Sunday, June 27, 2004

Osama Bin Laden has told the mass-circulation Dawn newspaper in Pakistan that his al-Qaeda group possesses chemical and nuclear weapons.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1648572.stm

But, while the English-language newspaper carries a clear message from Bin Laden that he has access to such weapons, he makes no such claim in an Urdu-language version of the interview.

Dawn's English version quotes Bin Laden as saying: "If America used chemical and nuclear weapons against us, then we may retort with chemical and nuclear weapons. We have the weapons as a deterrent."

Mr Mir then asks Bin Laden where he got the weapons, which the al-Qaeda leader declines to answer.

But in the Urdu version of the article, Bin Laden does not threaten to use nuclear or chemical weapons.

"The US is using chemical weapons against us and it has also decided to use nuclear weapons. But our war will continue," he says, according to the BBC's own translation of the Ausaf article.

No comments: