Osama declares decades of war on ‘powerless’ Obama

Islamabad, Sep 14 (ANI): Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has said that US President Barack Obama is “powerless” to stop the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a transcript of a tape released by the terrorist organization’s media wing.

Al Qaeda’s As-Sahab Media released a video featuring a still image of Osama and audio statement entitled “A statement to the American people,” said the organisation IntelCenter.

SITE Intelligence Group, a terrorist-monitoring firm that translated the address, says Osama blames the wars on the “pro-Israel lobby” and corporate interests.

IntelCenter, another company that monitors terrorist propaganda, reports that the 11-minute video is an address to the American people, two days after the eighth anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

The group described the release as an address to the American public. Osama usually releases a statement around September or October each year, The Times reports.

In his last previous known message in June, Osama said US President Barack Obama had planted the seeds of “revenge and hatred” towards the United States in the Muslim world and warned of decades of conflict to come.

That audiotape aired on Qatar’s Al-Jazeera news channel less than an hour after Obama landed in Saudi Arabia.

Obama “has followed the steps of his predecessor in antagonizing Muslims… and laying the foundation for long wars,” Osama said in the June release, referring to deadly clashes in Pakistan between the US-backed government and Islamist militants.

“He gave his orders to (Pakistani President Asif Ali) Zardari and his army to prevent the people of Swat from applying Sharia (Islamic) law,” he said.

“Obama and his administration have sowed new seeds of hatred against America. Let the American people prepare to harvest the crops of what the leaders of the White House plant in the next years and decades,” said the Al-Qaeda leader. (ANI)

‘The American’ leading al Qaeda in Somalia awaits terrorism charges back home

Washington, Sep 5 (ANI): The man who grew up in Daphne, Alabama, as Omar Hammami, but is now reported to be a member of al Qaeda-linked Somali terrorist group al-Shabaab under the name Abu Mansour al-Amriki, told a school newspaper after 9/11 attacks that it was “difficult to believe a Muslim could have done this”.

According to FOX News, eight years later he is professing to launch attacks himself and calling on others to join the fight, as terror-related charges await him at home in Alabama.

Abu Mansour al-Amriki or “The American” has become one of the most recognizable and outspoken voices of terrorist propaganda, the report said.

He has been in war-torn Somalia for several years, fighting the secular government there with a group known as al-Shabaab, which has ties to Al Qaeda and was labeled a terrorist organization by the US Government last year, but only recently has he taken on a starring and jarring role in al-Shabaab’s outreach efforts the report added.

The FBI has been looking into him for several years. In fact, a grand jury in Mobile, Alabama., has already indicted him on charges of providing material support to terrorists, a source said.

Al-Amriki first surfaced in October 2007, when Al-Jazeera TV aired a report about the “common goal” of al Qaeda and hard-line militants in Somalia. The report described al-Amriki as a fighter and military instructor, but he concealed his face with a cloth wrap throughout the report.

In April, he showed his face for the first time, during a highly polished, 30-minute recruitment video posted online. It featured anti-American hip-hop and sporadic images of Osama bin Laden.

In the video, he purportedly led a group of al-Shabaab militants in an ambush of pro-government forces in Somalia.

Speaking about one man killed in the fight, he said: “We need more like him, so if you can encourage more of your children and more of your neighbors, anyone around, to send people like him to this jihad, it would be a great asset for us.” (ANI)

Suicide bomber kills 15, wounds 40 in western Iraq

Baghdad – A suicide bomber attack Thursday killed 15 people and wounded 40 in Iraq’s western Anbar province, al-Jazeera news channel said.

The bomber targeted a military base, the channel reported without giving further details.

Responsibility for security in majority Sunni Anbar province was handed over to Iraqi forces last September.(dpa)

GITMO inmate is first to give an interview from inside

London, Apr.15 (ANI): A Guantanamo inmate captured in Afghanistan at the age of 14 has become the first to give an interview from inside the camp.

Chad terror suspect Al-Guarani is one of a number of Guantanamo prisoners whose release has been ordered by an American judge. Evidence that he had fought with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan was found to be “unreliable”.

According to The Telegraph, Al-Guarani spoke to a former Guantanamo inmate who works for al-Jazeera, the international Arabic television channel.

Al-Guarani said he had refused to leave his cell because he “not been granted his rights”, such as to interact with other inmates and eat “normal food”.

A group of six soldiers wearing protective gear and helmets came into the cell, he said.

“They had a thick rubber or plastic baton they beat me with. They emptied out about two canisters of tear gas on me. After I stopped talking, and tears were flowing from my eyes, I could hardly see or breathe. They then beat me again to the ground. One of them held my head and beat it against the ground. I started screaming to his senior ‘See what he’s doing, see what he’s doing’ [but] his senior started laughing and said ‘He’s doing his job’, said al Guarani.

“He broke one of my front teeth. Of course they didn’t film the blood, they filmed my back so it doesn’t show.”

Journalists who visit the Guantanamo Bay facility in Cuba have to sign a document agreeing not to speak to the prisoners.

He is currently held in Camp Iguana, a transitional camp for those whose release has been ordered where they are given greater privileges, including the telephone calls.

Amnesty International says that at least four Guantanamo captives were under 18 when they were captured, and some were as young as 13. (ANI)