Pakistan dismisses Bin Laden war threat

PAKISTAN: Pakistan dismissed a reported declaration of war by Osama bin Laden against President Pervez Musharraf, vowing that the country's fight against Al-Qaeda will continue.

"We are already committed to fighting extremists and terrorists - there is no change in our policy," chief military spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad told AFP when asked about Bin Laden's upcoming threat.

"If someone is hurling threats at us, that is their view. The whole nation is behind us and the Pakistan army is a national institution," Arshad added.

An Islamist website on Thursday said that Bin Laden was to release a message declaring war on the "tyrant Pervez Musharraf and his apostate army".

Musharraf, remains chief of the Pakistani army and became a key ally of the United States after the 9/11 attacks, masterminded by the Al-Qaeda supremo.

Pakistan has suffered a dramatic upsurge in Islamist violence since the siege and storming of the Al-Qaeda-linked Red Mosque in Islamabad by government troops in July, which left more than 100 people dead.

"The message shows Bin Laden is getting desperate and it could be a signal to sleeper cells in Pakistan to get active," a senior Pakistani security official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

"We may see an escalation in the continuing attacks against the security forces but this statement does show the (Al-Qaeda) network is feeling seriously threatened by our sustained action against them."

A series of recent suicide blasts have targeted the Pakistani military, and officials say the attacks were carried out by militants with links to Al-Qaeda and pro-Taliban fighters in Pakistan's tribal areas.

A suicide bomber blew himself up in an army canteen not far from Islamabad a week ago, killing 20 elite commandos from an anti-Al-Qaeda unit that was involved in the mosque raid.

Earlier this month another bomber killed around two dozen people on a bus carrying officials from the military's main spy agency, the ISI or Inter-Services Intelligence, in the garrison city of Rawalpindi.

In another video released by Al-Qaeda's media arm, Al-Sahab, Bin Laden's deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri also warned that Musharraf would be "punished" over the killing of Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the Red Mosque's deputy leader.

Meanwhile, the United States dismissed the call by bin Laden for holy war against Pervez Musharraf's government and pledged to work closely with ally Pakistan to confront extremism.

"He can threaten whoever he wants," State Department spokesman Tom Casey told reporters.

"We are going to continue to work with Pakistan, as well as with our other friends and allies throughout the world, to confront him and make sure that we keep ourselves and our friends safe from attack from him and those like him."

"I guess it's shocking that Osama bin Laden doesn't like countries working together to confront the kind of radical extremism and perversion of Islam that he represents," Casey said, with more than a hint of sarcasm.

"I don't think it changes at all our cooperation or our desire to work with President Musharraf and the people and government of Pakistan to confront Al-Qaeda and confront extremism in that country," he said.

Earlier, bin Laden branded Iraq's Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki a "traitorous apostate" in the new video that threatens the Shiite Muslim majority in the violence-ravaged country.

The 81-minute documentary-style video was made public on Thursday by the US-based SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors Islamist websites.

In it, bin Laden talks of a succession of US-backed governments in Iraq since Saddam Hussein was overthrown in 2003 and taunts them for failing to end the US-led occupation.

The Al-Qaeda leader, a radical Sunni Muslim, makes a reference to Iraq's majority Shiite Muslims, to which he is virulently opposed, and threatens them with violence. Bin Laden says it is "obligatory for the Muslims to reach out and relieve their brothers in Mesopotamia with money and men until they have lifted from them the oppression of the Crusader and apostate trespassers."

Islamabad, Friday, AFP