Osama bin Laden promised never to be captured alive and declared the US had resorted to the same “barbaric” tactics used by Saddam Hussein, according to an audiotape purportedly by the Al-Qaeda leader that was posted on a militant website on Monday.The tape appeared to be a complete version of the one that was first broadcast on January 19 on Al-Jazeera in which bin Laden offered the US a long-term truce but also said his Al-Qaeda terror network would soon launch a fresh attack on American soil.“I have sworn to only live free. Even if I find bitter the taste of death, I don’t want to die humiliated or deceived,” bin Laden said in the 11-minute, 26 second tape.In drawing the comparison to American military behaviour in Iraq to that of Saddam, he said: “The jihad is continuing with strength. Despite all the barbarity, the repressive steps taken by the American army and its agents, to the extent that there is no longer any difference between this criminality and the criminality of Saddam.”He also denied the Bush administration’s assertions that it was better to fight terrorists in Iraq than on US soil.“The war against America and its allies has not remained confined to Iraq as he (Bush) claims, but rather Iraq has become a point of attraction and recruitment of qualified forces,” he added.Laden also engaged in renewed propaganda, mocking Bush’s aircraft carrier declaration in April 2003 that major conflict in Iraq had ended.
