Al-Arabiya broadcasts purported bin Laden tape
U.S. official: Al-Jazeera played same tape in October
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Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is shown in this image from a videotape that surfaced in September.
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A suspected al Qaeda tapes refers to possible attacks in the United States, but officials aren't raising the threat level. CNN's Kelly Arena reports.
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(CNN) -- A U.S. official dismisses an audiotape purportedly containing Osama bin Laden's voice that was broadcast Saturday, saying the same clips were aired months ago on another Arabic-language television network.
Dubai-based Al-Arabiya broadcast the tape Saturday, on which a voice purporting to be the al Qaeda leader calls the U.S.-led war in Iraq "a new crusade against the Muslim world" and says the battle will determine the fate of all Muslims.
But the U.S. official says the audiotape was broadcast in October by Al-Jazeera, based in Doha, Qatar.
"The United States today is screaming at the top of its lungs and collapsing in front of the world, hiring mercenaries from all around the world," the taped voice said.
"This is a new crusade against the Muslim world, and only God knows the outcome of this war."
The voice describes present-day Muslims as "grandsons of the Muslim knights who ruled the world and spread Islam all the way to China."
The tape consists of three or four sound bites rather than a lengthy speech, Al-Arabiya said.
The network said the speaker on the tape mentions former Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, who resigned September 6, perhaps as a way of dating the tape.
The recording came to light a day after Al-Jazeera broadcast an audiotape that a CIA analysis determined "mostly likely" contains the voice of Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda's second-in-command.
The speaker on the al-Zawahiri tape said U.S. forces are on the run in Afghanistan and elsewhere, and seemed to claim responsibility for an attack in October on a hotel in Baghdad where Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was staying.
"The American bleeding in Iraq is worsening. It is proof that Americans are incapable of defending themselves. They couldn't even defend their biggest criminal, Wolfowitz, that pompous Zionist," the voice said.
The speaker may have been referring to an attack on the Al Rashid Hotel in Baghdad on October 26, when Wolfowitz was staying there. He was not hurt when several rockets were fired at the building, but one U.S. soldier was killed and more than a dozen other people were wounded. (Full story)
It's not known when the tape was recorded.
No mention was made of the capture last week of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, nor of bin Laden.
The tape did, however, talk about insurgents fighting coalition forces in Baghdad, saying that they are not the remnants of Saddam's forces but mujahedeen fighters battling for Islam.
"The American soldier is a coward and does not believe in his own ideology," the voice said.
