A MAN believed to be Osama bin Laden, speaking on a tape, urged his fighters to focus attacks on oil sites in the Gulf and Iraq and hailed the terrorists who attacked a US consulate in Saudi Arabia.

He also gave warning to Saudi Arabia’s royal rulers that they faced being overthrown by a popular uprising and blamed them for the unrest in the oil-rich kingdom.

“Take jihad [holy war] to stop [the Americans] getting hold of [the oil]. Concentrate your operations on the oil, in particular in Iraq and the Gulf,” said the voice on an audio tape posted on an Islamic website.

The lengthy message was seen in part as an attempt to claw back lost ground in the propaganda war with the Saudi authorities. The tape was also aimed at goading the Bush Administration after a recent admission by Pakistan that its troops searching the border with Afghanistan for the al-Qaeda leader had no idea where he was.

The diatribe coincided with large security operations in Saudi Arabia that thwarted plans for peaceful demonstrations against the monarchy called for by a London-based Saudi dissident. At least a dozen people were arrested in the Red Sea port of Jedda.

The speaker on the tape accused Saudi rulers of “violating God’s rules”, adding that while they blamed “holy warriors” for unrest, “the truth is that the whole responsibility falls on the shoulders of the regime”.

Al-Qaeda’s Saudi wing claimed responsibility for an attack on the US consulate in Jedda on December 6 in which five local staff were killed together with four of the attackers. The speaker on the tape, which appeared authentic, said: “We ask God to be merciful with the Mujahidin who stormed the US consulate in Jedda.”

The indiscriminate nature of some al-Qaeda attacks in the kingdom in the past year have cost the organisation support among ordinary people who might otherwise share some of bin Laden’s grievances. A Western diplomat said: “People here do not see violence as the Saudi way of doing things.”

The speaker on the tape accused the regime of “injustices against the people”. The Saudi Royal Family had misspent public money while “millions of people are suffering from poverty and deprivation”, he said.

He added: “In Saudi Arabia it is the King and not Allah who commands sovereignty and complete obedience. I advised the Government two decades ago to remedy the situation . . . but it has not changed at all.”

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