AFGHANISTAN - Feb 20 - US Tactics 'Barbaric,' Bin Laden Alleges.

Osama bin Laden promises never to be captured alive and declares that the US had resorted to the same "barbaric" tactics used by Saddam Hussain, according to an audiotape purportedly by the Qaeda leader that was posted on Feb 20 on a militant Web site. The tape appeared to be a complete version of one that was first broadcast Jan 19 by Al Jazeera, the pan-Arab satellite channel, in which bin Laden offered the US a long-term truce, but also said his Al Qaeda terrorism network would soon make a fresh attack on American soil. "I have sworn to only live free. Even if I find bitter the taste of death, I don't want to die humiliated or deceived", said bin Laden, on the 11-minute, 26- second tape. In drawing the comparison between American military behavior in Iraq and that of Saddam, bin Laden said: The jihad is continuing with strength, for Allah be all the credit, despite all the barbarity, the repressive steps taken by the American Army and its agents, to the extent that there is no longer any mentionable difference between this criminality and the criminality of Saddam. "By using that language to describe Saddam, bin Laden appeared to be rejecting assertions by the Bush administration that the former Iraqi leader had ties to Al Qaeda - ties that were given as one rationale for invading Iraq. Bin Laden also challenged the Bush administration assertions that it was better for Americans to fight terrorists in Iraq than on US soil. "The war against America and its allies has not remained confined to Iraq", the voice on the tape said, "but rather Iraq has become a point of attraction and recruitment of qualified forces. "What's more, the mujahedeen, by the grace of Allah, have been able to penetrate time after time all the security procedures undertaken by the oppressive countries of the alliance as evidence by what you have seen, in terms of bombings in the capital of the most important European states". The release of the tape in January came days after a US airstrike in Pakistan that targeted bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and reportedly killed four leading Qaeda figures, including possibly Zawahiri's son-in-law. There was no mention of the attack on the segments that were broadcast on Al Jazeera. In the full tape posted, bin Laden mocked Bush's declaration on an aircraft carrier in April 2003 that the war in Iraq had ended. "The Pentagon's figures indicate an increase in the number of your killed and injured in addition to the massive materiel losses, not to mention the collapse of troop morale and the increase of the suicide rates among them", bin Laden said. Speaking to the American people, he said: You can rescue whatever you can from this hell. The solution is in your hands", if the US troops' "situation matters to you at all". The initial excerpts had been the first tape from the Qaeda leader in more than a year - the longest period without a message since the 9/11 attacks on the US. The CIA last month authenticated the voice on the initial recording as that of bin Laden, an agency official confirmed at the time. The Qaeda leader is believed to be hiding in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan.