His latest appeal

摘要

The sudden five-minute appearance of the world's most wanted man on the al-Jazeera satellite channel-Osama bin Laden's first televised performance for two years, and the first in which he has worn civilian garb and refrained from obscuring his meaning with pious rhetoric-sparked wide interest among Arabs and Muslims. Reactions were sharply divided. There was much cheering on the internet chat sites favoured by fellow-travellers in the global Salafi jihadist movement (Salafism being a puritanical call for dogged emulation of Islam's 7th-century founding fathers). One enthusiast declared that the speech proved the genius of the man he described as "our sheikh, our prince, our leader and spiritual guide of the age, and destroyer of America, and reviver of the tradition of jihad, and the source of affection and honour for Islam". Like the great early caliphs, Mr bin Laden sought to show, by choosing this moment to address the enemy America, that he was a statesman as well as a warrior.