CAIRO, March 20: Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden accused Pope Benedict XVI of helping in a ‘’new Crusade’’ against Islam and warned in a new audiotape of a ‘’severe’’ reaction for Europeans’ publication of blasphemous cartoons.

The message raised concerns Al Qaeda was plotting new attacks in Europe. Some experts said Osama, believed to be in hiding in the Afghan-Pakistan border area, might be unable to organise such an attack himself and instead was trying to fan anger over the cartoons to inspire violence by supporters.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev Federico Lombardi, said Osama’s accusation that Pope Benedict XVI had played a role in a worldwide campaign against Islam was ‘’baseless.’’

Lombardi said the Pope on several occasions had criticised the cartoons, first published in several European newspapers in 2006 then republished in Danish papers in February.

Osama’s audiotape was posted on Wednesday on a militant website that has carried Al Qaeda statements in the past and bore the logo of the extremist group’s media wing Al Sahab.

’’You went overboard in your unbelief and freed yourselves of the etiquettes of dispute and fighting and went to the extent of publishing these insulting drawings,’’ he said. ‘’This is the greater and more serious tragedy, and reckoning for it will be more severe.’’

He said the cartoons ‘’came in the framework of a new Crusade in which the Pope of the Vatican has played a large, lengthy role,’’ according to a transcript released by the SITE Institute, a US group that monitors terror messages.

Danish intelligence service said the reprinting of the cartoon had brought ‘’negative attention’’ to Denmark and may have increased the risk to Danes at home and abroad.

The original 12 cartoons first published in a Danish newspaper, then in several papers across Europe, triggered major protests in Muslim countries in 2006. Muslims see the cartoons as an insult. —AP