Using sophisticated electronic equipment, US intelligence agencies yesterday worked on identifying the speaker on an audio tape believed to be elusive al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden warning US allies against backing the "White House gang of butchers."
US officials said that linguists had listened to the new tape released by the Arabic-language television channel al-Jazeera in Qatar on Tuesday and believed it was the fugitive bin Laden.
But they said the government was using voice analysis to compare it with previous tapes made by the radical Islamic leader.
"They have had linguists listen to it and believe it is him, but electronic analysis is being done," said one official, who asked not to be identified.
"It is probably him, but we don't know [for certain]," said another.
If authenticated, the tape would be the clearest evidence yet that bin Laden survived the US-led military campaign in Afghanistan that toppled his Taliban hosts and sought to flush out al-Qaeda, which the US blames for the Sept. 11 attacks last year.
In the tape, the speaker hailed the Oct. 12 Bali bomb blasts, the killing of a US Marine in Kuwait, the bombing of a French oil tanker off Yemen and last month's Chechen hostage-taking in Moscow.
The speaker said the attacks were retaliatory strikes against US allies by "pious Muslims defending their religion and heeding God's orders."
He said his message was particularly addressed to the people of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Australia.
"The road to safety [for the West] starts with stopping aggression," he said.
Al-Jazeera did not say how it obtained the tape.
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