(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-12-30 19:45

In the audiotape, bin Laden denounced Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, the former leader of the Anbar Awakening Council, who was killed in a September bombing claimed by al-Qaida.

"The most evil of the traitors are those who trade away their religion for the sake of their mortal life," bin Laden said.

Bin Laden said US and Iraqi officials are seeking to set up a "national unity government" joining the country's Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.

"Our duty is to foil these dangerous schemes, which try to prevent the establishment of an Islamic state in Iraq, which would be a wall of resistance against American schemes to divide Iraq," he said.

He called on Iraq's Sunni Arabs to rally behind the Islamic State of Iraq, the insurgent umbrella group led by al-Qaida. Besides the Awakening Councils, some Sunni insurgent groups that continue to fight the Americans have rejected the Islamic State.

Bin Laden said Sunnis should pledge their allegiance to Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the little known "emir" or leader of the Islamic State of Iraq. US officials have claimed that al-Baghdadi does not exist, saying al-Qaida created the name to give its coalition the illusion of an Iraqi leadership.

"Failure to give allegiance to the emir after he has been endorsed leads to great evils," bin Laden warned. "Emir Abu Omar would rather have his neck severed than betray the Muslims ... Emir Abu Omar and his brothers are not one of those who accept compromise or meeting the enemy halfway."

The authenticity of the tape could not be independently confirmed. But the voice resembled that of bin Laden. The tape was posted on an Islamic militant Web site where al-Qaida's media arm, Al-Sahab, issues the group's messages.

The tape was the fifth message released by bin Laden this year, a flurry of activity after he went more than a year without issuing any tapes. The messages began with a Sept. 8 video that showed bin Laden for the first time in nearly three years. The other messages this year have been audiotapes.

In an October tape, bin Laden sought to patch up splits between Iraqi insurgent factions, urging them to unite with the Islamic State of Iraq -- the insurgent coalition led by al-Qaida. He took a conciliatory stance, chiding even al-Qaida's followers for being too "extremist" in their positions toward other insurgents.

Bin Laden's deputy Ayman al-Zawahri took a sharper tone in a Dec. 16 video, branding as "traitors" those who work with the anti-Qaida tribal councils and calling for Sunnis to purge anyone cooperating with the Americans.

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