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Al-Qaeda offers prisoner swaps with 'any party'
Al-Qaeda said in a video posted on the Internet on Friday that it was ready to consider exchanges of prisoners with Western nations and singled out a radical cleric under arrest in Britain. The cleric, Abu Qatada, has offered to play a role in helping to secure the release of BBC reporter Alan Johnston, who went missing in Gaza City on March 12. "Al-Qaeda al-Jihad Organization in Khorasan [Afghanistan] announces its readiness to receive any Muslim captive exchanged with any party by any party, whether he is from those with whom the prisons of the states of the Cross are choked, or one of those imprisoned in other states of infidelity and apostasy," Abu Laith al-Libi said in the video. "Foremost among these captives is the virtuous sheikh and caller Abu Qatada al-Filistini, who is being kept in one of the prisons of Britain," said Libi. The authenticity of the video could not be verified. Abu Qatada, once described as the spiritual head of the Al-Qaeda network in Europe, was arrested in Britain in August 2005 as part of a crackdown on Islamist extremism after 56 people were killed in London suicide bombings. He is currently fighting extradition to Jordan. Posted by: Seafarious 2007-05-26 |
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