Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Al-Qaeda offers US conditional peace

Al-Qaeda has offered the US President Barack Obama a truce in exchange for a complete withdrawal of US-led troops from Afghanistan.

Ayman al Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's number two, offered the conditional truce in a 90-minute video released on Monday.

"If Obama wants to [reach] an understanding then he should respond to Sheikh Osama [bin Laden's] two offers," Zawahiri noted, referring to the militants' commander-in-chief's suggestions for a ceasefire.

Bin Laden had put forward the notion of a peace treaty with the US in 2006 which would entail "just conditions that we will stand by ... a truce which offers security and stability and the rebuilding of Iraq and Afghanistan which war has destroyed."

The quid pro quo armistice was originally proposed to the administration of the former US president George W. Bush.

Zawahiri reiterated Bin Laden's conditions for a peace, saying, "The minimum that the mujahideen (al-Qaeda) would accept [includes] ... the exit of infidel troops from all of the land of Islam and an end to stealing Muslims' wealth under the threat of military power," The Washington Post quoted him on Monday.

He went on to warn the US of more attacks unless the conditions were met.
 

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