Osama bin Laden yesterday put a bounty of gold on the heads of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and U.S. Iraqi administrator Paul Bremer.
In a 20-minute audio recording, the world’s most-wanted man announced he will award 22 pounds of gold – worth about $125,000 – to whomever assassinates Annan and Bremer.
He offered lesser amounts for the murders of other figures.
The recording, which included verses from the Koran, appeared on Web sites run by Islamic militants sympathetic to the master terrorist behind the 9/11 attacks.
“We in al Qaeda organization are committed to a prize of 10,000 grams of gold to whomever kills Bremer, his deputy, the commander of American forces or his deputy in Iraq,” bin Laden said.
The recording said the same sum is offered for the killing of Annan, or of the U.N. envoy to Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi, who is in the troubled country for talks about the coalition’s June handover of sovereignty to Iraqi leaders.
“The United Nations is nothing but a Zionists’ tool, even if it worked under the cover of providing humanitarian aid,” bin Laden says.
“Whoever kills Kofi Annan or the head of his commission in Iraq or a representative like Lakhdar Brahimi, he will be awarded the same prize of 10,000 grams of gold.”
The United States’ own bounty on bin Laden now stands at $50 million.
The Saudi-born terrorist, who is believed to be hiding somewhere on the lawless Afghanistan-Pakistan border, gives no indication of how he intends to pay up.
“For security reasons, the rewards will be given as soon as conditions permit, God willing,” he says on the recording, which was titled, “A Word from the emir of the Islamic armies, Osama, to the nation and especially to brotherly Muslims in Iraq.”
“As for those who die while killing an occupying solider, the great prize will be for us and for him when God grants him martyrdom, and the smaller prize [the gold] will be for his family.”
Bin Laden promised a lesser prize – 1,000 grams of gold – to anyone killing a citizen of countries he called “the masters of the veto like Americans and Britons” – a reference to nations with veto power on the U.N. Security Council.
And he offered 500 grams of gold to anyone killing citizens of countries he called “slaves of the Security Council who are in Iraq, like Japan and Italy.”
Bin Laden also denounced U.S. plans to hand sovereignty to Iraqis next month, calling them a trick to end the resistance that has killed hundreds of U.S. soldiers, and ” threatened any Iraqis helping the U.S.-led coalition.
“Whoever helps the infidels against Muslims, or helps the occupying forces and whatever is affiliated to them – such as the transitional or permanent government – is committing a violation to Islam,” he said, warning of consequences including “spilling blood, taking his money, separating him from his wife.” With Post Wire Services