Osama bin Laden, in a new audio message, condemned the publication of drawings that insulted the Prophet Muhammad and warned Europeans of a "severe" reaction to come. The message appeared on a Web site that carried al-Qaeda statements in the past.
"The response will be what you see and not what you hear and let our mothers bereave us if we do not make victorious our messenger of God," said a voice believed to be of bin Laden.
Bin Laden described the drawings, published in Danish newspapers, as taking place in the framework of a "new Crusade" against Islam, in which he said the pope has played a "large and lengthy role."
"You went overboard in your unbelief and freed yourselves of the etiquettes of dispute and fighting and went to the extent of publishing these insulting drawings," he said, according to a transcript released by the SITE Institute. "This is the greater and more serious tragedy, and reckoning for it will be more severe."
In the message addressed to "the intelligent ones in the European Union," bin Laden also criticized the "aggressive policies" of President Bush. "How it saddens us that you target our villages with your bombing: those modest mud villages which have collapsed onto our women and children. You do that intentionally, and I am witness to that," he said. "All of this (you do) without right and in conformity with your oppressive ally who - along with his aggressive policies - is about to depart the White House."
