(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-03-20 22:52

"You went overboard in your unbelief and freed yourselves of the etiquettes of dispute and fighting and went to the extent of publishing these insulting drawings," he said, according to a transcript released by the SITE Institute, another US group that monitors terror messages. "This is the greater and more serious tragedy, and reckoning for it will be more severe."

Bin Laden dismissed as "excuses" Europe's citing of freedom of expression to justify the publishing of the cartoons.

"If there is no check on the freedom of your words, then let your hearts be open to the freedom of our actions," according to a transcript released by the SITE Institute, another US group that monitors terror messages.

Adam Raisman, senior analyst at the SITE Institute, said that the tape's release coincides with an increased buzz in online jihadi forums calling for revenge against Europe over the cartoons.

The tape appeared to have been recorded since December because bin laden refers to revelations made that month by the British press that former Prime Minister Tony Blair pushed to halt a fraud investigation against aerospace company BAE Systems PLC in part because he feared it would jeopardize an arms deal with Saudi Arabia.

In the message addressed to "the intelligent ones in the European Union," bin Laden also criticized the "aggressive policies" of President Bush.

"How it saddens us that you target our villages with your bombing: those modest mud villages which have collapsed onto our women and children. You do that intentionally, and I am witness to that," he said, according to SITE. "All of this (you do) without right and in conformity with your oppressive ally who — along with his aggressive policies — is about to depart the White House."

On Wednesday, Bush praised Sunni tribal leaders for rising up against al-Qaida in Iraq and said that has led to similar uprising across the country. All that, combined with a strategic influx of US troops last year, has "opened the door to a major victory in the broader war on terror," Bush said.

"Iraq was supposed to be the place where al-Qaida rallied Arab masses to drive America out," Bush said. "Instead, Iraq has become the place where Arabs joined with Americans to drive al-Qaida out. In Iraq, we are witnessing the first large-scale Arab uprising against Osama bin Laden, his grim ideology."

In Wednesday's message, bin Laden also attacked his long-time nemesis, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, whom he described as the "crownless king in Riyadh" and said he could have ended the entire dispute over the cartoons if he had wanted because of his influence with European governments.

Bin Laden, who hails from a powerful Saudi family, was stripped of his citizenship in 1994 after criticizing Saudi Arabia for allowing US troops on its soil.

Wednesday's message, which featured English subtitles, follows up an hour-long, audio missive from Dec. 29 in which he warned Iraq's Sunni Arabs against fighting Al-Qaida in Iraq and vowed new attacks on Israel.

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