, Al Qaeda has confirmed the death of Osama bin Laden and vowed to launch revenge attacks on the US and its allies.

A statement posted on jihadist websites warned that happiness over the terror chief's demise would soon be turned on its head.

The group described itself as a "curse" on America, promised bloodshed and also called on Pakistan to rise up in revolt.

An audiotape purporting to be of bin Laden speaking a week before his death is set to be released shortly.

The authenticity of the statement is not possible to confirm independently but it was posted on sites known to be used by the group.


It said: "We stress that the blood of the holy warrior sheik, Osama bin Laden, God bless him, is precious to us and to all Muslims and will not go in vain.


"We will remain, God willing, a curse chasing the Americans and their agents, following them outside and inside their countries.

"Soon, God willing, their happiness will turn to sadness. Their blood will be mingled with their tears.

"We call upon our Muslim people in Pakistan,  to rise up and revolt to cleanse this shame that has been attached to them by a clique of traitors and thieves ,  and in general to cleanse their country from the filth of the Americans who spread corruption in it."

The announcement paves the way for al Qaeda to name a successor to bin Laden, with his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri the most likely candidate.

The confirmation followed claims by US officials that it had been planning an attack on the U.S. rail network to mark the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

The plot was apparently uncovered as US agencies went through information seized from bin Laden's compound after he was killed in a raid by Navy Seals.


"We have no information of any imminent terrorist threat to the US rail sector, but wanted to make our partners aware of the alleged plotting," Department of Homeland Security spokesman Matthew Chandler said.

The idea - outlined in handwritten notes from the compound - was to tamper with a the track so that a train would fall into a valley or from a bridge, according to a joint FBI and Homeland Security bulletin.

However, there was no indication from the intelligence whether further plans were drawn up for the scheme or if steps were taken to carry it out.

Fox News cited a source as saying the plan was more aspirational than concrete and mentioned services in New York, Washington DC and Chicago.

The source said the evidence taken during the raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on Monday considered the possibility of targeting a train travelling at 500mph - a speed that no locomotive in the US is capable of reaching.


Details of the alleged plot emerged as Pakistan's army broke its silence over the raid, acknowledging its own "shortcomings" in efforts to find bin Laden.

However, military chiefs threatened to review co-operation with the US if there was another similar violation of Pakistani sovereignty.

The army statement was in sharp contrast to the initial response to the raid by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, who had hailed the operation as a "great victory".

In another revelation likely to further strain ties between Islamabad and Washington, CIA agents reportedly watched bin Laden from a safehouse in Abbottabad after his compound was discovered last August.

US officials said intelligence-gathering was so exhaustive that the CIA asked Congress to reallocate tens of millions of dollars to fund it.

"The CIA's job was to find and fix," the Washington Post quoted one US official as saying, using special forces terminology for locating a target.

"The intelligence work was as complete as it was going to be, and it was the military's turn to finish the target."


A Pakistani intelligence official has said that one of bin Laden's wives claims she had been living in the compound for six years.

The Yemeni-born woman - one of bin Laden's three wives currently being interrogated in Pakistan - did not say whether the al Qaeda leader had also been living there since 2006.

UN human rights investigators have called on the US to disclose the full facts surrounding bin Laden's death, in particular whether there had been any plan to capture him.

They said in certain exceptional cases deadly force may be used in "operations against terrorists" but "the norm should be that terrorists be dealt with as criminals, through legal processes of arrest, trial and judicially-decided punishment".


Bin Laden was unarmed when shot in the head by US commandos.

The White House's shifting story of the attack has raised doubts about US assurances that special operations forces were prepared to take him alive.

An opinion poll of more than 5,000 people surveyed in Pakistan shows that 66% of respondents do not believe that the person killed by US Special Forces was bin Laden.

The YouGov poll adds that three-quarters disapprove of the US operation and over half think it will result in "further violence against the US".

In New York on Thursday, US President Barack Obama visited Ground Zero to honour those killed in the attacks on the Twin Towers.

Today, Mr Obama will travel to the Fort Campbell US army base in Kentucky to meet members of the Navy Seal team that were involved in the operation.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/bin-laden-plotted-attack-us-trains-022222947.html

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