Holy War Has Funds, Bin Laden Says
.c The Associated Press
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - Osama bin Laden, the top suspect in the Sept. 11 terror attacks, says Washington's move to freeze assets of groups linked to his al-Qaida movement will not curtail his activities, a newspaper reported Friday.
The report appeared in the Urdu-language Ummat, which is published in Karachi. The newspaper said it had submitted questions for bin Laden to Taliban officials and had received written replies. Efforts to contact Taliban officials to confirm were unsuccessful.
``Freezing of the assets or accounts of al-Qaida or any other jihad (holy war) organization won't make any difference,'' Ummat quoted bin Laden as saying.
``By the grace of God, al-Qaida has got three alternate financial systems, which are separate and independent. This system is run by people who love jihad, and if the whole world - including the United States - tries to remove them, they won't succeed,'' he was quoted as saying. ``These people are not a few hundred. They are in the thousands and hundreds of thousands.
President Bush on Monday ordered a freeze on the assets of 27 people and organizations with suspected links to terrorism, including bin Laden and al-Qaida.
In the interview, bin Laden said his vast network of thousands of sympathizers would not be affected by Bush's move because its members include financial experts who know all the loopholes in the global financial system.
Bin Laden - a millionaire Saudi exile living in Afghanistan since 1996 - repeated denials that he had been behind the Sept. 11 attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The Bush administration has demanded the Taliban hand him over to the United States, or else face retribution.
``I want to clarify that my job is to inspire Muslims and to tell them what is in their interests and what is bad, what Islam says and what anti-Islamic forces say,'' bin Laden was also quoted as saying. ``Al-Qaida was established for jihad against those infidel countries that are attacking Muslims. Jihad is the sixth most important principle of Islam. Every enemy of Islam is afraid of jihad.''
Bin Laden claimed the Western media were spreading propaganda against him. ``They are saying such absurd things about us that we wonder (whether) they have become the victim of their own propaganda and began to fear it,'' he said.
Islam does not permit the killing of innocent women, children or men, even during war, he said. ``I have said this before - that I have no connection with the Sept. 11 attacks in America ... nor any information about it.''
The newspaper has not been a conduit for bin Laden statements in the past.
AP-NY-09-28-01 1622EDT
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M&M Man
