ISLAMABAD: Al Qaeda confirmed on Friday that Osama bin Laden was dead, dispelling doubts by some Muslims the group's leader had really been killed by US forces, and vowed to mount more attacks on the West.
The announcement by the militant organization, which promised to publish a taped message from bin Laden soon, appeared intended to show its adherents around the globe the group had survived as a functioning network.
In a statement online, it said the blood of bin Laden, shot to death by a US commando team in a raid on Monday on his hide-out in a Pakistani town, “is more precious to us and to every Muslim than to be wasted in vain.”
“It will remain, with permission from Allah the Almighty, a curse that hunts the Americans and their collaborators and chases them inside and outside their country.”
Al Qaeda urged Pakistanis to rise up against their government to “cleanse” the country of what it called the shame brought on it by bin Laden's shooting and of the “filth of the Americans who spread corruption in it.”
The statement also warned Americans not to harm bin Laden's corpse and to hand it and those of others killed to their families, although US officials say bin Laden's body has been buried at sea and no others were taken from the compound.
Some in the Muslim world have been skeptical of bin Laden's death. One survey conducted in Pakistan this week by the British-based YouGov polling organization found that 66 percent of over 1,000 respondents did not think the person killed by US Navy SEALs was bin Laden.
Before Friday prayers at a mosque in Paris, one man who declined to give his name said: “This whole story is a myth. They invented it to distract Americans from real problems over there, like the economy and gas prices.”
But US President Barack Obama continued to bask in public approval for the killing of bin Laden. He flew to a military base at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, on Friday to thank special forces involved in the raid.
“This has been an extraordinary week for our nation,” Obama told a jubilant audience of troops. “The terrorist leader who struck our nation on September 11 will never threaten our nation again.” But he warned that “this continues to be a very tough fight.”
US-Pakistan Tensions
Anger and suspicion between Washington and Islamabad over the raid in Abbottabad, 30 miles (50 km) from the Pakistani capital, showed no sign of abating.
A US drone killed 17 suspected militants in northwest Pakistan, despite warnings from the Pakistani military against the mounting of attacks within its borders.
About 1,500 s rallied in the southwestern city of Quetta to vow revenge for bin Laden's death and there were small protests elsewhere. Afghan Taliban and Indonesian youths made similar threats.
A Taliban spokesman said the group “believes the martyrdom of Sheikh Osama bin Laden will give a new impetus to the current jihad against the invaders.” Bin Laden lived for years in Afghanistan and is thought to have plotted the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States from there.
One of bin Laden's wives, Amal Ahmed Abdulfattah, told Pakistani interrogators the al Qaeda leader had been living for five years in the compound where he was killed, a Pakistani security official told Reuters.
The disclosure appeared sure to heighten US suspicions that Pakistani authorities had been either grossly incompetent or playing a double game in the hunt for bin Laden and the two countries' supposed partnership against violent.
Pakistani security forces took 15 or 16 people into custody from the Abbottabad compound after US forces removed bin Laden's body, said the security official. They included bin Laden's three wives and several children.
In Washington, a US official said US intelligence had established on-the-ground surveillance in Abbottabad in advance of the raid.
US officials also said among materials found at bin Laden's hide-out was evidence indicating al Qaeda at one point considered attacking the US rail system on the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks later this year.
Officials said evidence analyzed so far indicated bin Laden was still involved in directing al Qaeda's activities, even though he had largely avoided the public spotlight for years.
The fact that bin Laden was found in a garrison town - his compound was not far from a military academy - has embarrassed Pakistan and the covert raid has angered its military.
Pressure is building in the US Congress to suspend or at least review US aid to Pakistan.
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The Pakistan army, for its part, threatened on Thursday to halt counterterrorism cooperation with the United States if it conducted any more similar raids.
It was unclear if such attacks included drone strikes the US military conducts regularly against militants along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan.
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