But the audiotape, broadcast by the al-Jazeera TV news channel, also offered a truce “with fair conditions to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan”. The conditions were not spelt out.

After technical analysis of the tape, CIA experts said that the man speaking really was the al-Qaeda leader. The White House also appeared to be in little doubt that bin Laden was back on the airwaves for the first time in more than a year, and rejected his “truce”.

“I’m not sure what he’s offering by way of a truce,” said Dick Cheney, the Vice-President. “I don’t think anybody would believe him. It sounds to me like it’s some kind of ploy.”

In his message, bin Laden said: “The war against America and its allies will not be confined to Iraq. Our Mujahidin were able to overcome all the security measures in European countries, and you saw their operation in major European capitals.

“As for similar operations taking place in America, it’s only a matter of time. They are in the planning stages, and you will see them in the heart of your land as soon as the planning is complete.”

The reference to attacks in Europe may be to those in London on July 7 last year. Bin Laden also cited American opinion polls showing support for a troop withdrawal from Iraq, as well as recent reports claiming that Tony Blair and George Bush discussed launching an airstrike against al-Jazeera.

Such clues would suggest that the tape was recorded in the past three months, dashing hopes that bin Laden had died in the Pakistan earthquake last year or was incapacitated, leaving a terrorist network that had, as Mr Cheney had said previously, “been degraded”.

The tape’s release yesterday also appeared to be designed to counter suggestions that the airstrike in Pakistan last week had further disabled the al-Qaeda leadership. Pakistani intelligence agents are claiming that four militants, including Midhat Mursi — who trained Richard Reid, the shoebomber, and a generation of British extremists — were among those killed on Friday.

The message said: “It is better for you not to fight the Muslims on their territory and we offer a long-term truce. We would like to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Mursi, who has a $5 million bounty on his head, ran the al-Qaeda Darunta camp in Afghanistan, where Western recruits included the London university student Zacarias Moussaoui, named by the FBI as the twentieth hijacker in the attacks of September 11, 2001.

The American military has been criticised for the missile attack on Damadola, a mountain village in Pakistan, which killed at least 18 civilians. US intelligence sources hinted that the meeting in the village was to fund a new wave of attacks against Western forces in Afghanistan.

The main target was alQaeda’s second in command, Ayman al-Zawahri, who reportedly missed the rendezvous and sent some of his emissaries instead, among them his son-in-law, Abdul Rehman al-Misri al-Maghribi, responsible for al-Qaeda’s media department.

A third figure named by Pakistani officials last night was Abu Obaidah al-Misri, who was said to be al-Qaeda’s chief of operations. The fourth man was said to be Khalid Habib, who ran all al-Qaeda operations in the region.

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