The spokesman for al Qaeda network said the Jihad holy war would continue even if its leader Osama bin Laden was killed, a Kuwaiti newspaper reported on Tuesday.
"The Jihad will continue even if bin Laden dies...every time Osama dies a new Osama will carry the flag," Sulaiman bu Ghaith told al-Watan newspaper. The newspaper said it conducted the interview through a third party in areas still controlled by the Taliban movement.
Kuwait's al-Qabas newspaper had said on Monday that there were unconfirmed reports that Ghaith was wounded and possibly killed in the US attacks against Afghanistan which started on October 7.
Al-Watan quoted sources in Afghanistan as saying Ghaith, who was stripped of his Kuwaiti citizenship in October, was alive. Ghaith ridiculed the Kuwaiti government for withdrawing his citizenship and said he was on a higher mission for Jihad. "I will not go back on my Jihad in the name of God and the victory of his religion even if I had 1,000 Kuwaiti citizenships and they withdrew one everyday," Ghaith said.
"I call on our Muslim nation to say that these events (since September 11) have divided the world into two teams, so my Muslim brothers do not allow the devil to lure you and become stuck with the American team on doomsday". Muslim human rights groups on Monday called on Pakistan to immediately grant political asylum to hundreds of Arab and Muslim fighters in Afghanistan.
The call was made in a joint statement by non-government Islamist groups -- the Kuwait-based International Islamic Committee for Human Rights and the Muslim Lawyers' Organisation, which operates out of Germany. They sent a statement to a news agency urging "Pakistan's government to grant Arab and other foreign fighters now in Afghanistan humane and political asylum in line with humane laws and treaties".
Several regional states are believed to have citizens in Afghanistan, including some fighting alongside the Taliban movement and al Qaeda.
Bureau Report