Bin Laden tape condemns West's 'crusader wars'

In his first public pronouncement in three months, the leader of al-Qa'ida also appeared to justify attacks on civilians in the West by declaring that they bore responsibility for "the attack on Islam" being carried out by their governments.

Bin Laden also used the audio tape, broadcast on the Arab satellite television station al-Jazeera, to criticise scathingly liberal Muslims who advocate a dialogue with the West and demanded that the Danish cartoonists responsible for the drawings of the Prophet Mohamed be handed over to him for punishment.

In response to Bin Laden's call, Hamas insisted yesterday that its ideology was very different from that of al-Qa'ida but warned that international sanctions imposed since it won the Palestinian elections were fuelling Muslim anger. Sami Abu Zuhri, a spokesman, added: "There is an international siege against the Palestinian people and it's natural that this tension creates an impression of Western-Israeli alliance against the Palestinians."

The Israeli government maintained that, by focusing on the issue of the Palestinians, Bin Laden was attempting to recoup ground lost to growing antipathy in the Muslim world to al-Qai'da's campaign of suicide bombings.

Recent reports state that al-Qa'ida's affiliates are attempting to recruit in Gaza and the West Bank. But both Palestinian and Israeli officials agree that they have made little headway so far.

Al-Jazeera appeared to have had Bin Laden's message long enough to carry out fairly extensive editing with commentary interspersed with the text.

There had been recent reports that Bin Laden, who suffers from a kidney ailment, has been unwell. His purported voice on the tape, however, sounded relatively strong and clear. "The blockade which the West is imposing on the government of Hamas proves that there is a Zionist Crusader war on Islam," he said.

Responding to the condemnation of bombing attacks on the public such as those in London and Madrid, Bin Laden said: "I say this was is the joint responsibility of the people and the governments.

"Nobody is showing any concern for the fact that our countries are being burnt, our houses shelled, and our people killed."

Turning his attention to Sudan's troubled region of Darfur, where the government and its allied Janjaweed militia have been accused of ethnic cleansing of the province's black population, Bin Laden said: "I call on mujahedin and their supporters, especially in Sudan and the Arab peninsula, to prepare for long war against the Crusader plunderers in western Sudan."

Bin Laden was based in Sudan from 1991 until he was expelled in 1994 following US and Saudi Arabian pressure on the Khartoum government. Bin Laden is said to be in contact with Islamist groups in Sudan backing the government.

The United Nations is considering a deployment of peacekeepers to Darfur following the failure of African Union monitors to stop the violence which has so far claimed 180,000 lives. Any campaign by Islamist fighters is expected to be directed against the international force.

The CIA was analysing the tape recording's authenticity.

What he said

* "The war is a responsibility shared between the people and the governments. They send their sons to armies to fight us and they continue their financial and moral support while our countries are burned and and our people are killed and no-one cares for us."

* "It is scornful that your warplanes and tanks are destroying houses ... and [Western leaders] call for peaceful co-existence and dialogue. Reality shows that they lie."

* "The politicians of the West do not want dialogue other than for the sake of dialogue to gain time. And they do not want a truce unless it is from our side only."