Heroes, Terrorists and Osama

Yes, I was. But I don't know anything that Al Itihad al-Islamiya did to America. [Al Itihad al-Islamiya] was only concerned with Ethiopia … I think Ethiopia is the agent of America in East Africa. The Americans must say what al Itihad did to them before they accuse us.

They say that you've been harboring in Somalia three suspects in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, for instance.

They don't even have any evidence relating to that, and even if they wanted to get those three people, what are they going to do, kill all the Somali people until they get to them? And they don't have any evidence that we are hiding these people.

But they do have evidence that Aden Ayro is in Somalia, and they accuse him of involvement in two terrorist incidents, the assassination of four aid workers in Somaliland, and the assassination of Abdul Qadir Yahya, the internationally respected founder of the Center for Research and Dialogue, last year.

Aden Ayro is a Somali man, he is a good man, he is part of the Islamic courts, a member of the Islamic Courts, and if they have evidence that he is a criminal, it has to be tried in a court. But I want to ask them, how are the domestic affairs of Somalia a concern of America?

Recently Osama bin Laden issued a statement praising the Islamic Courts Union.