Washington, September 14
Osama bin Laden has told Americans to rethink their policies, in a new video in which he links their support for Israel to the September 11 attacks in 2001, a US-based monitoring group said.

Titled “Message to the American People,” the video, released yesterday by the As-Sahab media production branch of Al-Qaida, features a still image of bin Laden and an audio statement, said IntelCenter, based outside Washington.

It came two days after the United States marked the eighth anniversary of the attacks by bin Laden’s Al-Qaida network in which hijacked airliners were flown into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing nearly 3,000 people.

Bin Laden said that among “some other injustices,” US support to Israel motivated Al-Qaeda to launch the September 11 attacks, IntelCenter reported.

He also stated that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were driven by the pro-Israeli lobby in the White House and corporate interests, and not by Islamic militants.

“If you think about your situation well, you will know that the White House is occupied by pressure groups,” he said, according to IntelCenter.

“Rather than fighting to liberate Iraq, as Bush claimed, it (the White House) should have been liberated.” He was referring to former US president George W.

Bush, who ordered the March 2003 invasion of Iraq that overthrew Saddam Hussein’s regime.

If Americans want to end their confrontation with Al-Qaida, bin Laden continued, they must reconsider their attitude toward the Jewish state. “Put the file of your alliance with Israelis on the discussion table,” he stated, according to IntelCenter’s translation of the address.

“Ask yourselves to determine your position: is your security, your blood, your children, your money, your jobs, your homes, your economy, and your reputation dearer to you than the security of the Israelis, their children and their economy? “If you choose your security and cessation of war, and this is what the polls have shown, this requires you to work to punish those on your side who play with our security,” bin Laden said.

“We are ready to respond to this choice on aforementioned sound and just bases.” According to bin Laden, current US President Barack Obama is powerless and unwilling to change the course of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Obama’s retention of US Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other individuals from the Bush administration is confirmation of the president’s weakness, the Al-Qaeda leader said.

“It will become clear to you in days that all you have changed in the White House are faces,” he is quoted by IntelCenter as saying. “The bitter truth is that the neo-conservatives continue to cast their heavy shadows upon you.”

Bin Laden urged Americans to pressure the White House to cease the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and US support to Israel, rather than succumb to what he called “the ideological terrorism” exercised by neo-conservatives.

If the wars are not ended, “all we will do is to continue the war of attrition against you on all possible axes, like we exhausted the Soviet Union for 10 years until it collapsed with grace from Allah the Almighty and became a memory of the past,” bin Laden said.

IntelCenter said bin Laden typically releases such a statement annually around September or October. — AFP

Former Pakistani president Gen Pervez Musharraf has claimed ex-premier Nawaz Sharif had assured Saudi Arabia he would “lower the political temperature” on the issue of his treason trial. He was asked to comment in a TV interview on conflicting accounts of his meeting with Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz late last month.

The meeting had sparked speculation Musharraf had sought Saudi help in wriggling out of his problems arising from the growing clamour in Pakistan for his trial for subverting the country’s constitution. King Abdullah was particularly requested to use his personal influence and stop Sharif from spearheading the campaign.

The former Pakistani ruler repudiated reports he was asked by the Saudi monarch to “seek forgiveness of his people for all his misdeeds, including abrogating the constitution”. However, regarding another account of the meeting according to which he was given a royal protocol as well as an assurance that Sharif tone down the campaign for his trial, Musharraf replied: "You are hundred per cent correct”.

Sharif also met the Saudi king on Sunday but his close aides said the question of Musharraf’s trial was not discussed. "Saudi Arabia does not involve itself in internal affairs of a friendly country," Sen Ishaq Dar, who was also present at the meeting along with Sharif's son, told a TV channel in Mecca. Sharif’s party has insisted the former premier is “under no pressure to drop the demand for Musharraf’s trial”.

To another question, Musharraf said Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry had already made up his mind to declare him ineligible for the presidential election. He said the country’s situation before the military coup on October 12, 1999 was deteriorating and the decision to topple Sharif’s government was taken by the entire army top brass.

When asked about the murder of Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, he said though some elements were keen to file a murder case against him the army and intelligence agencies were involved in the operation in which Bugti lost his life.

He said he would “expect justice and strict adherence of the rule of law” from Chief Justice Chaudhry if he was tried under article 6 of the country’s constitution. He said if he was tried under article 6 then he would also ask the Supreme Court to try those judges (including Chaudhry) who assisted him. He said “he was ready to appear before the Supreme Court”.

Replying to another question, the former president said he received $200,000 for delivering two lectures in India and now he would leave for the United States on September 15 for the same purpose. He said he would be able to purchase a house in London after delivering lectures in the US.

Musharraf said Pakistan’s nuclear programme was so advanced during his tenure that scientists had not only begun enriching uranium but had also developed plutonium-based weapons.

Asked about nuclear scientist AQ Khan’s claim that he had been forced to make a confession about running a nuclear proliferation network, Musharraf said Khan “had done a lot for the country in uranium enrichment but he was lying when he said he was forced to apologise before the nation. He was part of the proliferation network and defamed Pakistan.”

London, September 14
Three Pakistan-origin persons were today sentenced to life for plotting to kill thousands of people by blowing up trans-Atlantic flights with liquid bombs in a conspiracy that was “controlled, monitored and funded from Pakistan”.

At the tightly-guarded Woolwich Crown court in southeast London, Judge Richard Henriques sentenced British- born Abdulla Ahmed Ali (28), Tanvir Hussain (28) and Assad Sarwar (29) to life imprisonment, saying the plot hatched by them was “atrocity comparable with the 9/11 attacks.”

Judge Henriques said the plot was “the most grave and wicked conspiracy ever proven within this jurisdiction” as he passed the verdict sentencing ringleader Ali to life imprisonment with a minimum 40-year term.

Fellow plotters Sarwar and Hussain were also given life sentences. Sarwar was told he would serve a minimum of 36 years. Hussain will serve a minimum of 32 years in jail.

Emails submitted as evidence in the trial had shown that “the ultimate control of this conspiracy lay in Pakistan,” the judge said. Judge Henriques said the emails proved that the ultimate control of the conspiracy lay in Pakistan and the plot was controlled, monitored and funded from there.

The plot, foiled in August 2006, and the arrests of men’s in same year led to widespread airport restrictions on liquids in hand luggage. Justice Henriques said that the plot had “reached an advanced stage in its development”, with the men in possession of enough chemicals to produce 20 detonators. — PTI