Bin Laden calls on Muslims to end Israeli Gaza blockade

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hq2jG8IxNhZbp3_6bQBkt_dMTTgw

DUBAI (AFP) — Osama bin Laden has called on Muslims to help lift the Israeli blockade on the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, in an audio message purportedly recorded by the Al-Qaeda chief and posted on the internet Sunday.

The message, which could not immediately be authenticated, was addressed to the "Islamic nation" and posted on a website used by Islamist militants.

It called on Muslims, especially those in Egypt, to work to break the "unjust blockade" on Gaza, which has resulted in "dozens of deaths."

It also cited the participation of some western leaders in recent celebrations marking the 60th anniversary of the creation of Israel as "proof that (their) values of justice, freedom and humanism are mere slogans brandished about to trick the weak."

US President George W. Bush was among top leaders who joined in the anniversary festivities -- an occasion marked by Palestinians as a "catastrophe."

The new recording upbraided Arab states for having sold out the Palestinian people, insisting that Israel owed its continued existence "not to its own power, but to the fact that (Arab) governments have renounced their struggle" against the Jewish state.

The Internet site had announced earlier Sunday that it was about to carry a "very strong" address from "the lion of Islam, Sheikh Osama bin Laden."

It was the second audio message attributed to Bin Laden to surface on the Internet in the past three days, following a similar recording on Friday that vowed a sustained Muslim battle for Palestine.

"We will continue the fight against the Israelis and their allies... and we will not give up one inch of Palestine, God willing, as long as there is one sincere Muslim on this earth," the earlier message said.

The Al-Qaeda chief has taken credit for the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States which killed nearly 3,000 people and triggered the US-led invasion of Afghanistan.

The Saudi-born bin Laden has a 25-million-dollar bounty on his head but his whereabouts are unknown.
_________________
"The conversion of the entire population to Islam and the extinction of every form of dissent is the ideal of the Muslim State - This is Islamic Peace"

A moderate Moslem is one who sends others blow themselves up.