Osama Bin Laden.Threatens.

France's Kouchner slams Bin Laden's 'unacceptable threats'

AgenciesPosted: Thu Oct 28 2010, 16:48 hrs===============================================Paris:

Kouchner slams Bin Laden's 'unacceptable threats'

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner on Thursday denounced Islamist militant leader Osama bin Laden's threat of new attacks and said France was in a state of "extreme vigilance."

Kouchner was reacting after a taped message purportedly from the Al-Qaeda kingpin said that five French hostages kidnapped in the Sahara had been taken as a warning, and threatened more attacks on French interests.

"The unacceptable threats are not new," Kouchner told reporters, playing down Bin Laden's influence over the North African Al-Qaeda affiliate that carried out September's kidnap of the French nationals in northern Niger.

"Mr Bin Laden has taken this opportunity. It was opportunism. It's not him, it's not Mr Bin Laden who is holding the hostages, it's much more complicated than that," Kouchner said, on the sidelines of a diplomatic meeting in Paris. (the indian express)

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Osama bin Laden threatens French troops, criticizes France burqa ban

By Kristen Chick, Correspondent / October 28, 2010

Osama bin Laden said France’s ban on Islamic full-face veils for women, like the niqab or the burqa, was unjust, and justified Al Qaeda attacks on French soldiers in Afghanistan.

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In this 2008 file photo, a burqa-clad Afghan woman walks past a French soldier with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) during a patrol on the outskirts of Kabul. Osama bin Laden has threatened French troops in Afghanistan, while criticizing a French ban on the burqa in a new audio recording.

Shah Marai/AFP Photo/File/Newscom

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The Al Qaeda leader also criticized the Afghanistan war and said that Al Qaeda will kidnap French citizens if France does not withdraw from Afghanistan.Al Jazeera reports that in the audio recording, Bin Laden says the kidnapping of five French nationals in Niger last month was the result of French injustices against Muslims. That kidnapping has been claimed by an allied group in North Africa, called Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

He also said France’s ban of Islamic full-face veils for women, like the niqab or the burqa, was unjust. France’s law is due to take effect in April.

Tape authenticated

The French Foreign Ministry said today that the tape appears real. Its "authenticity can be considered established based on initial verifications," it said in a statement, according to theAssociated Press.

France may begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan next year, reports Agence France-Presse. But French Defense Minister Herve Morin said withdrawal plans are part of a NATO timeline, and have nothing to do the Bin Laden tape. France has about 3,500 soldiers in Afghanistan and 50 have died there since 2001.

According to France 24, the recording is the first time the Al Qaeda leader has specifically threatened the French. An expert on North African terrorist groups told the news channel that the message shows close coordination between Al Qaeda’s North Africa branch and its “headquarters” in Afghanistan and Pakistan. CNN recently reported that, according to a top NATO official, the Al Qaeda leader is living comfortably in a house in northwest Pakistan.

Bin Laden's waning influence

Despite attempts to influence the Arab and Muslim public with his messages, Bin Laden’s relevance may be waning. He released two audio recordings in January that attempted to broaden Al Qaeda’s appeal, but The Christian Science Monitor reported that he was hardly heard beyond his small circle of supporters.

Bin Laden is arguably irrelevant when it comes to his ability to inspire the overthrow of a government like Saudi Arabia's, let alone America's. The deep concerns, nine years ago, that the propaganda of his deeds was going to raise legions in support for a global Islamic emirate have since been laid to rest.

"What everyone is really focused on right now is AQAP [in Yemen and Saudi Arabia], and some people say it shows Al Qaeda is really dangerous and the people who said they were 'irrelevant' are wrong," says Marc Lynch, a political science professor at George Washington University who studies the Arab world. "But that's a misunderstanding. What I've been saying is that Al Qaeda, as a political force in the mainstream Arab world, is way down. They're seen as marginal, irrelevant, not attractive anymore."

After Bin Laden released another recording in March, the Monitor's Dan Murphy reported that "as the years have gone by without his threats backed up by solid action – no successful attack has been carried out by his group on US soil since 2001 – his comments have increasingly been treated as empty." (Christian Science Monitor)

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