Bin Laden issues threat over 9/11 execution

Bin Laden issues threat over 9/11 execution
By Andrew England in Abu Dhabi
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010
Published: March 25 2010 15:06 | Last updated: March 25 2010 15:06
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a5e203ea-3816-11df-9e8e-00144feabdc0.html


Osama bin Laden has warned that American troops will be killed if Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September 11 2001 attacks, is executed by US authorities, according to an audiotape released on Thursday.

In the recording, which was broadcast on al-Jazeera, the Arab satellite channel, the al-Qaeda leader said that the day the US took the decision to execute Mr Mohammed “it would have taken a decision to execute whoever we capture”.

“It is fair to treat each other the same. War is a back-and-forth,” Mr bin Laden purportedly said.

Mr Mohammed and four accomplices are to face trial in the US for their alleged role in the destruction of the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York.

Mr bin Laden also said Barack Obama, the US president, was following in the footsteps of George W. Bush, his predecessor, saying the White House was “practising injustice against us ... especially by supporting Israel in its continuous occupation of Palestine”.

“They used to think that America across the oceans is protected from the rage of the oppressed until our reaction was loudly heard at your home on 9/11 with God’s help,” he said.

A US counter-terrorism official, who highlighted the 2002 al-Qaeda murder of Daniel Pearl, a Wall Street Journal reporter, in Pakistan, said: “It’s the height of absurdity for anyone associated with al-Qaeda to even suggest that – now, at long last – they’re going to start treating captives badly.

“They may have forgotten Danny Pearl and all the others they’ve slaughtered, but we haven’t. If this is bin Laden and he wants to weigh in on legal proceedings involving 9/11 conspirators, I challenge him to show up in court to make his case. Frankly, that’s about all the comment this deserves.”