Bin Laden in bomb plot

Osama Bin Laden, speaking in a newly released audio tape, says the top al Qaeda leadership ordered the attempted Christmas Day bombing of the Detroit-bound airliner and vowed to continue attacks against America and its allies.

The claim of responsibility appears to trump an earlier statement by the Yemen-based branch of the terror group and suggests a high level of coordination and communication between the top leadership thought to be hiding along the Afghanistan and Pakistan border and the group based in and operating from the impoverished Arab country.

Intelligence officials and al Qaeda experts have debated how much control Mr. bin Laden has over the operations conducted by regional branches of the terror group due to what is presumed to be his remote and rugged existence while evading capture by U.S. forces since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks against America.

The Yemeni branch, known as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, has raised its profile recently by broadening its attacks beyond Yemen. U.S. officials say that Nigerian student Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who has been indicted for the attempted airline bombing, told interrogators that he received his explosives in Yemen. In August, the Yemeni group claimed it deployed a suicide bomber in a failed assassination attempt against the Saudi deputy interior minister, a nephew of King Abdullah al Saud

In the brief audiotape aired Sunday by Arabic-language broadcaster Al Jazeera, Mr. bin Laden suggested that the Yemeni branch was following his orders to pursue attacks against the U.S. and its allies.

"The message sent to you with the attempt by the hero Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is a confirmation of our previous message conveyed by the heroes of Sept. 11," Mr. bin Laden said on the tape. "If it was possible to carry our messages to you by words we wouldn't have carried them to you by planes."

The authenticity of the tape, or when it was recorded, could not be independently confirmed. However, al Qaeda experts in the region say that the voice on the tape sounds similar to other tapes aired from Mr. bin Laden.