Additional reporting by Ayman Qenawi, IOL Staff

DOHA, February 12 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – While U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell alleged the reported Osama bin Laden’s tape broadcast Tuesday, February 11, was a clear evidence of his link with Iraq, several experts and analysts stressed the tape was no proof of such a link, asserting it was rather a boon for the U.S.

"The timing of the tape arises suspicion as was the case with all bin Laden’s tapes previously aired by Al-Jazeera," Hamed Abdul Majid, a Britain-based professor of political science told IslamOnline Wednesday, February 12.

"Powell’s announcement that he has a copy of the tape is also very unusual because al-Qaeda does not address the Americans," he noted.

"Did the CIA get a copy of the tape from Al-Jazeera or from the place where bin Laden is hiding?" Abdul Majid wondered.

He asserting that the latter option suggests that the Unites States is aware of bin Laden’s whereabouts but is exploiting him to serve its own interests."

"This is the first time that bin Laden’s threatens to fight those who cooperate with the Unites States and he also threatened specific countries, such as Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Yemen," recalled the analyst.

"The tape might be a warning or a terrorist threat to Arab regimes," Abdul Majid said, adding that the tape "incites a clash between regimes and peoples."

Meanwhile, Mohammad el-Sayed el-Said, director of Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, told IslamOnline Wednesday that Powell’s attempt to link between Iraq and al-Qaeda was the weakest aspect of his address to the U.N. Security Council on February 4.

Judging from the reactions of American newspapers and leading figures, it seemed clear that Powell’s accusation was ungrounded, he stressed.

The proposed link was unbelievable not only because the so-called evidence presented by Powell was lacking in credibility, but also because of the known hostility between the ruling Iraqi regime and Islamic groups and movements, said the expert.

Commenting on the tape, he opined it was prepared by some of bin Laden’s associates to indicate that their leader was still alive and in command.

The tape, just like several attacks claimed by al-Qaeda, confirm the lack of a shrewd tactics because the timing of the tape plays into the interest of the U.S. which is trying to sell to the world an alleged link between Iraq and al-Qaeda, Said asserted.

On a possible impact of the tape in the Arab and Islamic world where anti-American sentiments are on the rise, he said it might affect hard-line Islamic groups such as those in Morocco and Saudi Arabia.

But he did not expect the tape or the Jihad call to increase attacks on Americans in the Gulf, recalling that most of the anti-American attacks, including those in Kuwait, were individual and were provoked by the massive build-up in the region, the looming U.S.-led war on Iraq and American bias towards Israel against Arabs and Palestinians.

Also commenting on the tape, Egyptian lawyer Muntasser al-Zayat, who regularly defends Islamists in court, saw in the tape no proof at all of an alliance between Saddam and bin Laden.

"What bin Laden is saying is we hate Saddam, he's a tyrant. However, if the Americans attack Iraq, we have to fight them, not for Saddam's sake, but for Iraq's and for the sake of opposing the U.S. plot against Muslims," he told AFP.

In the said tape, the speaker, allegedly bin Laden, stressed that "this Crusader war (On Iraq) concerns all Muslims, whether Saddam remains in power or not."

"Bin Laden is not alone in saying this, that's the feeling of all Arabs and Muslims," added the lawyer, who has extensive experience of Egypt's Islamic Jihad group, led by bin Laden's top aide Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Zayat described Washington's claim of an alliance between Baghdad and al-Qaeda as "an opportunistic attempt to play on the feelings of the American people by reminding them of September 11".

He accused the U.S. administration of "hypocrisy", pointing out that the one known piece of common ground between Saddam and bin Laden was that they both received U.S. support – Saddam in his 1980-88 war against Iran, and bin Laden in his battle against the then Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

Zayat noted that the enmity between the Islamists and secular regimes like Iraq's dated as far back as the 1960s, when one of the leading thinkers of modern Islamic fundamentalism, Sayyed Kotb, was hanged by the Arab nationalist regime of former Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser.

"In their (the Islamists') view, regimes that keep Islam out of public life are apostate regimes. Everything sets them apart," Zayat said.

Created in 1947 by two French-educated Syrian schoolteachers, one of them a Christian, the Baath party has implemented a string of policies which hardliner deem un-Islamic since its seizure of power in Iraq in 1968.

"In Iraq, Saddam Hussein violently repressed the Islamists, whether Sunni or Shia Muslim," said Zayat.

"Iraq is the only Arab country were there is no significant Sunni Muslim Islamist group. Arabs from almost everywhere joined the Jihad in Afghanistan, but not from Iraq."

