| Bl emails { March 28 2002 } washingtonpost.com Purported Bin Laden E-Mail Attacks Saudi Plan for Mideast
Reuters Thursday, March 28, 2002; Page A22
LONDON, March 27 -- An Arabic language newspaper said today that it had received an e-mail claiming to be from Osama bin Laden that attacked a Saudi peace plan for the Middle East and urged the region's Muslims to revolt against their leaders.
Abdel-Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi, who met bin Laden in 1996, said he thought the e-mail was "most likely" genuine.
Atwan said the message conformed to the style and language of other statements his newspaper had received from bin Laden and his al Qaeda terrorist network.
The e-mail gave no clue to the whereabouts of bin Laden, the chief suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon who has been hunted for months by U.S. forces in his former Afghan cave bases.
Titled "Statement from Sheikh Osama bin Laden on the initiative of Prince Abdullah," the message criticized the peace proposal presented by Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah today to an Arab League summit meeting in Beirut.
The initiative offers Arab normalization of ties with Israel in exchange for full Israeli withdrawal from Arab land occupied in 1967.
The statement said the Saudi plan was "a Zionist-American one in Saudi clothes."
"The initiative of Prince Abdullah . . . is a conspiracy and another display of repeated betrayals," it said.
The e-mail also paid tribute to Palestinian suicide attacks against Israel and the Sept. 11 attacks.
Bin Laden, a native of Saudi Arabia who was stripped of his citizenship, has repeatedly criticized the oil-rich kingdom's leadership, especially for allowing U.S. troops to be based on the land of Islam's holiest sites.
Bin Laden issued a series of videotapes to the media last year, but none has been produced in 2002. A half-brother was quoted as telling an Arabic newspaper last week that bin Laden was alive and had contacted his mother about four weeks ago.
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
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