<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/middle_east/3692079.stm> The BBC Thursday, 6 May, 2004, 21:52 GMT 22:52 UK 'Al-Qaeda' offers gold for deaths Rewards of gold are said to be on offer for the assassinations of top US and UN officials, according to a message purportedly from Osama Bin Laden. The statement said 10kg (22lb) of gold would be given to anyone killing the US Iraq administrator Paul Bremer or senior military officers. The same - worth about $125,000 - was offered for UN chief Kofi Annan or his Iraq envoy Lakhdar Brahimi. The message was published on a website known to be used by Islamist militants. It was claimed that the statement was the transcript of an audio recording by the al-Qaeda leader. The authenticity of the statement has not been verified, but observers say it used language similar to previous Bin Laden statements, laden with Koranic verse. But they add that he has never before offered rewards for missions which he considers to be a religious duty. The US has offered a $27m bounty for the capture or killing of Bin Laden. "We in al-Qaeda organisation will guarantee, God willing, 10,000 grams of gold to whoever kills the occupier Bremer, or the American chief commander or his deputy in Iraq," the purported transcript read. Smaller rewards of 1kg of gold were offered for the deaths of ordinary Americans and Britons, and half that was pledged for the killings of citizens of Japan and Italy, who were called "slaves" of the UN Security Council. The website offered various links to hear the original audio statement, but users said they could not get them to work - possibly because of the number of people trying. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'