Islamic group threatens more anti-U.S attacks
Hallaj
Islamic group threatens more anti-U.S. attacks
By Alistair Lyon
CAIRO (Reuters) - A group calling itself the Islamic International
Front for Fighting Jews and
Crusaders has issued new threats against the United States, the
London-based Arabic-language daily
al-Hayat reported Wednesday.
It said the group had sent a statement to its Cairo office saying that
the ``holy struggle operations''
carried out recently against the United States would continue ``until
American forces withdraw from
the land of Muslims.''
Al-Hayat said it had received the statement together with three from
the so-called Islamic Army for the
Liberation of the Holy Places, which claimed responsibility for the
devastating August 7 bombings of
the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
The Islamic International Front statement referred to the Islamic Army
for the Liberation of the Holy
Places without specifying that the two groups were linked, al-Hayat
said.
The paper said the Islamic International Front for Fighting Jews and
Crusaders issued its first
statement in February in the form of a fatwa, or religious edict, from
several radical Islamist leaders,
including Saudi-born Osama bin Laden.
Bin Laden, now based in Afghanistan, is widely suspected of having
orchestrated the bombings in
Kenya and Tanzania.
Other signatories to the front's first statement were Ayman
al-Zawahri, leader of Egypt's Jihad group,
Rifai Taha, head of Egypt's Gama'a al-Islamiya (Islamic Group), Mir
Hamza, secretary general of
Pakistan's Ulema Society, Fadl al-Rahman Khalil, chief of
Harkat-ul-Ansar in Pakistan, and Abdel
Salam Mohammed, who heads the Jihad Movement in Bangladesh.
Taha denied last month that he was part of the front or of any group
targeting American interests.
The latest Front statement said: ``When the formation of the Army for
the Liberation of the Holy
Places was announced through these operations it was then clear to
all, including the American people,
that we were not lying when we gave warnings.''
It said the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam had
``supervised the killings of 13,000 Somali
civilians when the United States led an aggression against this Muslim
country in 1993'' -- a reference
to the U.S.-led force that intervened in Somalia under U.N. auspices
to protect relief efforts.
The Front said the bombings were to avenge ``the injustice meted out
by the American government to
all Muslim nations.''
``The coming days will, God willing, see that America meets a black
fate similar to what happened to
the Soviet Union. There will be more attacks. More and more Islamic
groups will appear that will all
fight against American interests,'' it said.
One of the three accompanying statements from the Islamic Army for the
Liberation of the Holy
Places took the form of an open letter to the Kenyan people, Al-Hayat
said.
The statement said the Nairobi bombing was carried out by the Platoon
of Martyr Khaled al-Said and
had been targeted only against the American presence in the Kenyan
capital.
The bomb killed 247 people, only 12 of them Americans, and wounded
more than 5,000.
``It was not the intention of the Islamic Army to hurt any Kenyan
citizens and the responsibility for the
whole operation lies squarely with America. America should compensate
the Kenyan people for
bringing war to their land,'' the statement said.
``Your (Kenyan) government is at fault for bringing death to your
country by letting America use your
land to kill Muslims in neighboring countries and besiege their
economies,'' it added.
The statement accused Kenya and Tanzania of cooperating with Israel as
well as the United States.
``Cooperating with the Israelis while they are occupying (Jerusalem's)
Aqsa Mosque is considered a
declaration of war against Muslims across the world,'' it said.
``Kenya and Tanzania have become the
biggest American bases against Muslims.''
Another of the Islamic Army's statements said it was in a
``life-or-death battle'' with Jews and
Americans.
``Our dependable weapon in this war is to pile up bodies of Americans
against their unjust government
till we break American dignity,'' it said, warning Muslims ``not to
come near anything American so that
what happened in Nairobi will not be repeated.''
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