Bin Laden Warns Europe of Retaliation

Osama bin Laden demanded that European countries pull their troops out of Afganistan in a new audiotape Friday, warning of "retaliation" against them for their alliance with the United States in the war.

The al Qaeda leader denounced NATO airstrikes in Afghanistan that have killed civilians and warned that European countries would be held accountable alongside the Americans unless they pull out.

"A wise person would not waste his sons and money for a gang of criminals in Washington ... In summary, we are not asking too much or an invalid demand, but it would be be fair that you lift your opression and withdraw your troops," bin Laden said, addressing the Europeans.

The audiotape, just under five minutes long, was posted Friday on Islamic militant Web sites. It comes after a series of al Qaeda videos this week directly addressing Germany, threatening attacks over that country's involvement in Afghanistan. Those videos featured a little-known German-Algerian militant and have raised concerns among German authorities ahead of parliamentary elections.

Bin Laden's tape came as a voice-over on a video that had English and German subtitles translating his speech, alogn with a still photo of bin Laden in front of a European map.

Bin Laden predicted that American forces would soon pull out of the country, abandoning their European allies, and warned that al Qaeda would then retaliate against them. It was not clear whether his threat was aimed at European troops in Afghanistan or against European countries themselves.

"It won't be long before the war's dust in Afghanistan clears out, and you will not find a trace of an American (soldier) ... and it will be only us and you left," he said, addressing Europeans.

"How do think you will fare after America pulls out — Allah permitting — allowing us to retaliate from the oppressor on behalf of the oppressed?" he said.

The authenticity of the tape could not be immediatly verified, though the voice resembled that on previous recordings confirmed to be by bin Laden. The video carried the logo of al Qaeda's media arm, Al-Sahab.

The al Qaeda leader is believed to be hiding in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

...You are aware that oppression topples those who commit it and injustice has unhealthy consequences for the unjust, and that one of the greatest forms of injustice is to kill people without right, yet this is exactly what your governments and soldiers are committing under the umbrella of the NATO alliance in Afghanistan. They are killing women, children and elderly men whose only crime was that Bush became angry with them, although you know that they didn't perpetrate any aggression against Europe and had no connection to the events in America...

There is a lesson for you in the situation of your sister Georgia. Its people were bombed and humiliated, so they asked for help from America to restore sovereignty over what had been seized from them, but the latter provided them with nothing but empty words; and after they insisted, American ships finally came, not to restore Ossetia and Abkhazia, but rather, to provide what they had no need for: a few tents and a little food and laundry detergent. So reflect on that deeply.

An intelligent man doesn't waste his money and sons for a gang of criminals in Washington, and it is a shameful thing for a person to be in a coalition whose supreme commander has no regard for human life and intentionally bombs villagers from the air; and I am witness to that. Then the Humvees come along, and when it becomes clear to them that those killed were children, American generosity gushes forth in all its abundance and they give the victims' relatives $100 for every child killed. This is the painful fact; and is there to be found in Europe a ram for 100 dollars? This is the value of the life of our innocent children in the eyes of Washington and its allies, so what do you expect our reaction to be? Were you to see what your American ally and his helpers did in northern Afghanistan, and how they packed thousands of Taliban into freight containers like sardines and locked them inside until they died or were thrown into the river, you would understand the causes of the bloody events in Madrid and London...