By PETER MILLERSHIP and SAYED SALAHUDDIN
Osama bin Laden has appealed to Muslims to join a holy war against the West and denounced those who support Washington as traitors to Islam.
Looking pale and becoming emotional towards the end of the televised statement, bin Laden, defiant in military fatigues and with an AK-47 assault rifle by his side, appealed to the world's 1.2 billion Muslims to join him in a religious war against the "infidel" Christians and Jews.
"The leaders of the region are shunning and shying away from supporting their brothers," the Saudi-born militant said in the statement broadcast by Qatar's Arabic al-Jazeera satellite television channel.
"What is worse is that they are preventing Muslims from supporting their brothers.
"It is a certain fact that Bush carried the cross high," bin Laden said, referring to the Christian symbol carried by medieval European crusaders in religious wars against Muslims. "Whoever stands behind Bush has committed an act that stands as an annulment of their Islam," he said. "This war is primarily a religious war."
White House spokeswoman Anne Womack dismissed the statement as an act of desperation, saying: "This is more propaganda that shows how isolated bin Laden is from the rest of the world."
Aside from seeking to tap the emotions of Muslims angry about Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, bin Laden's statement came just before Islam's holy fasting month of Ramadan.
His comments were laced with Koranic verses and the sayings of Mohammed, his clearest effort since the September attacks to strictly define the Afghanistan conflict in religious terms.
He widened his attack to include the United Nations: "Those who claim to be Arab leaders and are still with the United Nations are infidels in the eyes of the message of Mohammed - God's blessings and peace be upon him," he said.
Pro-Western Arab leaders are anxious to counter such talk of religious war against the West.
They are trying to keep close ties to Washington while containing Muslim militants among their populations who sympathise with bin Laden.
With no clear US victories after a month of military action, President George Bush has urged Americans to be patient with the campaign to punish Afghanistan's ruling Taleban for harbouring bin Laden and vowed to get the man Washington blames for the September 11 attacks on the United States that killed almost 4800 people.
On the battlefield, opponents of the Taleban made advances on the key crossroads town of Mazar-i-Sharif but there were varying accounts of the crash of a US helicopter and the loss of a $3.2 million remote-controlled Predator drone at the weekend.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who faced criticism at home for backing the American war on terrorism, said he would discuss a halt to the campaign during Ramadan with US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, who is due in Pakistan today.
The Taleban said they had shot down a US helicopter killing up to 50 soldiers and had downed an American plane in a separate attack.
The Pentagon said four of the helicopter's crew were injured in the crash, caused by the weather, but all aboard were rescued and evacuated by another helicopter.
With the Bush Administration under fire for initially sending mixed messages and being slow to protect postal workers after anthrax-laced letters were discovered, President Bush devoted his entire weekly radio address to the issue for the first time.
In Trenton, New Jersey, the focus of the anthrax probe because three letters tainted with the germ warfare agent were mailed from there, federal agents conducted a three-hour search of an apartment that was home to four Middle Eastern men.
One of the men was detained for possible immigration violations, the FBI said on Saturday.
The toll of anthrax cases in the United States rose to 17, including four fatalities.
In Pakistan a Government minister said tests had confirmed that at least one suspicious letter received there contained anthrax spores.
The latest Newsweek poll found Americans were split 46 per cent to 46 per cent on whether the Administration had a well-considered plan for bioterrorism and terror threats at home.
Confidence in the strategy overseas fell to 72 per cent from 75 per cent the week before and 78 per cent two weeks ago.
- REUTERS
Story archives:
Links: War against terrorism
Timeline: Major events since the Sept 11 attacks
Bin Laden lashes out at US, UN, Arab 'infidels'
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