DUBAI (Reuters) - Osama bin Laden has burst into
the U.S. election campaign, issuing his first videotape in more than a year to deride President George W. Bush and warn of possible new September 11-style attacks.Bin Laden, taunting the man who has vowed
to take him "dead or alive" for the past three years, said Bush had failed Americans with his Middle East policies, deceiving the nation and provoking Muslim groups like al Qaeda to strike again.
Looking healthy and defiant in a video released from hiding to Al Jazeera TV on Friday, just four days before the U.S. presidential poll, bin Laden accused Bush of complacency during the September 11
attacks, mocking him for going on with a visit to a school.
"Despite entering the fourth year after September 11, Bush is still deceiving you and hiding the truth from you and therefore the reasons
are still there to repeat what happened," he said, making his clearest claim yet of responsibility.
In what seemed a deliberate attempt to influence Tuesday's U.S. election, bin Laden used the opening
line: "O American people, I am speaking to tell you about the ideal way to avoid another Manhattan, about war and its causes and results."
But he made little mention of Bush's Democratic
challenger John Kerry, saying: "Your security is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush or al Qaeda. Your security is in your own hands and each state which does not harm our security will remain safe."
Bush, who ordered U.S. forces to capture bin Laden dead or alive after the September 11 attacks, vowed that "Americans will not be intimidated or influenced by an enemy of our country" and said
"we will prevail" in the U.S.-led war on terror.
In March, Spanish voters threw out a government that had supported Bush in Iraq just days after al Qaeda sympathisers bombed several trains in
Madrid, killing nearly 200 people.
A U.S. State Department official said Washington had asked the government of Qatar, where Al Jazeera is based, to prevent the station airing the latest Bin Laden tape.
KERRY SLAMS "BARBARIAN"
Kerry, who has criticised Bush for failing to capture bin Laden by diverting troops to Iraq, called bin Laden a barbarian.
"I will stop at absolutely nothing to
hunt down and capture or kill the terrorists wherever they are, whatever it takes," he said, running neck and neck with Bush in opinion polls.
Bin Laden, speaking forcefully and jabbing his finger,
said he thought of the idea of attacking the U.S. skyscrapers when he saw Israeli aircraft bombing tower blocks in Lebanon in 1982, during an invasion which he accused Washington of supporting.
"As I
watched the destroyed towers in Lebanon, it occurred to me to punish the unjust the same way ... to destroy towers in America so that it can taste some of what we are tasting and to stop killing our children
and women," said bin Laden.
Describing Bush's actions at the school on September 11, he said: "It never occurred to us that the commander in chief of the American forces would leave 50,000
citizens in the two towers to face those horrors alone at a time when they most needed him.
"Because he thought listening to a child discussing her goat and its ramming was more important than the
planes and their ramming of the skyscrapers.
"This gave us three times the time needed to carry out the operations, thanks be to God..."
The al Qaeda leader, apparently sitting or standing at a
table against a neutral brown background, wore a white turban and white tunic under a light brown cloak. His full beard was a mixture of white and dark grey.
The White House said there was no change in the U.S. terror alert level despite the video.
