Bin Laden: 'Crusader war' against Islam

Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden said the international isolation of the Hamas-led Palestinian government is proof of a "war by crusaders and Zionists against Islam," according to an audiotape attributed to him and aired on Arabic television.

"Their (the West's) rejection of Hamas after it had won the election ...confirms that there is a crusader-Zionist war against Muslims," he said.

The tape broadcast Sunday by the Qatar-based al-Jazeera satellite television was the first purported recording by the Western world's most wanted man in three months.

'Sudan also to blame'

The voice on the tape also said the situation in Sudan was also part of the "crusades against Islam."

In the last audiotape attributed to Bin Laden and aired by al-Jazeera in January, he threatened new attacks against the United States but also offered the American people a conditional "truce".

That tape marked the first time that Bin Laden had been heard from in more than a year but there is still no information about the whereabouts of the man behind the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States and a host of other terror strikes.

The Saudi-born terrorist had previously not been heard of since a December 27, 2004 audiotape, in which he anointed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,

Iraq's most wanted man, as al-Qaeda's leader in the war-torn country.

Bin Laden's last video appearance was on December 16, 2004 when he also called on his fighters to strike Gulf oil supplies and warned Saudi leaders they risked a popular uprising.

The West has cut off funding to the Hamas-led government since the terror group took office last month after its landslide election win in a Palestinian election in January.