Experts said Wednesday they believed the voice on a tape broadcast by independent television station al-Jazeera was that of the world's most wanted man, Osama bin Laden. Gulf officials as well as Muslim activists said they were convinced the audio tape carried the voice of the Saudi dissident with a DLRS. 25 million reward on his head for allegedly masterminding last year's September 11 attacks.

U.S. officials told Reuters in Washington linguists had listened to the tape and believed it was bin Laden warning U.S. allies over backing the "White House gang of butchers."

"They have had linguists listen to it and believe it is him, electronic analysis is being done," said one of the officials, who asked not to be identified.

"I am certain that it was the voice of bin Laden, the same tone and style that are impossible to fabricate," said Yasser el-Serri, a London-based Islamist sought by Washington on charges of funding bin Laden's al Qaeda network.

"Anyway, we did not need the audio tape to convince us that he is alive and well because this is a known fact to Muslims," Serri told Reuters in a telephone interview.

The fate of bin Laden has remained a mystery with U.S. officials saying they would assume he was alive until presented with evidence to the contrary.

The last time U.S. authorities had evidence he was alive was in December 2001. They have searched the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan, where many al Qaeda members fled following the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan.

Bin Laden has again used his channel of choice, Qatar's controversial al-Jazeera, to demonstrate he is alive by hailing the October 12 Bali bomb blasts, the killing of a U.S. Marine in Kuwait, the bombing of a French supertanker off Yemen and the Chechen hostage-taking in Moscow.

The attacks, all of which occurred last month, were retaliatory strikes against U.S. allies by "pious Muslims defending their religion and heeding God's orders," he is apparently heard saying on the tape.

TAPE TO SILENCE CRITICS

"He has chosen to come out with this tape to announce all these strikes in order to silence his critics among moderate Islamists who say he is nothing but a big mouth," said Abdel-Bary Atwan, editor of London-based al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper, who interviewed bin Laden in 1996.

But why an audio tape instead of video, which bin Laden used in the past to urge Arabs and Muslims to rise up and topple their pro-Western regimes?

"He probably has changed the way he looks and doesn't want to give away his new features," Atwan said.

Both Atwan and Serri said they believed bin Laden wanted to capitalize on the swelling anger among Arabs and Muslims over U.S. threats to attack Iraq and Washington's perceived support of Israel against the Palestinians.

"For him, this is an excellent timing and he is presenting himself as an alternative for Arabs frustrated at their leaders' weakness in dealing with Iraq and the Arab-Israeli conflict," Atwan said.

In the tape, bin Laden accused the United States and its allies of harming Muslims in the Palestinian territories and other areas and warned, "As you kill you will be killed."

He said his message was particularly addressed to the people of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Australia.

He stopped short of claiming responsibility for the Bali nightclub bombings, which killed more than 180 people.

Washington blames bin Laden for a string of attacks, including the 1998 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and the 2000 bombing of the warship USS Cole in Yemen.

Intelligence officials say al Qaeda -- Arabic for "The Base" -- stretches across the Middle East, North Africa and Southeast Asia to Europe and North America.

PHOTO CAPTION

Bin Laden is seen in a frame grab taken from a videotape obtained by Middle East Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) April 17. (Middle East Broadcasting Corporation via Reuters)