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| Down Under |
| Australian al-Qaeda member seen on latest propaganda tape |
| 2005-08-10 |
| BRANDISHING an automatic rifle and vowing in a broad Australian accent to take revenge against the West, this man could be our latest homegrown terrorist. ASIO officers were stunned when this balaclava-clad man appeared on Arab television yesterday threatening a bloody campaign against Western countries with troops inside Iraq. He then boasted that his al-Qaeda comrades had brought down a US helicopter in Afghanistan in June, killing 16 troops. "It is time for us to be equals. As you kill us, you'll be killed. As you bomb us, you will be bombed," the heavily-armed young man said in what seemed to be an Australian accent. A crack team of intelligence agents was last night working on the ground in the Middle East, scanning the video footage for clues. While the tape could be an elaborate hoax, they are treating it as genuine until proved otherwise. The video was broadcast on the Dubai-based network Al-Arabiya and warned British Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George W. Bush to remove troops from Iraq or face further attacks from Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda. Deliberately switching between a London cockney and Australian accent, the man appeared determined to disguise his origins. But language experts yesterday told The Daily Telegraph the man probably spent part of his childhood in Australia and it was more likely his British accent was fake. "From listening to this man speak, it's clear he has spent quite a bit of his youth in Australia," Dr Felicity Cox from Macquarie University said. A spokeswoman for Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said the video was being treated seriously and copies had been passed on to ASIO. "We've been advised that ASIO is looking at the footage very carefully and will keep us informed of any developments," the spokeswoman said. Mr Ruddock's office said about 10,000 people from around the world poured into Afghanistan to fight alongside the Taliban in 2002 and "there was every possibility" some were Australians. Adelaide man David Hicks trained alongside Taliban forces, while Mamdouh Habib has refused to explain why he was in Pakistan and Afghanistan before and just after the September 11 attacks in New York. In a two-minute assault on Western values, the self-declared freedom fighter featured in the yesterday's video declared war on the perceived enemies of Islam. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |