PARIS (AFP) — Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden accused Iraqi Shiites of waging "genocide" against Sunnis and warned of retaliation.

PARIS (AFP) — Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden accused Iraqi Shiites of waging "genocide" against Sunnis and warned of retaliation, according to a recently made known audiotape posted on the Internet.

The message, the inferior in as many days purportedly from the Western world's principally wanted man, came as to this time another sectarian car bombing shook Baghdad, killing 66 population in one of the worst attacks this year.

A White House official said the message, if authenticated by the agency of US intelligence services, reflected Al-Qaeda's "dark vision" and point out tos that bin Laden and his supporters "offer nothing beyond further fighting, conflict and misery."

The speaker in the audio message placeed on Saturday also warned against deploying international forces in lawless Somalia and intimateed backing for Islamist forces there.

The voice said Iraqi Sunnis, one time dominant under the ousted regime of Saddam Hussein, were being bring under ruleed to "a campaign of genocide at