'Bin Laden' Hails Attacks in Bali, Moscow

Nov. 12 -- A voice purported to belong to Osama bin Laden praised terrorist strikes in Bali and Moscow and warned Western nations against supporting the United States in an audiotaped message aired today across the Arab world.

If the voice is confirmed to be bin Laden's, the message's references to recent events will end months of speculation over whether or not the terrorist mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks survived last year's punishing U.S. airstrikes over Afghanistan.

The speaker on the tape broadcast on al Jazeera television referred to the Oct. 12 bombing of a nightclub on the Indonesian island of Bali, the killing last month of a U.S. Marine in Kuwait, the bombing of a French oil tanker last month off Yemen and the taking of hundreds of hostages by Chechen rebels who seized a Moscow theater.

The speaker said the attacks "are only a reaction and an equal treatment that the sons of Islam have carried out, in fulfilling the orders of their God and their prophet," according to an ABCNEWS translation.

Addressing his remarks to U.S. allies, specifically Britain, France, Italy, Canada, Germany and Australia, the speaker asked: "What do your governments have to do with the criminal gang in the White House that's against Muslims? Don't your governments know that the White House gang is the greatest killer of this era?"

The speaker singled out Australians, saying: "We had warned Australia before against its participation in Afghanistan."

"It ignored the warnings until it woke up to the sounds of bombings in Bali. Its government then claimed, unrightfully, that they were not targeted," he continued.

If the tape is authentic, it will validate the theory that many, if not all the attacks listed, were the work of bin Laden's al Qaeda terror network. In closing, the speaker warned: "As you kill, you will be killed. As you bomb you will be bombed."

An al Jazeera official received the four-minute audiotape in Doha, Qatar, earlier today. It had originally been sent to an undisclosed al Jazeera office, the network said.