"It's clear that the timing of the broadcast is a godsend for the U.S. administration, which since 1995 has put forward the notion of a link between al-Qaeda and Baghdad and is looking to exploit it to justify -- without any proof -- an attack on Iraq," Abdul Bari Atwan, chief editor at the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi, told AFP.

Last week, the Palestinian journalist revealed that bin Laden had told him in a November 1996 interview that he was "very angry at Saddam Hussein whom he branded a criminal".

Atwan, who interviewed bin Laden in a cave in the Afghan mountains, said the al-Qaeda leader had also claimed to have offered to lead his fighters to liberate Kuwait following Iraq's August 1990 invasion.

Bin Laden had likened the fight against Iraq to that against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, added Atwan.

Director of the independent Institute of Islamic Thought in London Azzam Temimi said there was "nothing new" in bin Laden's appeal for attacks on U.S. interests.

In Cairo, Sheikh Gamal Kotb, an official with Al-Azhar, the highest authority in Sunni Islam, argued Wednesday that "the issue is not what was in the recording" but the characterization the United States wants to give it.

"The United States wants to frighten those who are trying to prevent war by putting them in the same boat as bin Laden.

"That is consistent with their arrogant and superficial reasoning that those who are not for us are against us," he said.

"The United States wants to exploit the hostility to al-Qaeda that exists in the United States and the world ... to launch an attack against Iraq," charged Added Munzer Suleiman, an Arab political and military analyst.

BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner says the tape is not strictly an admission of an al-Qaeda-Iraqi link, as the voice on the tape makes a clear distinction between the Iraqi people and the Iraqi regime.

This, he says, is a distinction that the U.S. administration has either failed or chosen not to see.

New Tape Not Proof of al-Qaeda-Iraq Link: Germany

Germany joined hands with those averring that the new audio tape message allegedly recorded by bin Laden does not confirm a link between his al-Qaeda network and Iraq.

We "can't deduce the existence of any links between Iraq and al-Qaeda" from the tape, German government spokesman Thomas Steg said Wednesday, adding that the tape was still being analyzed.

Steg said it "was part of an al-Qaeda media offensive" and that "it was not surprising in terms of political propaganda."

An interior ministry spokesman said it was still unknown whether the recording was authentic or not.

Powell Claims Tape Proof of Saddam-Qaeda Link

Powell had kick-jumped to the conclusion that the purported tape, which was seized by the U.S. before being broadcast by Al-Jazeera, was a proof of a link between al-Qaeda and Iraq.

Reacting to a transcript of the tape before its broadcast, Powell alleged the message showed a partnership between Iraq and al-Qaeda, a tie long claimed by Washington.

"There are linkages," Powell claimed of al-Qaeda and the Iraqi regime, admitting: "They're not as firm as some would like to see in order to conclude that it is actually happening."

The message called on Muslims to launch attacks and defend Iraq against a possible U.S.-led invasion.

The audiotape warned Muslims against cooperating with the United States in its war on fellow Arab and Muslim country Iraq, saying any one who did would be considered as having abandoned their faith.

The voice called for further attacks on the United States and Israel and said any cooperation with Washington by a Muslim nation would be anti-Islamic.

"All those who cooperate with the Americans against Iraq are hostile to Islam," the speaker said.

He called on Muslims, "especially in Iraq, to launch a jihad against such an unjust campaign.

"We stress the importance of martyrdom operations against the enemy, these attacks that have scared Americans and Israelis like never before," he said.

Muslims "should have arms; it is a duty," he said, adding that enemy forces should be met with "long and exhausting combat ... because the enemy fears war in the streets."

He said "the United States is seeking, by occupying Iraq, to achieve the Zionist dream of establishing a Greater Israel" in the Middle East.

Any U.S.-led attack would be targeting not only Iraq but all Muslims, the speaker said.

"All those among the leaders of the Arab countries ... or those who provide military bases to kill Muslims in Iraq are apostates," he charged, calling on "Iraqis to resist the American war" against their country.

The speaker denounced preparations by modern-day "Crusaders to reoccupy the ancient capital of Islam," Baghdad.

"We are following with great interest the Crusaders' preparations to reoccupy the ancient capital of Islam," he said.

For 500 years from the middle of the 8th century, Baghdad was the seat of the central political and religious power in the Muslim world.

As if refuting the American claimed link between al-Qaeda and Saddam, the speaker stressed that this "Crusader war concerns all Muslims, whether Saddam remains in power or not."