'Bin Laden' tape calls for Iraqi suicide attacks

An audiotape purported to be from Osama bin Laden has urged Iraqis to launch suicide attacks against Americans, and called on all Muslims to unite behind Saddam Hussein in the looming war with the US.

The 16-minute tape, similar to one released in November, was aired yesterday by the al-Jazeera satellite TV station. US intelligence officials said first indications were that the voice was that of the al-Qa'ida leader. Its existence was revealed in Washington by General Colin Powell during testimony to a Senate committee. The Secretary of State said the tape was further evidence of links between President Saddam's regime and the terrorist group – arguably the weakest part of his presentation to the United Nations Security Council last week.

In the tape, Bin Laden urges Iraqis to adopt the tactics used by his fighters in the November 2001 Tora Bora battle in Afghanistan. Then his followers dug trenches to avoid smart bombs: "All the might of the enemy was unable to defeat us ... I hope our brothers in Iraq will do the same as we did. If they are in trenches they cannot get us."

He urges the Iraqis to dig in and engage the Americans in the countryside, and in urban warfare. "What the enemy is afraid of is war in the cities ... they will have big casualties."

The tape contains no evidence of an organisational link between Iraq and al-Qa'ida. Indeed it specifically differentiates between true Muslims and "infidel" and "socialist" secular regimes such as Iraq.

But with war on the horizon, the Arab and Islamic worlds should put aside their differences against the common foes of American "crusaders" and the Israelis, the tape says. "Anyone who helps America, from the Iraqi hypocrites [the Western-backed opposition] or Arab rulers ... whoever fights with them, or offers any kind of support or help, to kill Muslims in Iraq, should know that he is an apostate."

The initial White House reaction was to point out that at the very least the tape showed a common cause between terrorism and "axis of evil" states such as Iraq, and possibly suggested a deeper partnership. But if genuine it is a double-edged weapon, which will highlight the Bush administration's failure to capture or kill the man believed to have masterminded the 11 September attacks.

Of late, President George Bush has barely referred to Bin Laden, directing the full force of the war on terrorism against Iraq. But a re-emergence of the al-Qa'ida leader would give ammunition to critics of US policy on Iraq, who say America's priority should remain terrorism, not the more nebulous threat from Baghdad. War there only increase the risk of terrorist attacks on US targets, they say.