Alleged Bin Laden tape targets Saudi rulers

An audio tape purportedly by Osama bin Laden praises gunmen who attacked a US consulate in Saudi Arabia on December 6 and warns Saudi rulers they could be toppled like the Shah of Iran.

In the recording posted on the internet yesterday, the speaker blessed the Saudi al Qaeda militants who stormed the US consulate in Jeddah, killing five non-American staff in the first attack on a western mission in Saudi Arabia.

Four militants were killed and a fifth was arrested in the Jeddah attack, the biggest in the country in six months by militants bent on overthrowing the pro-US monarchy and driving westerners out of the birthplace of Islam.

The speaker lambasted the rulers of the world's largest oil exporter as "corrupt, oppressive" US agents and warned them they would be toppled in a popular uprising if they did not allow their people to choose a true Muslim leadership.

In Washington, an intelligence official said an analysis had determined with "high confidence" that the tape contains the voice of bin Laden.

"Intelligence officials have assessed with high confidence that the voice is that of Osama bin Laden," the official said.

Saudi-born bin Laden, responsible for the September 11, 2001, attacks, is believed to have been hiding on the Afghan-Pakistan border since US-backed forces toppled his Taliban allies in Kabul in late 2001.

The tape appeared on the day that another Saudi opponent of the monarchy, London-based Islamist Saad al-Fagih, called for protest marches in Riyadh and Jeddah.

The speaker on the tape blasted Saudi rulers as "corrupt Zionists" who were stooges of the US and whose rule was "an extension of the crusader wars against Muslims".

He called for the ousting of the royal family as a precursor to any political change and derided efforts by the government to initiate reform - a key demand by Washington.

"Some people say that yes it (reform) is possible because they started holding national dialogues and they started with municipal elections, but I say that this will not change anything," the speaker said. "The only way to reform is the toppling of the regime through armed struggle."