US seeks to exploit Iraqi oil, says Bin Laden
Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden accused Washington of plotting to take control of Iraq's oil and urged Iraqis to reject efforts to rebuild a US-backed national unity government there.
The militant leader also vowed in a recording posted on an Islamist website on Saturday to expand jihad to liberate all Palestinian land "from the (Mediterranean) sea to the (Jordan) river" and said his group will never recognize Israel.
"America seeks, alongside its agents in the region, to create an allied government ... that would accept in advance the presence of major US bases in Iraq and give the Americans all they wish of Iraq's oil," he said in the 56-minute recording.
The Saudi-born militant said the envisaged Iraqi government was also meant to help Washington "fully dominate" the region with help from allies such as Saudi Arabia.
"The government of Riyadh is still playing its wicked roles," he said, describing Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah as the United States' "chief agent".
Referring to a Saudi push in February to help Palestinian rivals agree a unity government which fell apart in June, he said Riyadh was part of a scheme to lure Islamist Palestinian militant group Hamas away from its jihadist roots.
"I assure our kin in Palestine especially that we shall expand our jihad ... We will not recognize a state for the Jews over even an inch of Palestinian soil," said bin Laden.
Bin Laden did not mention accusations Al-Qaida was behind Thursday's assassination of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto. A Qaida-allied militant leader has denied involvement.
Bin Laden took a swing at Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah group, for accepting the expansion of a United Nations force in Lebanon after the Shi'ite group's war with the Jewish state in 2006.
The peacekeepers sent to Lebanon after the war were there to "protect the Jews", said bin Laden, whose group belongs to a school of Islam that sees Shi'ite Muslims as heretics.
Bin Laden said Washington was planning to form a new Iraqi national unity government and warned that those who took part would be turning their backs on Islam.
Sunni Arabs pulled out of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Shi'ite-led government earlier this year, accusing it of being too sectarian.
Bin Laden accepted responsibility for civilian casualties in Al-Qaida attacks but he argued that the enemy used Muslims as human shields. "We beg God's forgiveness," he said.
Al-Qaida media group As-Sahab said the tape was produced in a lunar calendar month which started on December 11, but did not give the actual date of the recording.
Agencies
(China Daily 12/31/2007 page6)
