Bin Laden: Arab leaders 'complicit'

DOHA, Qatar, March 14 (UPI) -- Some Arab leaders were "complicit" with Israel during its 22-day offensive in Gaza, al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden says in a new audiotaped statement.

Bin Laden's latest message, aired Saturday by Al Jazeera in Doha, Qatar, labeled such leaders as "hypocrites" and said that "liberating Jerusalem needed honest Arab leadership."

"It has become clear that some Arab leaders were complicit with the crusade Zionist alliance against our people. These are the leaders that America calls moderate," bin Laden reportedly said.

Calling the Israeli incursion into Gaza a "holocaust" and an "historic event and a tragedy," Al Jazeera quoted bin Laden as saying the Arab world needed a "devoted committee of scholars from the Islamic world to establish an advisory body" on the future of the region, "not leadership that is formed by hypocrites."

The tape, whose authenticity could not be verified by the Arab broadcaster, follows an earlier bin Laden message on the Gaza incursion issued two months ago, in which the fugitive al-Qaida leader called on Muslims around the world to take revenge against Israel for Operation Cast Lead.