have seen in terms of the bombings in the capitals of the most important European states in this alliance of aggression. As for the delay of similar operations in America, it is not because of the impossibility of penetrating your security arrangements, but rather operations are in preparation, and you shall see them on your own soil when they are completed, with Allah's permission.

On the basis of the preceding, the falseness of Bush's statement becomes evident, as well as the truth of the position which he evaded, and which is the essence of the results of the opinion polls, that we withdraw the troops, and it is best that we do not fight the Muslims on their land, nor they fight us on ours. We have no objection to responding to you with a long-term ceasefire, with just conditions we will honour and fulfil, because we are a nation which is forbidden by Allah from treachery and falsehood, so that the two sides in this ceasefire might enjoy peace and stability, and so that we may rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan, which have been destroyed by the war.

There is no shame or defect in this solution, other than its preventing the flow of tens of billions to the influential people and war-mongers in America who supported Bush's election campaign with billions of dollars. From this we can understand the insistance of Bush and his gang on continuing the war.

So if you are sincere in your desire for stability and peace, here we have responded to you. And if Bush insists upon continuing to lie and oppress, then it benefits you to read the book, Rogue State, in whose introduction, the author says that if he were president, he would stop all operations against the United States, then offers apologies to all the widows, orphans and victims of torture. Then he would declare a permanent end to American intervention in the nations of the world.

Finally, I say to you that victory in the war is either ours or yours. If it is the former, then it is to your eternal regret and sorrow, and by the grace of Allah, the wind is blowing in this direction. And if it is the latter, then read history, for we are a people who don't rest under oppression, and who seek revenge for as long as we live and it won't be long before we retaliate like we did on September 11th, with Allah's permission.

And in this way your minds will continue to be exhausted, your life will continue to be a burden and things will not be to your liking. As for us, we have nothing to lose. For the swimmer in the sea, does not fear the rain. You have occupied our land, attacked our honour and dignity, spilled our blood, plundered our wealth, destroyed our homes, displaced us and meddled in our affair and we shall do the same to you.

You have attempted to prevent us from living an honourable life, but you can never succeed in preventing us from dying an honourable death.

Refraining from the obligatory Jihad is a deadly sin in our religion, and for us the best way to be killed is in the shadow of the sword. Do not be deceived by your forces and modern weaponry, because they win some battles but lose the war. Patience and steadfastness are better than them, and it is the end that counts.

We persevered in fighting the Soviet Union with simple weapons for ten years, and we drained their economy and they became mere history by the grace of Allah, and in that there is a lesson for you. And we shall persevere in fighting you, with Allah's permission, until the most impatient of us dies. And we shall not flee from the fight until the weapon itself flees.

I have sworn to only live free, even if I find bitter the taste of death, lest I be humiliated or deceived and peace be upon he who follows the guidance.