The West's moves to isolate the new Hamas-led Palestinian government prove it is at war with Islam, a tape said to be from Osama Bin Laden says.
The recording, purported to be by the al-Qaeda leader, was broadcast by Arab satellite TV al-Jazeera.
It was the first message from Bin Laden since January 2006, when he threatened more attacks on the US.
However, there is still no fresh information on the whereabouts of the fugitive leader.
Hamas isolation
The speaker on the tape said that along with their governments, the people of the West bear responsibility for what he called a "Zionist crusaders war against Islam".
"The war is a responsibility shared between the people and the governments. The war goes on and the people are renewing their allegiance to its rulers and masters," he said.
"They send their sons to armies to fight us and they continue their financial and moral support while our countries are burned and our houses are bombed and our people are killed."
He said that the decision by some Western powers to cut funding to the Palestinian government since the militant group Hamas won elections there was further prove of this anti-Islamic campaign.
"The blockade which the West is imposing on the government of Hamas proves that there is a Zionist crusaders war on Islam," the tape said.
As in a tape from the al-Qaeda leader in January, the speaker warned of fresh attacks on US soil.
The speaker also criticised Western involvement in the Sudan saying it was part of the "crusades against Islam" and called for terrorist to journey there to join the fight.
This is a key part of his message. "Go to Sudan, young terrorist" is his new exhortation. He is calling for a strategic retreat from Iraq, while cloaking it in the "positive" rhetoric of jihad in Sudan. It's clear that the "foreign fighters" who streamed into Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan in order to fight the infidels are having their butts kicked rather severely. It's coming at them from all sides. Not only are they getting decimated by American and British air and ground attacks, but they are also getting the Shiite kicked out of them and are being Sunnied to death, while the Pakistani government troops use them for bayonet practice.
If Osama is still alive, or if and when his sound-alike surrogates gather in the outhouse that serves as his 'recording studio', it is clear that when the occasional camel courier arrives they must be getting frantic reports of despair, and not of glorious victory, from their idiot minions on the battlefield. His answer: get them the hell out of Dodge City and send the barbarians instead to a more welcoming excrement hole in Sudan where they don't have to dodge the UAVs and the locals (yet). This is clearly a retreat by the demoralized remnants of a much-diminished force in the face of massive battle casualties.
The droids in the MSM can not afford to acknowledge that aspect of the message, because it flies in the face of their death-to-the-great-Satan-America-and-Bush group-think, but it is clear nevertheless...