Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden described President Obama as "powerless" to stop the war in Afghanistan and threatened to step up guerrilla warfare there in a new audiotape released to mark the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.
In the 11-minute tape, addressed to the American people, bin Laden said Obama is only following the warlike policies of his predecessor, George W. Bush. Bin Laden urged Americans to "liberate" themselves from the influence of "neoconservatives and the Israeli lobby."
The tape was posted on radical Islamist Web sites two days after the anniversary of the 2001 suicide plane hijackings.
Bin Laden usually addresses Americans in a message timed around the date of the attacks, which sparked the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan the same year, and then in Iraq two years later.
Bin Laden said Americans had not understood that al-Qaeda carried out the attacks in retaliation for U.S. support of Israel. If America reconsiders its alliance with the Jewish state, al-Qaeda will respond on "sound and just bases," he said.
PAKISTAN
Drone Attack Kills Four in Tribal Region
A missile fired from a suspected unmanned U.S. aircraft slammed into a car in a Pakistani tribal region close to the Afghan border Monday, killing four people, intelligence officials and residents said.
The apparent U.S. missile strike was the latest of more than 50 in the northwest region since last year aimed at killing top al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders.
Last month, the head of the Pakistani Taliban was killed in one such strike.