Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden called on radical Islamists in Somalia to rise up and oust new President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, according to an audiotape posted on the Internet on Thursday.
Ahmed, a moderate Islamist, was elected president of the war-ravaged African state only in January following UN-brokered reconciliation talks but faces a tough task to bring peace to a country wracked by civil war since 1991.
"This Sheikh Sharif... must be fought and toppled," bin Laden said in a message addressed to the "champions of Somalia," the third audiotape attributed to bin Laden that has been broadcast this year.
"He is like the (Arab) presidents who are in the pay of our enemies," he said in the tape, whose authenticity could not be immediately confirmed.
Islamist fighters including the hardline Shebab militia have waged battles against the Somali government and its allies since and before Ahmed came to power, vowing to fight until all foreign forces withdraw and sharia law is imposed.
The Shebab is a hardline Islamist organisation opposed to the national unity government led by Ahmed and which controls large swathes of the troubled Horn of Africa country.
Bin Laden said Ahmed has "changed and turned on his heels" as a result of American "enticements", and agreed to mix Islamic sharia law with civic laws in the troubled Horn of Africa country.
The Somali cabinet on Tuesday agreed to introduce Islamic law which is to be presented to parliament for approval. On Friday, Ahmed defended plans to implement sharia saying it was "to ensure that he who claims that he is fighting to have sharia no longer has a reason to fight."
Bin Laden warned Islamist militants against heeding calls to be patient and give Ahmed time to implement sharia.
"My Muslim brothers in Somalia: you must beware of the initiatives which wear the dress of Islam ... like the initiative attributed to some of the Ulama (scholars) of Somalia which gives Sheikh Sharif six months to implement Islamic Sharia.
"They are asking him (to build) something he was in fact installed to demolish," he added. "It is a duty to fight the apostate government and not stop the battle."
Thursday's message from bin Laden -- who has a 25 million dollar US bounty on his head -- was given in an 11-minute video issued by Al-Qaeda's media arm which contains only the voice of the Al-Qaeda chief.
He charged that the "reign (in a Muslim country) cannot be given to an infidel," stressing that a Muslim leader "loses his tenure if "he becomes unbeliever."
He also called on Muslims in general to support the Islamist militants in Somalia, whom he described as "the first defence line protecting the Muslim world at its southwestern side."
"Your patience and resolve supports your brothers in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Islamic Maghreb, Pakistan and the rest of the fields of Jihad (holy war)," bin Laden added, addressing the militants of Somalia.
In the previous recording on Saturday, the terrorist mastermind labelled the devastating offensive by Israel against the Islamist rulers of the Gaza Strip at the new year as a "Holocaust."
He also accused some Arab leaders of being "complicit" with Israel and the West against Muslims and urged holy war to liberate the Palestinian territories.
He issued a similar call in a tape issued in January just days before US President Barack Obama took office -- the first voice recording of the Western world's most wanted man in eight months.
Obama said at the time that Al-Qaeda and bin Laden -- who is believed to be hiding in the mountainous region along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border -- remained the "number one threat" to US security.
He has a 25-million dollar US bounty on his head.
