Terror chief Osama bin Laden sought to draw a wider public into his fight against the US in a new message, dropping his usual talk of religion and holy war and focusing instead on an unexpected topic – global warming.
The al Qaida leader blamed the US and other industrialised nations for climate change and said the only way to prevent disaster was to break the American economy, calling on the world to boycott US goods and stop using the dollar.
“The effects of global warming have touched every continent. Drought and deserts are spreading, while from the other floods and hurricanes unseen before the previous decades have now become frequent,” bin Laden said in the tape, aired on the Arab TV network Al-Jazeera.
The terror leader noted Washington’s rejection of the Kyoto Protocol aimed at reducing greenhouse gases and painted the US as in the thrall of major corporations that he said “are the true criminals against the global climate” and are to blame for the global economic crisis, driving “tens of millions into poverty and unemployment”.
Bin Laden and other al Qaida leaders have mentioned global warming and struck an anti-globalisation tone in previous tapes and videos. But the latest was the first message by bin Laden solely dedicated to the topic. It was also nearly entirely empty of the Islamic militant rhetoric that usually fills his declarations.
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