WASHINGTON, April 15 (UPI) -- The deal proposed to Europe by al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, a "mudabara sulh" in Arabic, is an offer of reconciliation or peace, much more serious and longer lasting than the temporary and easily abrogated "hudna," or cease-fire, analysts said.
The deal, offered to European nations if they "stop attacking Muslims or interfering in their affairs," is contained in an audiotape broadcast Thursday by Arab TV channels.
U.S. officials said the voice is "likely" that of bin Laden, and add that the message is an attempt "to drive a wedge between the United States and its European allies," following the March bombings in Madrid, Spain -- carried out by an al-Qaida linked terrorist cell.
But officials on both sides of the Atlantic remained deeply skeptical as to whether the offer is meaningful, and it was rejected out of hand by Romano Prodi, the president of the European Commission and by representatives of the French, German, Spanish and British governments.
The speaker offered a "commitment to stopping operations against every country that commits itself to not attacking Muslims or interfering in their affairs -- including the U.S. conspiracy against the greater Muslim world," according to a translation by the British Broadcasting Corp.
The speaker adds that the offer -- which he says is renewable by successive governments and begins "with the departure of (the) last soldier from our lands" -- will remain on the table for three months.
The offer is being made, he said, in response to "opinion polls, which indicate that most Europeans want peace" and to Europeans' "positive reactions ... to recent events" an apparent reference to the March 14 elections in Spain. Coming just three days after the devastating series of bomb blasts on Madrid commuter trains that killed more than 190 people, the poll resulted in a resounding defeat for President Bush's ally, Prime Minister Jose Aznar, and the election of the Socialist Party, pledged to pull Spanish troops out of Iraq.
The tape was broadcast Thursday morning on both Al-Arabiya and Al-Jazeera Arabic TV news channels. Its provenance was unclear and no one at either channel could be reached for comment, but U.S. officials said they believed it genuine.
"After conducting a technical analysis of the recording," said an official in the CIA public affairs office, who spoke to United Press International on condition they not be named, "we have concluded that the voice is likely that of Osama bin Laden."
The official added that, given the reference in the message to the March 21 killing of Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the recording was made recently.
"The message appears to be an attempt to drive a wedge between the United States and its European allies," the official concluded.
The exact language of the offer is significant, analysts with widely differing views on the Middle East agree.
"A 'mudabara sulh' is much stronger than a 'hudna'," explained Jonathan Schanzer of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
"A 'hudna' is a cease-fire of mutual convenience," said Hussein Ibish of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. "This language means a long -lasting peace, a swearing-off of violence, a 'live and let live' arrangement, if you will."
Nonetheless, few on either side of the Atlantic appeared to be minded to give the deal serious consideration.
"There is no negotiation possible with terrorists," French President Jacques Chirac told reporters in Algiers, according to French media.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the proposal should be treated "with the contempt which (it) deserve(s)," calling the tape a "bare-faced attempt to divide the international community."
Incoming Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said Spaniards should "neither listen to, nor pay attention to" the offer.
And Prodi -- speaking to reporters in Shanghai -- said there was no possibility" of European nations accepting such an offer.
A U.S. diplomat, who spoke with UPI on condition of anonymity, called the offer "ridiculous."
"Does anyone really believe that if the Europeans pull out of Iraq, al-Qaida will stop its campaign there?" the diplomat asked.
"Turkey did not support us in the war (in Iraq) and they were bombed. Al-Qaida was active in Spain long before it joined the (U.S.-led) coalition."
Nonetheless, the diplomat acknowledged that there was some concern about the strains that differences over Iraq have put on the trans-Atlantic relationship.
"The secretary of State has worked very hard, but it's all been on the telephone. The symbolic power of an actual visit is hard to beat. That gives Europeans -- especially the intellectuals -- the sense that they're being listened to."
Schanzer called the offer "a sign that al-Qaida is on the run... An attempt to buy themselves more time."
Bin Laden "can't afford to have the Europeans crack down on his networks there," Schanzer said. "He sees that the Madrid bombings have backfired in two ways.
"They have strengthened a fractured transatlantic alliance, and they have led Europe to tighten up what has, let's face it, been a rather lax attitude" to al-Qaida sympathizers.
Schanzer said that al-Qaida's networks in Europe included "logistics, like document forgery, fundraising and recruiting... They're present in almost every Western European country."
Video and audiotapes of bin Laden have been broadcast at irregular intervals since the terror mastermind went into hiding after the Sept. 11, 2001, suicide hijackings that killed 3,000 people in New York, Washington and rural Pennsylvania.
Analysts say the tapes are important to keep up morale among his followers. Thursday's message is "propaganda, to bolster al-Qaida's rank and file," the CIA official said.
But they are also his Achilles' heel. "The chain of custody for these tapes is a real problem for him," said author and terrorism analyst Peter Bergen. "At some point, after all, it must reach back to him, wherever he is hiding. There are a lot of people trying to retrace those steps."
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