Bin Laden hails attack on US consulate

A MAN identified as Osama bin Laden has praised an attack earlier this month on a US consulate in Saudi Arabia and criticised the Saudi regime as weak and controlled by the United States.

The Western world’s most wanted terror mastermind called on his fighters to strike Gulf oil supplies and warned Saudi leaders they risked a popular uprising in an audio message on an Islamist website.

Washington said intelligence analysts were not immediately able to verify the authenticity of the recording posted on an Islamist website but the White House was quick to voice defiance.

“Take jihad (holy war) to stop (the Americans) getting hold of (the oil). Concentrate your operations on the oil, in particular in Iraq and the Gulf,” said the voice attributed to the al-Qaida leader.

The lengthy message also warned Riyadh’s rulers that “the people have woken” and laid the blame for deadly unrest gripping the country on the kingdom’s own regime.

The voice accused the regime in the ultra-conservative kingdom, which is battling a wave of Islamist attacks, of forging an alliance with the “infidel” world led by US President George Bush.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said analysts were still checking on the tape’s authenticity but vowed there would be no let-up in the administration’s fight against Islamic militancy. “We are a nation at war on terrorism,” McClellan told reporters.

The tape’s reference to the December 6 attack - in which five militants shot their way into the compound of the US Consulate in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, killing five non-American employees - showed it was made recently. Four of the attackers were also killed.

“God bless our brothers who stormed the American Consulate in Jiddah,” the speaker said. “Those who were killed of our brothers, we ask God to accept them as martyrs.”