Global Security Newswire

Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden has apparently issued an audio recording in which he claimed credit for the unsuccessful December bombing of a passenger airplane landing in Detroit and pledged additional terrorist attacks, Reuters reported yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 13).

Addressing U.S. President Barack Obama, the terrorist leader linked the failed attack to al-Qaeda's continued efforts against the United States.

"The message sent to you with the attempt by the hero Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is a confirmation of our previous message conveyed by the heroes of Sept. 11," bin Laden said. "If it was possible to carry our messages to you by words, we wouldn't have carried them to you by planes."

The validity of tape, played on al-Jazeera television, was not immediately verified in Washington. However, the editor of an Arab newspaper who has met bin Laden said the voice on the tape echoes the al-Qaeda leader's "voice and style. The poetry, the references he makes are identifiably his."

Bin Laden said attacks against the United States would persist in response to the U.S. allegiance with Israel.

"Our attacks against you will continue as long as U.S. support for Israel continues," he said. "It is not fair that Americans should live in peace as long as our brothers in Gaza live in the worst conditions."

Obama administration adviser David Axelrod refuted the al-Qaeda leader's rationalization."Assuming that it is him, his message contains the same hollow justifications for the mass slaughter of innocents that we've heard before," he told CNN (Tamara Walid, Reuters, Jan. 24).