Alleged bin Laden tape: a call to arms

                  Friday, February 14, 2003 Posted: 11:43 AM EST (1643 GMT)

                  DOHA, Qatar (CNN) -- A voice purported to be that of Osama bin Laden issued 'a call to arms' Tuesday for Muslims to fight against any U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and offered battle strategies aimed at causing the highest number of American casualties.

  The 16-minute message believed to be from the al Qaeda leader was broadcast on the Qatar-based, Arabic-language network Al-Jazeera. "We want to let you know and confirm to you that this war of the infidels that the U.S. is leading with its allies ... we are with you and we will fight in the name of God," the speaker said. (Full story)

  "Our brothers the mujahedeen in Iraq, don't worry about America's lies and their powers and their military might," he said. "We also advise you to drag the forces into fighting you in street fights. Take them into farms, into cities, and figh them in there ... they will be losing a lot of lives." (Iraqi military movements)

  U.S. officials said the tape does seem to be from bin Laden, and that a technical analysis will be done. Officials also said this tape was of much better quality than the previous one presumed to be from bin Laden, which Al-Jazeera broadcast in November. A U.S. analysis of that tape concluded it extremely likely the tape was authentic.

  Word of the tape first emerged earlier in the day when U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell told a Senate panel a new message had surfaced believed to be bin Laden claiming he is "in partnership with Iraq."

  But while the broadcast message declared solidarity with Iraqis, it made no mention of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and even denounced his socialist Baath party as "infidels."

  However, in an interview with Al-Jazeera, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher defended Powell's assessment that bin Laden and Saddam were "bound by a common hatred," despite their very different ideologies.

 Boucher said bin Laden confirmed that the tape. "He says it doesn't matter if people are socialist -- we're going to fight together with them to destroy everything that we can."

  On the tape, the purported voice of bin Laden said that whomever helps America in any war on Iraq -- even by words -- "they have to know that they are outside this Islamic nation. Jordan and Morocco and Nigeria and Saudi Arabia should be careful that this war, this crusade, is attacking the people of Islam first."

  He urged "good Muslims" to join together in overthrowing "leaderships that work as a slave to America" and encouraged suicide attacks against the so-called enemies of Islam.

  A senior Bush administration official who listened to the tape said that, if authentic, "At best it is a terrorist making common cause with a brutal dictator and at worst it demonstrates a burgeoning alliance of terror."

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