Al-Jazeera Recorded message from Bin Laden

Qatar-based Al Jazeera television, the only TV station allowed to broadcast out of Kabul has broadcast pictures of Osama bin Laden, head of the Al-Qaeda organisation together with Ayman El-Zawahere, the head of Egyptian Islamic Jihad and thought by many security analysts to be bin Laden's second-in-command.
The footage was shot in daylight before the air raids on Afghan targets which began after nightfall on Sunday.
It seems clear that it was a pre-recorded statement prepared in the event of airstrikes.
Bin Laden, who speaks directly into the camera, does not claim responsibility for the September 11 attack on the World Trade Centre, but praises the people who carried it out.
He refers to the international coalition ranged against Al-Qaeda and their Taliban protectors, and refers to George Bush's "war on terrorism" as a "war against Islam".
He also makes two demands: that Palestinians must live in "real peace" and that "the atheist armies leave the lands of Mohammed" - a reference to the U-S military presence in Saudi Arabia - strategically vital to the country to protect its vast oil reserves from potential aggressors such as Iraq, but regarded by many Saudis with a sense of shame.
Saudi Arabia, from where bin Laden himself comes, is home to Islam's two holiest shrines.


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