Bin Laden Attacks European Union Over Cartoons

Osama bin Laden has threatened the European Union with grave punishment over "insulting drawings" of the Prophet Muhammad as the Muslim world marked the prophet's birthday.

He says in an audio internet posting that the "wise men" of the European Union had gone "overboard in your unbelief and freed yourselves of the etiquettes of dispute and fighting and went to the extent of publishing these insulting drawings. This is the greatest misfortune and the most dangerous".
 

In the recording posted on a website that has previously carried the group's statements, a voice believed to be the al-Qaeda leader's says the cartoons were part of a "crusade" in which the Roman Catholic pope, Benedict XVI, was involved.

 

He said <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 />Europe was intentionally targeting Muslim women and children at the behest of their "unjust ally who is close to departing the White House".<?xml:namespace prefix = o /> "The response will be what you see and not what you hear and let our mothers bereave us if we do not make victorious our messenger of God," he goes on to say without specifying what action will be taken. 

The message also coincided with the fifth anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq.