US to analyse bin Laden tape

US experts were today preparing to analyse an audio tape believed to have been made by al-Qaida terror chief Osama bin Laden urging Iraqis to carry out suicide attacks against Americans.

American officials said the call proved the world must fear Saddam Hussein’s ties to the al-Qaida terror network.

The appeal was made in a voice tape aired yesterday by the Al-Jazeera satellite television station throughout the Arab world and believed by US officials to be authentic.

It was broadcast as US officials warned of devastating attacks within the United States and the Persian Gulf, where US forces are massing for a possible attack against Iraq.

“This nexus between terrorists and states that are developing weapons of mass destruction can no longer be looked away from and ignored,” US Secretary of State Colin Powell told the Senate Budget Committee in Washington.

Even though US officials point to ties between al-Qaida and Iraq, the speaker on the tape referred to Saddam Hussein and his associates as “infidels”.

But he added that it was all right for his followers to temporarily co-operate with them.

Some analysts wondered at bin Laden’s motives for issuing a statement supporting Iraq, given many countries’ scepticism of US allegations of Iraqi-al-Qaida links.

Others worried the recording would inflame Muslims against US troops in the Gulf region.

On the tape, broadcast on the first day of the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha, the speaker advised Iraqis how to fight the Americans, based on al-Qaida’s experience in Afghanistan.

“We stress the importance of martyrdom operations against the enemy, these attacks that have scared Americans and Israelis like never before,” the man identified as bin Laden said.

“We advise about the importance of drawing the enemy into long, close and exhausting fighting, taking advantage of camouflaged positions in plains, farms, mountains and cities,” he said.

The speaker urged the Iraqis to draw the Americans into urban combat, saying “the thing that the enemy fears the most is to fight a city war.”

US military planners fear Saddam might ring Baghdad with his best troops of the elite Republican Guard and draw US forces into bloody street fighting where they could not use their hi-tech weapons for fear of causing massive civilian casualties.

The speaker also told Iraqis not to worry about American smart bombs and laser-guided weapons because “they work on only the clear, obvious targets.”

He encouraged Iraqis to use deception techniques to neutralise American technological superiority.

Some Middle East experts have questioned ties between bin Laden’s Islamic extremists and Saddam’s government, which nominally adheres to a Pan-Arabic socialistic doctrine called Baathism.

On the tape, however, the speaker said it was acceptable for Muslims to fight on behalf of Iraqi “socialists” because “in these circumstances” their interests ”intersect in fighting against the Crusaders”, or Christians.

US counterterrorism officials in Washington said the audio message was probably a real recording of bin Laden, and that a technical analysis was planned to authenticate it.

The officials said it was unclear when the recording was made but said it was probably recent, given all the attention the speaker gave to Iraq.

Yasser Thabet, a broadcast editor at Al-Jazeera, said the station received the tape by the same channels as previous bin Laden statements, but he did not give details.

Bin Laden often used Al-Jazeera to broadcast statements during the Afghanistan war until the elusive terrorist leader vanished after the battle at Tora Bora in December 2001.

Al-Jazeera is not widely seen in Iraq because few Iraqis are permitted to have satellite dishes.

However, many of them listen to foreign Arabic language broadcasts, which relayed details of the broadcast.

There was no immediate comment from the Iraqi government, which has repeatedly denied links with al-Qaida.

Bin Laden’s previous statements have not gone nearly as far in expressing solidarity with Iraq, counterterrorism officials in Washington said.

In Washington, CIA Director George Tenet said intelligence information suggested al-Qaida may launch attacks as early as this week in both the United States and on the Arabian peninsula.

“The intelligence is not idle chatter on the part of terrorists and their associates,” Tenet told Congress.

”It is the most specific we have seen, and it is consistent with both our knowledge of al-Qaida’s doctrine and our knowledge of plots this network – and particularly its senior leadership – has been working on for years.”

Tenet said the information suggested the attack might involve a “dirty bomb” - a weapon that spreads radioactive material over a wide area – or chemical or poison weapons.

In Washington, US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the tape showed Saddam and bin Laden, the mastermind of the September 11 attacks, were “bound by a common hatred” of America and its Arab allies.

“He threatens everybody in the Arab world except Saddam Hussein,” Boucher said of bin Laden in an interview broadcast by Al-Jazeera with an Arabic voiceover.

“I think it threatens not only the US but half a dozen Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Jordan and others and the whole world.”

Hours before the tape was broadcast, Powell told a Senate panel that he had learned of the new statement “where once again” bin Laden “speaks to the people of Iraq and talks about their struggle and how he is in partnership with Iraq.”

In remarks to the UN Security Council on Wednesday, Powell accused Iraq of harbouring al Qaida fugitive Abu Musaab Zarqawi, who has been linked to the murder of a US diplomat in Jordan and poison plots in a half-dozen European countries.

“We are not surprised that Iraq is harbouring Zarqawi and his subordinates,” Powell said. “Ambition and hatred are enough to bring Iraq and al-Qaida together.”