Laden Threatens to Kill Americans Captured by al-Qaida

Releasing a 74-second audio message on Thursday, al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden has threatened to kill any American captured by his outfit in case Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the chief planner of 9/11 attacks is executed, said media reports.

According to reports, American counterterrorism officials consider the recording, which was addressed to American people and broadcast on Al Jazeera TV, as authentic.

A translation of the message by the Middle East Media Research Institute in Washington reveals that Laden snubbed the US for imprisoning al-Qaida members, ‘first and foremost among them the holy warrior and hero, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed’, reports said.

“The White House declared that it wanted to execute them,” Laden was quoted as saying. “The day the United States makes this decision, it will have made the decision to execute those of you who fall prisoner to us.”

Though the message was undated, it seemed to be mentioning statements given by Obama administration officials in recent months that Mohammed, who is awaiting trial on murder charges, is expected to be convicted and executed.

The officials were defending the administration’s initial plan, now under review, to give five accused Sept 11 conspirators civilian criminal trials.

It may mentioned that about in an interview with NBC News in November, President Barack Obama had said about criticism over granting same rights to Mohammed as any other criminal defendant that such critics would not find it ‘offensive at all when he’s convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him’. He, however, had added that he was not trying to prejudge the outcome of any trial.

Attorney General Eric H Holder Jr and the White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, made identical statements, too.

Ladan, in the new recording, repeated a recurrent theme of al-Qaida messages since Obama’s election as President, that he has not changed the policies toward the Muslim world of former President George W Bush.

“Your master in the White House continues to follow in the footsteps of his predecessor in many important matters, like his escalation of the war in Afghanistan,” Laden was quoted as saying.

An American counterterrorism official who discussed the bin Laden statement on condition of anonymity called it the ‘height of absurdity’ for al-Qaeda to threaten now to harm captives, given that the group’s operatives have routinely tortured and beheaded prisoners, including the American journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002.