Desperately trying to be relevant
As if Somalis need exhortations from him to kill each other. “Bin Laden Urges Somalis To ‘Fight On,'” by Khaled Wassef for CBS News, March 19:
Al Qaeda boss Osama bin Laden, speaking in a new audio recording released Thursday on various jihadi Web forums and downloaded by CBS News, has asked Somalis to rebel against their newly elected president.[…]
In the audio, titled “Fight On O” Champions of Somalia,” Bin Laden first analyses the situation in Somalia, explaining that Ethiopian troops were acting as proxy forces for NATO and the “International Crusade” which he says appointed former President Abdullah Yucef as its representative in Somalia.
The al Qaeda chief doesn’t waste much time in getting to his opinion of the newly elected president of Somalia, Islamic militant-turned-politician Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmad.
Bin Laden says Ahmad is just another puppet brought in by the West because Somalis were fooled by the not-so-convincing President Yucef.
“But, since you weren’t taken in by the old trick of ‘Karzais” which they have been using in the region, they replaced him and brought in a new, revised version, similar to Sayyaf, Rabbani and Ahmed Shah Massoud, who were leaders of the Afghan Mujahideen before they turned back on their heels as apostates and helped their ally — America — bring down the Islamic Emirate in Afghanistan,” bin Laden tells his audience.
Bin Laden decrees that Somalis should continue to fight the new regime, just as they did with his predecessor. “These sorts of presidents are the surrogates of our enemies and their authority is null and void in the first place, and as Sheikh Sharif is one of them, he must be dethroned and fought.”
Most players on the current Somali political arena are representatives of Islamic groups, but not all of them are truly “Islamic,” explains the al Qaeda chief, warning Somalis not to be fooled by politicians who approach them in the name of religion.
“You must beware of the initiatives which wear the dress of Islam and the religious institutions even as they contradict the rules of Islamic Shari”ah,” he says in the 11 minute recording. “These people either don’t understand the facts or take us to be fools.”…