WASHINGTON—Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden warned Europe Wednesday of a "reckoning" for publishing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, a US monitoring group said.

In a recorded message addressed to the "intelligent ones" in the European Union, bin Laden said that publishing the cartoons was a greater crime than Western forces targeting Muslim villages and killing women and children.

And the "reckoning for it will be more severe," he said, according to the SITE Intelligence Group.

Referring to a series of cartoons published in Danish newspapers, the Al-Qaeda leader also warned: "if there is no check on the freedom of your words, then let your hearts be open to the freedom of our actions."

And cryptically he added that the Muslims' response to the insult will be what the enemy sees, not what they hear, said SITE, which monitors Islamist websites.

The five-minute audio message, titled "May Our Mothers Be Bereaved Of Us If We Fail to Help Our Prophet," was posted Wednesday by As-Sahab, Al-Qaeda's media arm, SITE said.

The audio track with English subtitles is heard over a video image of bin Laden holding a rifle.
IntelCenter chief Ben Venzke, whose firm also monitors extremist websites, said bin Laden's message was "a clear threat against EU member countries and an indicator of a possible upcoming significant attack."

"However, it is unclear in exactly what timeframe it may occur," he said.

The last message from bin Laden, who is still at large and believed to be hiding somewhere along the Afghan-Pakistani border, came on December 29 in a 56-minute recording released on the Internet.

In that message, the Al-Qaeda leader, who has remained elusive since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, warned Sunni Muslims in Iraq not to take up arms against Al-Qaeda and promised the "liberation of Palestine."

Bin Laden's new message coincided with the fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq.

US President George W. Bush, in a speech earlier marking the anniversary, hailed progress in the "war on terror" and said Iraq was witnessing an "Arab uprising" against bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network.

"In Iraq, we are witnessing the first large-scale Arab uprising against Osama bin Laden, his grim ideology, and his murderous network. And the significance of this development cannot be overstated," Bush said.

The president touted what he called "the Anbar Awakening," when Sunni tribal leaders in the restive province "had grown tired of Al-Qaeda's brutality and started a popular uprising."

"Soon similar uprisings began to spread across the country. Today there are more than 90,000 concerned local citizens who are protecting their communities from the terrorists and insurgents and the extremists," Bush said.

Bin Laden has claimed responsibility for the September 11 attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people and prompted the US-led invasion of Afghanistan.

Despite a massive manhunt and a 25-million-dollar bounty on his head, he has evaded capture and has regularly taunted the United States and its allies through warnings issued via video and audio, mainly on the Internet.

Prior to his December message, bin Laden issued a message in November that was aired on the Arabic television channel Al-Jazeera, warning Europeans to break with the United States and leave Afghanistan.