While the UN wrings its hands over “Islamophobia” and Kofi Annan laments that “Islam’s tenets are frequently distorted and taken out of context, with particular acts or practices being taken to represent or to symbolize a rich and complex faith,” Osama bin Laden (or someone purporting to be Osama) has, inconveniently enough, issued a new statement in which he shows, much more clearly than anyone at the UN, why many people in the world have come to be suspicious of Islam and jihad. From CNN, :
“While the struggle in Saudi Arabia appears to be internal, it is part of the struggle between believers and non-believers” of Islam, the speaker said.
Near the end of the approximately 70-minute tape, the speaker asks for God’s blessings for “our brothers who stormed the American consulate in Jeddah.”
“We pray to Allah to accept the mujahedeen who stormed the U.S. consulate in Jeddah as martyrs,” the speaker says….
The quality of the recording is poor, but al Qaeda expert Paul Eedle says the voice seems to be that of bin Laden.
A Saudi militant group with ties to al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the December 6 attack in Jeddah, posting its claim on several Islamist Web sites often used by militants.
A U.S. State Department official had also said that al Qaeda was suspected in the attack….
The group that claimed responsibility called itself the Qaeda al Jihad in the Arabian Peninsula.
In the Internet post, the group said: “This operation comes as part of several operations that are organized and planned by al Qaeda as part of the battle against the crusaders and the Jews, as well as part of the plan to force the unbelievers to leave the Arabian Peninsula.”
The group said its fighters “managed to enter one of the crusaders’ big castles in the Arabian Peninsula and managed to enter the American consulate in Jeddah, in which they control and run the country.”