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Excerpts from Osama bin Laden transcript

Excerpts from Osama bin Laden audio tape transcript of Sunday, April 23, 2006.
/ Source: msnbc.com

The siege that is imposed on Hamas shows that it is a Zionist crusader war against Islam. This also shows their refusal to [acknowledge] Hamas movement, after it won the election, and we emphasized on what sheik Ayman Al-Zawahri has warned before, that it is forbidden to joined the joined councils. But their refusal to [acknowledge] Hamas proves that it is a crusader Zionist war against Muslims.

Furthermore, I say this war is a joint responsibility between the people and the government. War continues and the people [are] renewing their allegiance to their rulers and politicians sending their sons to armies to fight us, and continuing the moral and financial support while our countries are being burned, our houses bombed, our people killed and no one cares about us.

[This is] a good example [of] the blatant violations against our faith and our brothers and our countries. ...

What your ally Israel did [by] invading and demolishing Ariah Prison with the conspiracy of the British and Americans, this means destroying and demolishing the Ottoman state, the rest of caliphate state and dividing it to tens of small states and occupied it, and then the British came [a reference to the British partitioning of Sudan into northern and southern colonies until 1956] ...

and then America adopted this army financially [a reference to the June 2001 adoption of the Sudan Peace Act by the U.S. House of Representatives to provide Sudanese rebels with $10 million in assistance] ... and pressured the Khartoum government to sign an unfair treaty allowing the south to separate [a reference to the Naivasha treaty, signed in January 2005, granting southern Sudan autonomy for six years, after which its future will be determined in a referendum]. ...

[President George] Bush knows that this agreement does not equal the value of the ink that was written with, and does not commit us at all ...

America was not satisfied with all this strife and crimes; she went to raise more strife, and the strife of Sudan was the greatest, taking advantage of some disagreements between the sons of some tribes ... it is ongoing Zionist crusader war against the Muslims.

Regarding this, I call [on] the Mojihadeen and their supporters in general, and especially in Sudan and the Arab peninsula, to prepare for a long war against the crusader plunderers in western Sudan. Our goal is clear, [it] is defending Islam and its people and its land, not defending the Khartoum government. We have a great disagreement with it. It is enough to say it failed to impose the Islamic law ...

I urge the Mujahadeen to be acquainted with the land of Darfur and its tribes. For the record the Sudan region will witness a heavy rain, which will cripple the traffic and shut the dust roads. This is one of the reasons that [occupations were] delayed for six more months.