US officials say voice on tape praising Bali bombings 'sounds like Bin Laden'
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Your support makes all the difference.Intelligence analysts were examining a taped message last night said to have been made by Osama bin Laden in which he praises a recent spate of terrorist attacks and warns of more attacks if the West attacks Iraq.
The message, which specifically threatens Britain, was broadcast across the Arab world yesterday by the Al-Jazeera television network, which refused to say how it obtained the recording but said it had been made by the al-Qa'ida leader.
Last night US officials said the voice sounded like that of Bin Laden and that the language used was the literary style of Arabic previously used by him. "It does sound like Bin Laden's voice," said one official. "We have to complete the technical analysis." Another source said: "It's him. He's alive."
If the voice is Bin Laden's it would send a jolt through Western intelligence agencies, who have been unsure for the past year whether Bin Laden was dead or alive. Experts said proof that Bin Laden was still alive would have huge implications – not only energising al-Qa'ida as its members tried to regroup but also raising fresh questions about the wisdom of attacking Iraq while the network's leader was still at large.
In yesterday's tape, the speaker refers to theBali bombing that killed almost 200, the killing last month of a marine in Kuwait, the bombing of a French oil tanker last month off Yemen and the Chechen hostage-taking in Moscow. It said the attacks were "undertaken by sons who are zealous in the defence of their religion".
It added: "[The attacks are] only a reaction in response to what [George] Bush, the pharaoh of the age, is doing by killing our sons in Iraq and what America's ally Israel is doing, bombarding houses with women and old people and children inside with US planes.
"Our people in Palestine are being killed, subjected to the worst kind of suffering for almost a century now. If we defend our people in Palestine the world is disturbed and allied against Muslims under the banner of combating terrorism."
"What business do your governments have to ally themselves with the gang of criminality in the White House against Muslims? Don't your governments know that the White House gang is the biggest butchers in this age?"
The speaker condemned countries that backed America, specifically identifying Britain, France, Italy, Canada, Germany and Australia, saying "If you don't like looking at your dead ... remember our dead, including the children in Iraq.".
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