From the BBC with thanks to Interested.
The West’s moves to isolate the new Hamas-led Palestinian government prove it is at war with Islam, a tape attributed to Osama Bin Laden declares.
The tape also described the situation in Iraq and Sudan’s troubled Darfur region as further evidence that a “Zionist-crusader war” was being waged.
The recording was broadcast by Arab satellite TV al-Jazeera on Sunday.
If confirmed, it is the first message from Bin Laden since January 2006, when he threatened more attacks on the US.
The speaker on the tape said that along with their governments, the people of the West bear responsibility for what he called a “Zionist-crusader war against Islam”.
“The war is a responsibility shared between the people and the governments. The war goes on and the people are renewing their allegiance to its rulers and masters,” he said.
“They send their sons to armies to fight us and they continue their financial and moral support while our countries are burned and our houses are bombed and our people are killed.”
He said that the decision by some Western powers to cut funding to the Palestinian government since the militant group Hamas won elections there was further proof of this anti-Islamic campaign…
“I call on mujahideen and their supporters, especially in Sudan and the Arab peninsula, to prepare for long war again the crusader plunderers in Western Sudan,” the voice said. “Our goal is not defending the Khartoum government but to defend Islam, its land and its people.”
Bin Laden was based in Sudan until he was expelled following US pressure on Khartoum.
More detailed excerpts here