The Vatican has rejected as “baseless” an accusation by Osama bin Laden that the publication of cartoons mocking the Prophet Mohammad forms part of a “new crusade” under Pope Benedict XVI, writes Richard Owen and Nico HInes.

Father Federico Lombardi, the papal spokesman, said: “These accusations are totally unfounded”. An audio recording by bin Laden posted on an extremist website said Europe would be “punished” for cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammed first published by a Danish newspaper in September 2005.

They were reprinted by several Danish newspapers last month as a gesture of solidarity with the cartoonist concerned after three men were arrested on suspicion of plotting to kill him.

On the audio recording bin Laden says: “Your publication of these drawings - part of a new crusade in which the Pope of the Vatican had a significant role - is a confirmation from you that the war continues.”

Father Lombardi said: “It is natural to think that he (bin Laden) would lump the Vatican and the Pope together with all his perceived enemies. But this is not correct.” He recalled that the Pope himself had condemned not only the Danish cartoons but also any depictions of religious figures which “offend members of different faiths”.

Despite the direct threat from al-Qaeda, the Danish security service, PET, said today that it would not increase security levels in the Scandinavian country.

“PET does not believe that the latest threats require us to change our assessment,” a spokesman said.

However, the security experts conceded that there could be an increase in threats from “militant extremists” abroad against Denmark and Danish nationals “especially in areas where militant extremist groups are active, as in North Africa, the Middle East, Pakistan and Afghanistan".

Bin Laden’s recording was posted last night on a militant website that has carried al-Qaeda statements in the past.

The audio message addressed to the “intelligent ones” in Europe was accompanied by an archive image of bin Laden with an assault rifle. It bore the logo of al-Sahab, al-Qaeda’s media wing.

The five-minute message, bin Laden’s first this year, made no mention of the fifth anniversary of the US-led invasion in Iraq. It was published as parts of the Muslim world today celebrate Milad un Nabi, the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad.

Bin Laden’s attack on the Danish cartoons came two years after the images were first published amid claims that they insulted the Prophet.

“You went overboard in your unbelief and freed yourselves of the etiquettes of dispute and fighting and went to the extent of publishing these insulting drawings,” he said, according to a translation by SITE Institute, a US group that monitors terrorist messages.

“This is the greater and more serious tragedy, and reckoning for it will be more severe.”

Pope Benedict’s relationship with followers of the Muslim faith has been strained since his election.

There was widespread Muslim outrage in 2006 when he appeared to depict Islam as a violent and inhumane faith, while quoting a Byzantine Emperor in a speech at Regensburg University, his alma mater in Germany.

However the Pope made amends shortly afterwards by praying alongside an imam at the Blue Mosque in Istanbul on a visit to Turkey, and is to address the first ever Catholic-Muslim Forum in the Vatican in November.

The Forum is to become a permanent body, with a brief to assemble whenever crises such as the uproar over the cartoons break out.

The Vatican is also reported to be discussing the possible opening of a Church for Christian foreign workers in Saudi Arabia - the site of Islam’s holiest shrines - following the inauguration of a church in Qatar last weekend and the holding of historic talks between the Pope and King Abdullah in Rome last November.

Such moves toward Christian-Muslim dialogue are likely to have enraged al-Qaeda and the Saudi-born bin Laden even further.

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