Bin Laden vows more attacks on U.S.

Dubai - A Saudi-owned newspaper published Sunday excerpts of what it said was a new audio recording by Osama bin Laden in which he vowed to wage more attacks against American targets throughout the world.

In the recording, which was obtained by the London-based Al Hayat newspaper, the Saudi-born militant urged Muslims to set aside their fear of the United States and fight it, saying Washington was planning to invade more Arab states after Iraq.

Al Hayat said it obtained the recording off an Islamist Web site affiliated with bin Laden's Qaeda network. The paper did not identify the site and access to Islamist Web sites that have in the past published al Qaeda statements are frequently blocked by Internet hackers.

Al Hayat did not provide a text of the speech, but said the Qaeda leader had made the 50-minute recording on the occasion of last week's Muslim feast of Eid al-Adha.

"In the recording, Osama bin Laden pledges to maintain the fight against Americans in the world calling on Islamic nations to defeat the Americans," Al Hayat said.

If authenticated, the recording would be the most recent proof that bin Laden had escaped the 2001 U.S.-led military campaign to flush him and his Qaeda operatives from Afghanistan.

It follows another audio tape broadcast last week by Qatar's al Jazeera television network in which the Saudi-born militant called on Muslims to use suicide attacks and bombings to prevent a U.S. war on Iraq.

The recordings coincide with a state of high alert in the United States and its ally Britain who said they had concrete information that al Qaeda was planning a slew of attacks.

Qaeda attacks have in the past followed messages by bin Laden and Jazeera's Tuesday broadcast of its tape heightened fears of an imminent strike.

BIN LADEN CALLS BUSH AN "IDIOT"

In the new recording, Al Hayat said the Qaeda leader, Washington's key suspect in the worst attacks on U.S. soil since World War II, praised the September 11, 2001, strikes and said they proved that Muslims could defeat America.

He also called President Bush an "idiot" and "the Pharaoh of this era," accusing him of waging a "new crusade to divide the region for the sake of Israel."

"The September 11 attackers destroyed the idols of infidel America and rubbed the nose of the United States in the dirt," the newspaper quoted bin Laden as saying.

"They proved that it (the United States) could be defeated and humiliated," he added. "Oh Muslims, do not fear America because we have defeated them repeatedly and they are the most cowardly of people when you meet them face to face."

Al Hayat said the recording was of very good quality and bin Laden could be clearly heard rustling the papers of his speech.

It also quoted unnamed Islamists saying bin Laden had made the recording to clarify the Qaeda's position on Iraq after the Jazeera broadcast which the United States said proved the Saudi militant and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein were in partnership.

The newspaper did not give any more details, but said bin Laden also talked about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, prayed for the militants detained at a U.S. base in Guantanamo, Cuba and hailed the leader of Egypt's Islamic Jihad militant group who is serving a life sentence in the United States.

Friday, a U.S. intelligence source said a CIA analysis of the Jazeera broadcast showed it was "almost certainly" the voice of bin Laden. Analysts have said the tape played into U.S. hands because it showed bin Laden and Saddam both wanted to fight the United States, even if they have disparate political agendas. -- Reuters

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