A Qatar-based television station has broadcast what it says is the voice of Osama bin Laden praising recent anti-Western attacks in Bali, Kuwait and Yemen, and last month's hostage-taking in Moscow.
If verified, the recording, broadcast on al-Jazeera, would be the clearest indication yet that bin Laden survived the US campaign in Afghanistan following the September 11th attacks on the US.
A man identified as Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden also warned US allies in the audio tape aired last night that they would be targets of new attacks if they continued to back the "White House gang of butchers".
"As you assassinate, so will you be \, and as you bomb so will you likewise be," he said in the broadcast, against the background of a photograph of the al-Qaeda network's leader, in turban and khaki jacket with a rifle at his side.
In the message, addressed to "the peoples of countries allied to the United States," he warned them against the "alliance between their governments and the United States to attack us in Afghanistan".
He cited by name "Britain, France, Italy, Canada, Germany and Australia".
Bin Laden hailed the attacks "on Germans in Tunis, on the French in Karachi, on Australians and Britons in Bali, against the French tanker in Yemen and against the Marines in Failaka \, as well as the recent hostage-taking in Moscow, all of which were the response of Muslims eager to defend their religion".
The voice added: "Do your governments not know that the White House gang are the biggest butchers of the era? . . . Why should your governments ally themselves with America."
He accused the United States and its allies of harming Muslims in the Palestinian territories and other areas and warned: "As you kill you will be killed."
Al-Jazeera, which did not say how it obtained the tape, has often carried statements by bin Laden and other members of al-Qaeda, which the United States blames for last year's September 11th attacks on its cities.
"We've seen these reports, and we will analyse the recording. We don't know if it's him or not," said Mr Sean McCormack, spokesman for the White House National Security Council.
On October 6th, al-Jazeera broadcast what it said was a recording of bin Laden in which he issued a new threat to strike US economic interests until Washington renounced its "injustice and hostility" toward Arabs and Muslims.
Ever since the US-led attack on Afghanistan late last year, there has been debate on whether bin Laden, who was in hiding there, had survived those attacks.
A former Afghan commander said in Pakistan on Monday that bin Laden was still alive and hiding in Afghanistan.