DUBAI: Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden said the international isolation of the Hamas-led Palestinian government is proof of a  "war by crusaders and Zionists against Islam," according to an audiotape attributed to him and aired on Arabic television on Sunday.

The tape was broadcast on Al-Jazeera, and was the first purported recording by the Western world's most wanted man in three months.

In the recording, bin Laden speaks about the "situation in Iraq, Palestine and Sudan," and what he describes as a "crusade against Islam," the satellite channel said.

In the last audiotape attributed to bin Laden and aired by Al-Jazeera in January, he threatened new attacks against the US but also offered the American people a conditional "truce".

That tape marked the first time that bin Laden had been heard from in more than a year but there is still no information about the whereabouts of the man behind the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US and a host of other terror strikes.