Bin Laden vows more attacks, urges Iraqi jihad

Dubai - Al Jazeera broadcast two audio tapes purportedly from Osama bin Laden on Saturday vowing more suicide attacks inside and outside the United States and warning that all countries backing Washington over Iraq were targets.

The speaker on the tapes urged Iraqis to wage a holy war against American "crusaders" in Iraq until an Islamic government was set up in Baghdad.

"You should know that this war (by the U.S.-led occupiers in Iraq) is a new crusade against the Islamic world and is a fateful war for the whole (Muslim) nation," the speaker said.

"We, God willing, will continue to fight you (Washington) and will continue martyrdom (suicide) operations inside and outside the United States until you abandon your oppression and foolish acts."

The speaker said it was now clear President Bush had launched the war that ousted Saddam Hussein to fulfil a "Zionist" lobby aim of destroying Iraq's military might and seizing its oil wealth.

"Let the unjust know we have the right to respond at any suitable time and place to all who participate in this cruel war -- Britain, Spain, Australia, Poland, Japan, Italy and Muslim states, and especially Kuwait and other Gulf states."

It was not immediately possible to independently verify the authenticity of the tapes, but the voice and style of speech were similar to bin Laden's.

WAR ON TERROR

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said: "(The tapes are) a reminder that the global war on terror continues. Terrorists are enemies of the civilized world... That's why we are taking the fight to the killers and bringing them to justice."

McClellan, accompanying Bush at an Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Bangkok, said U.S. authorities would analyze the tapes.

The recordings -- one addressed to Americans and the other to Iraqis -- appeared to be recent because the speaker accused former Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, who resigned from his post only last month, of being a U.S. agent.

The tapes seemed likely to bolster Bush's planned message to the APEC summit.

Bush told reporters in Manila: "The easiest thing to do is to think the war on terror is over... I just will remind people that...the United States is still threatened and our friends are threatened, and therefore we must continue to cooperate."

The United States blames bin Laden's al Qaeda network for the September 11, 2001 suicide plane attacks on New York and Washington that prompted Bush to launch the war on terrorism. Addressing Iraqis, the speaker on the tapes said: "Do not let those blood-sucking (U.S.) troops scare you with weapons... or with their numbers, for they have started to weaken and crumble militarily and economically and especially after the blessed day of New York."

He said the United States had been dragged into a quagmire in Iraq and that U.S. soldiers would be foolish to stay.

U.S.-led forces have occupied Iraq since toppling Saddam in April, but American troops have come under daily and often deadly attacks that Washington blames on supporters of the former Iraqi president and what it calls foreign terrorists.

More than 100 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq since Bush declared major combat over on May 1.

The speaker, whose Arabic comments were translated by Reuters, said U.S. soldiers in Iraq were dying in vain.

"Your blood is being shed to fill the coffers of the White House gang and their arms dealers and large corporations," he said.

At a Baghdad hotel, Mohammad Jawad said after watching the Al Jazeera broadcast: "In my opinion, Osama's words are true, because he asked for jihad against the Americans... They came to occupy and loot Iraq."

Last month, the Qatar-based Arabic satellite television station aired a video of bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri marking the September 11 attacks and urging fighters to turn Iraq into a graveyard for U.S. troops.

Saudi-born bin Laden's whereabouts are unknown, but he is believed to have survived the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf told Reuters on Friday bin Laden was alive and probably holed up somewhere in remote, mountainous tribal areas on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. -- Reuters

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