Al-Qaeda Claims Responsibility for Attack on Djerba
"This operation was undertaken by a young man from the Al-Qaeda organization who couldn't bear to see his brothers in Palestine being killed while Jews walk around enjoying themselves and freely carrying out their rituals," Suleiman Abu Ghaith said.
A total of nineteen people were killed, including the 14 holidaymakers, when a fuel tanker exploded outside a synogogue on the resort island on April 11, AFP reported.
Investigators said the explosion was an attack carried out by the truck driver.
Abu Ghaith also confirmed that chief terror suspect Osama bin Laden was alive and will soon appear on television stations.
"Osama bin Laden, as well as Ayman Zawahiri and Mullah Omar, are in good health, contrary to rumors saying they were injured in Tora Bora," said Abu Ghaith, who was stripped of his Kuwaiti citizenship because of his alleged links to the September 11 attacks blamed on Bin Laden's organization.
"The whole world and the friends of the mujahdin (Islamic fighters) in the Muslim world will soon have the pleasure of seeing Bin Laden on television." The Al-Qaeda spokesman also threatened "new attacks against American targets." "American must prepare itself and fasten its seat belt. We will warned.
"Yes, we will undertake attacks, but at the right time, in regard to what we want and in the manner we want it.
"Neither U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney nor Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld nor their President George Bush will be able to specify the place, the time or the manner in which these attacks will be carried out," he said.
The five-year old Al-Jazeera satellite news channel, which has at least 35 million viewers in the Arab world and elsewhere, captured world attention for its exclusive reports during the U.S.-led strikes on Afghanistan and for showing taped statements by presumed terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden.