DUBAI, 21 December 2003 — Osama Bin Laden attacked the US war on Iraq as part of a new crusade against Islam in an audiotape purported to be by the Al-Qaeda leader and aired on TV station Al-Arabiya yesterday.
He also attacked moves toward parliamentary representation and democracy in the Arab world and said US-backed governments in the region were agents of Washington. “Know that this war is a new crusade against the Islamic world and is a critical war for the whole Islamic nation,” said the voice on the tape.
“(Voices) in Iraq, as before in Palestine, Egypt, Jordan, Yemen and others, are calling for the peaceful democratic solution in dealing with the apostate governments,” he said, referring to the West.
“We need to be aware of the seriousness of this humiliating, errant path which contradicts the law of God...Those who have entered the ‘assembly of idolatry’ — legislative assemblies — have torn down Islam,” the voice on the tape said.
“They are making a big mistake. God knows that Islam has nothing to do with their actions. Islam is the religion of God and the legislative assemblies are the religion of the ‘age of ignorance’,” he added. “Age of ignorance” is an Islamic term used to refer to the pre-Islamic era.
US President George W. Bush has said the US war in Iraq would be part of a new move toward democracy in the Middle East.
