World

Terrorist To U.S.: Don't Retaliate

October 17, 2000 / 8:45 AM EDT / AP

Suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden on Tuesday warned the United States not to attack his home in Afghanistan, where fears have grown of a retaliatory strike to the Yemen ship bombing that killed 17 Americans.

In a statement published in Pakistan's largest circulation Urdu-language newspaper, The Jang, meaning "war," bin Laden said an attack would not kill him and vowed to continue his battle against the "enemies of Islam" an apparent reference to the United States, Israel and the Saudi royal family. He made no direct reference to the Yemen attack.

The suicide bombing last week damaged a U.S. Navy vessel off the coast of Yemen. No credible claims for the attack on the USS Cole have emerged. But immediate suspicion fell on bin Laden and his organization, al Qaida, which the United States accused of organizing a worldwide terrorist network.

Since the attack, officials in Afghanistan and newspapers in neighboring Pakistan have repeatedly warned of a possible U.S. retaliatory strike against Afghanistan.

Although there are no apparent signs Washington is planning a strike, Afghans remember August 1998, when the United States fired dozens of Tomahawk cruise missiles on eastern Afghanistan in an attempt to kill bin Laden.

That assault was in retaliation for the bombings of two U.S. Embassies in East Africa that killed 224 people. Washington blamed bin Laden for the attacks and a U.S. grand jury has since indicted him.

Bin Laden has been living in Afghanistan since 1996, when he fled Sudan. The Taliban militia have refused to hand him over and on Monday denied he was responsible for the Yemen attack.

Bin Laden's statement - his first since December 1998 when the Taliban supposedly shut down his communications - was apparently issued from Kandahar in southern Afghanistan, the headquarters of the country's ruling militia.

"The dream to kill me will never be completed," bin Laden was quoted as saying.

"I am not afraid of the American threats against me," he said. "As long as I am alive there will be no rest for the enemies of Islam. I will continue my mission against them."

The Taliban seemed concerned about a possible U.S. strike.

"After 20 years of war we want only to have an Islamic system for our people. We should not be the target of the United States," Taliban spokesman Qadratullah Jamal said Monday. "They should not have attacked us before and they should not attack us now.

"There is no reason for the United States to hurt the innocent people of Afghanistan," Jamal said in the capital, Kabul.