Reuters and AFP, KABUL, WASHINGTON and Dubai
In a third appearance on his chosen medium since the Sept. 11 attacks, Osama bin Laden came closer than ever to claiming responsibility for the "blessed" anti-US strikes, but he stopped just short of taking direct credit.
Bin Laden lavished praise on the 19 Arab "students" -- 15 of them from his native Saudi Arabia -- who "shook the American empire" in a 34-minute message apparently recorded some three weeks ago and aired in full by Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television on Thursday night.
Al-Jazeera had first aired excerpts on Wednesday. The station has been the Saudi-born militant's main media outlet since the US launched its military campaign against Afghanistan in October.
Bin Laden made clear that "our terrorism" was justified because it was in response to injustices inflicted by the US on Arabs and Muslims and aimed at "forcing America to stop its support for Israel."
And he called on his followers to give the US more of the same, vowing destruction was assured for the US even if he was killed, as Muslims around the world "awaken to its tyranny."
The world's most wanted man described the Sept. 11 attacks as "blessed" and urged Muslims to wage "military and economic" jihad against a "fragile" America.
"We say that the end of the United States is imminent, whether bin Laden or his followers are alive or dead, for the awakening of the Muslim umma [nation] has occurred," he said.
"It is very important to concentrate on hitting the American economy with every available tool ... the economy is the base of its military power," he explained. "The United States is a great economy but at the same time it is fragile."
The "young men" who destroyed New York's World Trade Center and crashed into the Pentagon "did something great ... enabling the Muslims to hold their heads high and teaching America a lesson it will not forget," bin Laden said.
"Those who perpetrated [the Sept. 11 attacks] were not 19 Arab states. The armies and ministries of the Arab states, which have got used to submissiveness and to the injustice inflicted on us in Palestine and elsewhere, did not move.
"They were 19 high-school students who shook the American empire, hit the US economy where it hurts and hit the mightiest military power," he said.
Returning to a point he made in a message broadcast by Al-Jazeera just after the launch of US-led strikes on Afghanistan on Oct. 7, bin Laden explained why the Sept. 11 terror was laudable.
"The whole world saw Israeli soldiers kill Mohammad al-Durra [a Palestinian boy shot dead in his father's arms] and many other [Palestinian children during the Palestinian uprising against Israel]. And the whole world, East and West, denounced these acts, except for America, which supports these people who attack our children in Palestine," he said.
"America practices terrorism in its ugliest form in Palestine and Iraq, and Bush the father, this damned man, was behind the killing of more than a million children in Iraq," bin Laden said.
"The events of September 11 were no more than a reaction to the continuous injustice being inflicted on our sons in Palestine, Iraq, Somalia, southern Sudan, Kashmir, Assam and elsewhere.
Fresh blows to the US would shield Arabs and Muslims from further US-administered pain, bin Laden argued.
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