http://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/33124.htm


November 1, 2004 -- WASHINGTON - Osama bin Laden warned in his October
Surprise video that he will be closely monitoring the state-by-state
election returns in tomorrow's presidential race - and will spare any
state that votes against President Bush from being attacked, according
to a new analysis of his statement.
The respected Middle East Media Research Institute, which monitors and
translates Arabic media and Internet sites, said initial translations of
a key portion of bin Laden's video rant to the American people Friday
night missed an ostentatious bid by the Saudi-born terror master to
divide American voters and tilt the election towards Democratic
challenger John Kerry.

MEMRI said radical Islamist commentators monitored over the Internet
this past weekend also interpreted the key passage of bin Laden's
diatribe to mean that any U.S. state that votes to elect Bush on Tuesday
will be considered an "enemy" and any state that votes for Kerry has
"chosen to make peace with us."

The statement in question is when bin Laden said on the tape: "Your
security is up to you, and any state that does not toy with our security
automatically guarantees its own security."

That sentence followed a lengthy passage in the video in which bin Laden
launches personal attacks on the president.

Yigal Carmon, president of MEMRI, said bin Laden used the Arabic term
"ay-wilaya" to refer to a "state" in that sentence.

That term "specifically refers to an American state, like Tennessee,"
Carmon said, adding that if bin Laden were referring to a "country" he
would have used the Arabic word "dawla."

MEMRI also translated an analysis of bin Laden's statement from the
Islamist Web site al-Qal'a, well known for posting al-Qaeda messages,
which agreed that bin Laden's use of the word "ay-wilaya" was meant as a
"warning to every U.S state separately."

"It means that any U.S. state that will choose to vote for the white
thug Bush as president, it means that it chose to fight us and we will
consider it an enemy to us, and any state that will vote against Bush,
it means that it chose to make peace with us and we will not
characterize it as an enemy," the Web site said, according to MEMRI's
translation.


Denys

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