Bin Laden and the cartoons

Yesterday a tape surfaced that might contain Bin Laden's latest communique. He demands that the cartoonists behind the drawings of Mohammed should be extradited. An obvious, if a little delayed, reaction (and a possible proof of it really being bin Laden in some remote corner of the world). The speech also touches on the conflict in the Palestinian territories and the conflict in Darfur.

The fact that Hamas and the Sudanese government is distancing itself to bin Laden's statements leads one Danish paper (Politiken) to conclude that Bin Laden Speaks, but no one listens. That is a typical and oversimplified analysis of what Bin Laden is trying to do with these communiqués. There are those who listens, and he doesn't aim to become a front-line vanguard at the moment, only to retain his position as islamic militant no. 1. Therefor it is naïve to think that political systems in Sudan and Palestine is his audience for these broadcasts.