Top Stories - Reuters Bin Laden Labels Saddam an Infidel - Jazeera TV 1 hour, 48 minutes ago
By Samia Nakhoul
DUBAI (Reuters) - A taped message believed to be from fugitive militant Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) on Tuesday warned Arab nations against supporting a war against Iraq as threatened by the United States -- but branded Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) an infidel.
In a broadcast coinciding with a major Muslim festival that prompted tight security in the United States and Britain to avert possible attacks, the man blamed for September 11 urged Muslims to fight America and repel any war against Iraq.
"We stress the importance of martyrdom (suicide) attacks against the enemy. These attacks inflicted on America and Israel a disaster they have never experienced before," said the statement, broadcast on the Qatar-based al-Jazeera satellite television channel.
Any Arab ruler supporting America or providing logistical or verbal backing for a war on Iraq would be "an apostate whose blood should be spilled," it said.
The broadcast coincided with the start of the three-day Muslim Eid al-Adha festival marking the end of the annual Haj -- the pilgrimage to Mecca.
U.S. officials said the tape was probably genuine, the strongest evidence so far that bin Laden survived the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan (news - web sites) to drive out the Taliban government and the al Qaeda network of the Saudi-born militant.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the tape corroborated the allegations that Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) made to the U.N. Security Council last week to justify U.S. threats to go to war against Iraq -- that al Qaeda and the Iraqis were in contact and cooperating.
But the statement did not express support for Saddam. It said Muslims should support the Iraqi people rather than the country's government.
Concern that the United States has not made a valid case for war against Iraq has already divided the NATO (news - web sites) Western alliance, with France, Germany and Belgium refusing to back preparations to assist fellow-member Turkey in the event of war.
A NATO official in Brussels said after two days of deadlock that efforts to break the impasse in the alliance would continue through the night, with a meeting of its North Atlantic Council set for 3:45 a.m. EST on Wednesday.
While urging Muslims to support the Iraqi people and repel any attack on their country, the tape said Saddam's secular "socialist" government had lost credibility.
"Socialists are infidels wherever they are," the statement said. But it added: "It does not hurt that in current circumstances, the interests of Muslims coincide with the interests of the socialists in the war against crusaders."
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