RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, Dec. 16 -- Osama bin Laden on Thursday declared a new phase in his campaign to topple the Saudi monarchy, urging followers to mount a peaceful revolution while also calling on Muslims not to miss a "golden and unique opportunity" to kill Americans in Iraq.
Bin Laden's call for a Saudi uprising, in a lengthy audiotape released over the Internet, represented an apparent change in tactics for the al Qaeda leader, a Saudi exile, in advocating popular change. But bin Laden added that should such tactics fail, Saudis would have no choice but to resort to a violent attack on the ruling family.
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AP Report: A man identified as Osama bin Laden, speaking on an audiotape posted on an Islamic Web site Thursday, criticized the Saudi regime.
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The unusually long speech from the Saudi fugitive -- who called Afghanistan his home -- represented the latest manifesto in a stepped-up media campaign by bin Laden and his top lieutenant, Ayman Zawahiri, during the past year. It included an up-to-date reference, to a Dec. 6 attack on the U.S. Consulate in the Saudi city of Jiddah.
On the more than hour-long tape, which U.S. intelligence officials said they believed to be authentic, bin Laden lays out a detailed political case for overthrowing the Saudi rulers. It came on the same day a leading Saudi dissident group called for protesters to take to the streets in the kingdom. Hundreds of Saudi security personnel and riot police blockaded streets in the country's two largest cities to preempt protests, which failed to materialize.
Al Qaeda-allied groups have carried out a series of car bombings, beheadings and other attacks on foreign targets and the Saudi government since May 2003, killing more than 80 people in the oil-rich kingdom. Bin Laden has called repeatedly for the royal family's ouster since it exiled him in the mid-1990s.
The new tape repeats bin Laden's demand for the Saudi government's overthrow but urges Saudis to take action in the manner of nonviolent revolutions elsewhere. To head off a bloody "armed uprising" by disaffected youth, bin Laden said, the Saudi elite must reform the kingdom now. Events, he warned, are heading "with unusual speed toward an explosion," according to a U.S. government translation of the tape.
"Matters have exceeded all bounds," bin Laden said, "and when the people move to ask for their rights, security agencies cannot stop them."
In the Dec. 6 attack in Jiddah, five gunmen stormed the U.S. Consulate and held employees hostage during a three-hour standoff with Saudi security forces. Five consulate employees were killed, none of them American. The incident showed that even one of the most heavily guarded diplomatic installations in the kingdom was vulnerable. Four of the attackers were killed; the fifth was injured and captured.
In Washington, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said the voice on the recording "appears to be" that of bin Laden. "He's a criminal, he's a terrorist, he's a murderer, and we're going to continue to hunt for him," Powell said.
The number of terrorism incidents in the region has increased since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq last year. Late Wednesday, the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait warned that it had "credible information that terrorist groups are developing near-term plans for attacks" in the country.
On the tape, bin Laden cheered on the insurgency in Iraq, calling the U.S. occupation the "largest stealing operation" in history and urging Muslims not to miss the chance for "targeting Americans" there. In particular, he urged targeting of oil fields in Iraq and the Persian Gulf to disrupt U.S. access to "cheap oil."
Bin Laden also made clear, with praise for the attack on the U.S. Consulate, that he was avidly following current events from his hideout. "It's definitely the fastest turnaround of a bin Laden message we can identify," said Paul Eedle, a London-based expert on use of the Internet by Islamic extremist groups. The statement was bin Laden's first since a videotape released just before the U.S. presidential election.
In the lengthy speech, he ranges widely from the fate of Romanian leader Nicolae Ceausescu, who was publicly executed in 1989, to alleged American involvement in Saudi religious education and the flaws of current leaders in Jordan and Morocco. "He's a policy wonk," said Peter Bergen, a terrorism analyst and author of "Holy War Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden."
The Saudi government did not respond directly to bin Laden's speech, but it did put on a show of force after the London-based Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia promised to organize widespread demonstrations Thursday in Riyadh, the capital, and Jiddah, a port city. Taking part would be risky behavior in a country where public protests of any kind are banned and criticism of the royal family is illegal.
