From Reuters News
By Yara Bayoumy

DUBAI (Reuters) – Osama bin Laden warned that al Qaeda was preparing new attacks inside the United States, but said the group was open to a conditional truce with Americans, according to an audio tape attributed to him on Thursday.

Al Jazeera television, which aired the tape, said it was recorded in the Muslim month that corresponded to December. “The operations are under preparation and you will see them in your houses as soon as they are complete, God willing,” said the speaker on the audio tape, who sounded like bin Laden.

In the tape, broadcast by al Jazeera television, bin Laden said al Qaeda was willing to respond to the fact that public U.S. opinion favored withdrawing troops from Iraq. “We have no objection to responding to this with a long-term truce based on fair conditions,” he said.

Bin Laden issued an audio tape in April 2004 in which he also offered a truce — on that occasion to Europe, but not to the United States. Analysts saw the move at the time as an attempt to drive a wedge between the United States and its allies and to scare wavering coalition members out of Iraq.

In the brief segments aired on Thursday, bin Laden ridiculed U.S. President George W. Bush for misreading public opinion which he said showed Americans wanted U.S. forces to quit Iraq.

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