Meanwhile, senior U.S. law enforcement and intelligence officials differed sharply in their initial interpretations of the tape. "This has raised the anxiety level through the roof," said one senior federal law enforcement official in Washington.
But a second senior official called the tape confusing. "Everybody is kind of scratching their head," the official said. "Clearly, he's trying to influence American voters. The question is, why?"
On March 11, suspected Al Qaeda followers blew up commuter trains in Madrid just before Spanish national elections, killing 191 and prompting voters to reject the incumbent party, which had sent troops to Iraq and had been expected to win. A month later, Bin Laden released a tape in which he offered other European governments a cease-fire of sorts if they withdrew their troops from Iraq and other Islamic nations.
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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)
`Your Security Is in Your Own Hands'
EXCERPTS FROM BIN LADEN TAPE
Unlike what Bush says, that we hate freedom, let him tell us why didn't we attack Sweden, for example.... As you undermine our security, we undermine yours.
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Despite entering the fourth year after Sept. 11, Bush is still deceiving you and hiding the truth from you....
The incidents that affected me directly go back to 1982 and afterward, when America allowed Israelis to invade Lebanon, with the help of the American 6th Fleet....
As I watched the destroyed towers in Lebanon, it occurred to me to punish the unjust the same way [and] to destroy towers in America so it could taste some of what we are tasting and to stop killing our children and women.
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We did not find it difficult to deal with Bush and his administration, because it resembles the regimes in our countries, half of which are ruled by the military and the other half by the sons of kings.... They have a lot of pride, arrogance, greed and thievery.
This resemblance became clear in Bush the father's visits to the region.... He wound up being impressed by the royal and military regimes and envied them for staying decades in their positions and embezzling the nation's money with no supervision.
He passed on tyranny and oppression to his son, and they called it the Patriot Act, under the pretext of fighting terror. Bush the father did well in placing his sons as governors and did not forget to pass on the expertise in fraud from the leaders of the [Mideast] region to Florida to use it in critical moments.
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It never occurred to us that the commander in chief of the American forces would leave 50,000 citizens in the two towers to face these horrors alone ... because he thought listening to a child discussing her goat and its ramming was more important than the planes and their ramming of the skyscrapers.
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Your security is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush or Al Qaeda. Your security is in your own hands, and each state which does not harm our security will remain safe.
Source: Times Wire Services
Times staff writers Edwin Chen, Maura Reynolds and Mark Z. Barabak contributed to this report.
Times staff writers Edwin Chen, Maura Reynolds and Mark Z. Barabak contributed to this report.
