Bin Laden urges Iraqi insurgents to unite

Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden called on leaders of the insurgency in Iraq to bury their rivalries and unite in a common fight against the US-led coalition, in an audiotape broadcast Monday on Al-Jazeera.

In the message addressed to “my brother fighters in Iraq”, the purported voice of bin Laden called on the insurgent groups to fulfil their “duty” to unite “so that they become one, as God wants.”

“My brothers, emirs of the mujahedeen, Muslims are waiting for you to gather under one banner so that justice can be served,” said the voice.

Bin Laden, in the tape whose authenticity could not immediately be confirmed, said some fighters had committed “mistakes” — without elaborating — and called for insurgents not to follow “their leaders and groups blindly”.

He urged fighters “to beware of sectarianism and not to join up to a party of men, groups or nations. We are brothers in faith because we belong to Islam and not to a tribe, an organisation or a country.”

The tape on Al-Jazeera is the latest by the head of the terror network since September 20, when bin Laden called for jihad, or holy war, against Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf over his administration’s support for Washington. Bin Laden called Monday for “honest men of faith ... to exert efforts to unify the ranks of the fighters and to continue without tiring on the path to achieving that”.

Al-Jazeera television accompanied the tape with a file picture of bin Laden, with a salt-and-pepper beard and a white cloth covering his head.

Doha, Tuesday, AFP.