DUBAI (Islamweb & News Agencies) - Osama bin Laden turned his wrath on the UN, Arab and other Islamic leaders, saying in a new videotaped statement broadcast on Saturday that any Muslim backing the United States' ``crusade'' in Afghanistan had betrayed the faith.Defiant and clad in military fatigues with an AK-47 assault rifle on his left, America's most wanted man appealed to the world's 1.2 billion Muslims to join him in a ``religious war'' against the ``infidel'' Christians and Jews.
It was language that President Bush, anxious for support from moderate Muslims, has been at pains to counter.
The Saudi-born militant appeared in footage broadcast by the Arabic satellite television channel al-Jazeera, his second televised statement since the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.
Bin Laden, target of a U.S. bombing campaign intended to flush him out of hiding among the ruling Taliban in Afghanistan, described the United Nations ) in other excerpts from the same broadcast as a tool of crime against Muslims and said Arab leaders who cooperated with the world body were infidels:``The United Nations is a crime tool. We (Muslims) are being slaughtered every day and it does not move.''
U.N. special representative Lakhdar Brahimi met Pakistani and Afghan leaders this week and was visiting Iran on Saturday to discuss how a new government might replace the Taliban.
The governments of Muslim states bordering Afghanistan plan to hold further meetings with U.S., Chinese and Russian officials later this month for further talks on the question.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan indicated early last month that U.N. rules gave Washington the right to proceed with a military strike against those responsible for the attacks on U.S. cities that killed nearly 5,000 people.
Bin Laden blamed the U.N. for the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, by approving a resolution that ``surrendered the land of Islam for the Jews.''