Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden warned France on Wednesday that its planned ban on the veil in public places and its involvement in the war in Afghanistan justified violence against its nationals.
France expressed concern and insisted on the need for vigilance, adding however that authorities were verifying the authenticity of the remarks.
In an audio recording aired by al-Jazeera television, Bin Laden said last month’s kidnapping of seven foreigners, five of them French, in the Sahara desert in northern Niger was a warning.
“How could you take part in occupying our countries and support the Americans in killing our children and women, and then expect to live in peace and security?” Bin Laden asked.
“It is very simple — as you kill, you will be killed, as you take hostages, you will be taken hostages, and as you compromise our security, we will compromise your security,” he said in the message, which lasted one minute and 55 seconds.
The al-Qaeda leader warned the French government to pull its troops out of Afghanistan.
“The way to protect your security is to bring your tyranny against our nation to an end, most importantly to withdraw from the damned war of [former US president George W.] Bush in Afghanistan,” he said.
Responding to the message, French Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux said that France is under “real” terror threat which needs “total vigilance.”
“We do know that the [terrorist] threat is real and vigilance must be total,” Hortefeux told a National Assembly meeting in Paris.
Hortefeux — who earlier this month said that Saudi security forces warned about an al-Qaeda threat to Europe and to France in particular — said authorities were verifying the authenticity of the remarks.
The message broadcast by al-Jazeera was accompanied by a still photo of Bin Laden and a blurred picture of what appears to be policemen pulling off a woman’s veil to reveal her hair.
Bin Laden, who is believed hiding out in remote mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan, highlighted the French parliament’s passing of a law last month banning the wearing of a full-face veil in public.
The ban, which will come into force early next year if it is not overturned by senior judges, triggered criticism in some Muslim countries, with Islamic authorities in Asia warning that it could spark a violent backlash.
“As you wrongly have decided that you have the right to ban Muslim women from wearing the veil, is it not our right to drive out your conquerors by killing them?” Bin Laden asked.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner yesterday denounced the threat.
“The unacceptable threats are not new,” Kouchner told reporters, playing down Bin Laden’s influence over the North African al-Qaeda affiliate that carried out the kidnapping of the French nationals in northern Niger.
“Mr Bin Laden has taken this opportunity. It was opportunism. It’s not him, it’s not Mr Bin Laden who is holding the hostages, it’s much more complicated than that,” Kouchner said on the sidelines of a diplomatic meeting in Paris.
AFGHAN CHILD: A court battle is ongoing over if the toddler can stay with Joshua Mast and his wife, who wanted ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ for her Major Joshua Mast, a US Marine whose adoption of an Afghan war orphan has spurred a years-long legal battle, is to remain on active duty after a three-member panel of Marines on Tuesday found that while he acted in a way unbecoming of an officer to bring home the baby girl, it did not warrant his separation from the military. Lawyers for the Marine Corps argued that Mast abused his position, disregarded orders of his superiors, mishandled classified information and improperly used a government computer in his fight over the child who was found orphaned on the battlefield in rural Afghanistan
EYEING THE US ELECTION: Analysts say that Pyongyang would likely leverage its enlarged nuclear arsenal for concessions after a new US administration is inaugurated North Korean leader Kim Jong-un warned again that he could use nuclear weapons in potential conflicts with South Korea and the US, as he accused them of provoking North Korea and raising animosities on the Korean Peninsula, state media reported yesterday. Kim has issued threats to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively numerous times, but his latest warning came as experts said that North Korea could ramp up hostilities ahead of next month’s US presidential election. In a Monday speech at a university named after him, the Kim Jong-un National Defense University, he said that North Korea “will without hesitation use all its attack
STOPOVERS: As organized crime groups in Asia and the Americas move drugs via places such as Tonga, methamphetamine use has reached levels called ‘epidemic’ A surge of drugs is engulfing the South Pacific as cartels and triads use far-flung island nations to channel narcotics across the globe, top police and UN officials told reporters. Pacific island nations such as Fiji and Tonga sit at the crossroads of largely unpatrolled ocean trafficking routes used to shift cocaine from Latin America, and methamphetamine and opioids from Asia. This illicit cargo is increasingly spilling over into local hands, feeding drug addiction in communities where serious crime had been rare. “We’re a victim of our geographical location. An ideal transit point for vessels crossing the Pacific,” Tonga Police Commissioner Shane McLennan
RUSSIAN INPUT: Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov called Washington’s actions in Asia ‘destructive,’ accusing it of being the reason for the ‘militarization’ of Japan The US is concerned about China’s “increasingly dangerous and unlawful” activities in the disputed South China Sea, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told ASEAN leaders yesterday during an annual summit, and pledged that Washington would continue to uphold freedom of navigation in the region. The 10-member ASEAN meeting with Blinken followed a series of confrontations at sea between China and ASEAN members Philippines and Vietnam. “We are very concerned about China’s increasingly dangerous and unlawful activities in the South China Sea which have injured people, harm vessels from ASEAN nations and contradict commitments to peaceful resolutions of disputes,” said Blinken, who
RSS