Bin Laden offers 'truce'

13 April 2012

Osama bin Laden today sent a taped message offering a truce with Europe - to be greeted with ridicule by political leaders.

The terror chief 's proposition - which excluded America - came in an audio tape broadcast on Arab satellite TV and was conditional upon "an immediate halt to attacks on Muslims".

Initial indications suggested the tape was authentic, according to a European security source. It said last month's Madrid bombings, which killed 191 people, were payment for Spain's presence in Iraq, Afghanistan and "Palestine", and went on: "What happened on September 11 and March 11 are your goods returned to you."

The three-month truce was offered because polls have shown that "most of the European peoples want reconciliation" with the Islamic world, said the tape. But the al Qaeda leader's offer was condemned as "ludicrous" by Home Secretary David Blunkett. "The Western allies have a job to do in Iraq and they will do it and they will deal with Osama bin Laden," Mr Blunkett added.

Italy, Germany and Spain were also quick to condemn any suggestion of negotiations with terrorists. Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini said: "It's unthinkable that we may open a negotiation
with Bin Laden." A German government spokesman said: "There can be no negotiations with terrorists and serious criminals like Osama bin Laden."

In Spain, incoming foreign minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, said: "Bin Laden is the enemy of all of us who seek peace, democracy and freedom. We must not listen to him or pay attention to him."

Mr Blunkett spoke after the Foreign Office issued a comprehensive rebuttal of the points made in the broadcast. Attempts to drive a wedge between Europe and the United States would fail, a spokesman said. "The idea of an armistice with a group that defines itself by violence is an absurdity," he added.

"Neither we nor our European partners are going to be intimidated into withdrawing from action against terrorism, or to break the transatlantic alliance that has been the cornerstone of our freedom and defence policy for decades."

The tape also threatened retaliation in Israel for the killing of Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin in Gaza last month, and said US policy ignores the "real problem - the occupation of all of Palestine".

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