Osama Bin Laden calls Obama 'powerless' to stop war

Washington: Al Qaida has recently released a tape purportedly of terrorist leader Osama bin Laden saying that US President Barack Obama is "powerless" to stop the Afghanistan war.

SITE Intelligence Group, a terrorist-monitoring firm that translated the address, said Bin Laden blamed the war on the "pro-Israel lobby" and corporate interests.

IntelCenter, another company that monitors terrorist propaganda, said the 11-minute video released on Sunday shows a still picture of Bin Laden while audio of the address plays.

Bin Laden's latest address to the American people came two days after the eighth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people.

Bin Laden said in the latest message that US support for Israel had prompted him to launch the September 11, 2001 attacks, IntelCenter said.

Al Qaida's As Sahab media released a video titled Message to the American People, which features a still image of Bin Laden and an audio statement, said IntelCenter.

According to the centre, Bin Laden said that among "some other injustices," US support to Israel motivated Al Qaida to launch the 9/11 attacks. In March, an audio attributed to Bin Laden accused some Arab leaders of being "complicit" with Israel.

In the message on Sunday, Bin Laden also stated that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were driven by the pro-Israeli lobby in the White House and corporate interests, not Islamic militants.

According to Bin Laden, Obama is powerless to change the course of the wars and that his retention of US Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other individuals from the Bush administration is confirmation of his weakness.

Bin Laden has a 50-million-dollar bounty on his head and has been in hiding for the past eight years.

Intelligence officials, US military analysts and other experts have long said they believe the world's most wanted man is hiding in either Pakistan or Afghanistan near the remote mountainous border between the two countries.