Osama offers only war, misery: White House

Washington, July 2: The White House shot back at Osama bin Laden's warning of retaliation against Shi'ites in Iraq by condemning the al Qaeda leader as a man of dark vision who offers only chaos, war and misery.

''Osama bin Laden again wants to sow division and chaos in Iraq and the Muslim world,'' the White House said yesterday in a statement read by an official.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because US intelligence was trying to determine the authenticity of the audio message that bin Laden issued Saturday via the Internet.

''If authentic, the tape demonstrates yet again that bin Laden and al Qaeda continue to use the media to justify their dark vision and war against humanity,'' the White House official said.

''These terrorists offer nothing in their ideology and messages beyond further fighting, conflict and misery.'' In the tape, bin Laden warned Iraq's Shi'ite majority of retaliation over attacks on Sunni Arabs and that his group would fight the United States anywhere in the world.

It was his second Internet broadcast in two days and one of his strongest comments on sectarian divisions in Iraq.

''Unarmed people among Mesopotamia's Islam folk are being subjected to an annihilation campaign at the hands of the gangs of hatred and treason ... in the government of (Nuri) al-Maliki,'' he said.

Bin Laden, a Sunni Muslim from a school that sees Shi'ite Muslims as heretics, said the Sunni Arab minority in Iraq was being annihilated.

Ousted Saddam Hussein

Iraq's south is dominated by Shi'ites who took power in the country after the 2003 US-led war ousted Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, while central and northern cities he listed in his tape are chiefly Sunni areas where insurgents have been active against the Shi'ite-led government and US-led forces.

The United States has often accused al Qaeda of stoking tensions between Shi'ites and Sunnis in Iraq to try to trigger a civil war.

Bin Laden urged Muslims to send men and funds to support fighters in Iraq. ''Muslims should rescue their brothers in Mesopotamia with money and men to deter the aggression of the crusaders and apostates,'' he said.

Muslims should punish the leaders of political parties that allied with the United States after ''they expel the crusader armies'' from Iraq, he said.

But the White House predicted that Iraqis would reject bin Laden's call to further violence.

''The Iraqi people and the international community will continue to tell these enemies of humanity that their dark vision and atrocities are unwelcome interventions,'' the White House statement said.

''The Iraqi people are taking hold of their future and it is one of freedom and prosperity.'' A US intelligence official, declining to be named, said there was no reason to doubt it was bin Laden on the tape.

Reuters