DUBAI (Reuters)
Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is well and reports speculating about his sickness are false, his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri said in a recording on Wednesday.
"Sheikh Osama bin Laden is in good health," Zawahiri, who is also a doctor, said in response to questions compiled by Islamist Web sites. "The ill-intentioned always try to circulate false reports about him being sick."
Zawahiri, who, along with bin Laden is believed to be hiding in Afghanistan or Pakistan, also denounced the United Nations and said the U.S. had begun to collapse.
"The United Nations is an enemy of Islam and Muslims," he said. "It has legalized the creation of the state of Israel and its seizure of Muslims' land ... it has legalized the crusader presence in Afghanistan ... and Iraq," he said in a 104-minute audio recording posted on the Internet.
He defended attacks on U.N. offices in an apparent reference to twin bomb attacks on U.N. buildings in Algiers which killed 41 people in December and the 2003 bombing of a U.N. building in Baghdad which killed 22.
Al Qaeda will turn to fight Israel after "winning" the war in Iraq against U.S.-led and government forces, he said, adding that the United States had begun to collapse.
"The myth of unipolar world is over. The (Sept. 11, 2001) strikes on New York and Washington are identifying marks of this collapse, but empires do not collapse in a minute and could take decades. The collapse of the Soviet Union is the closest example."
Many of the questions, compiled since December, were sharply critical of al Qaeda and its practices, while others sought advice for joining jihad. Zawahiri said he will answer more of the questions in a second statement and noted that the delay in response was partly due to security reasons.
Answering a question about the reason behind his criticism of the Palestinian group Hamas, the Egyptian militant said that its killing of Israeli children "is not permitted" in rocket attacks on Israeli towns.
Zawahiri has often criticized the leaders of Hamas, associated with rivals in the Muslim Brotherhood bloc, for abandoning suicide bombing for political gains after it won a parliamentary election last year. |
