Imagine: No Enemies

Osama Bin Laden rains on President Obama's parade
BY James Gordon Meek  - DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON - The White House said the latest Osama Bin Laden tape was meant to undercut President Obama's Middle East trip.

But one leading expert on the Saudi terror outlaw said Wednesday it was really aimed at undermining Pakistan's fragile government as its army wages new offensives.

Bin Laden said Obama gave an "order" to Pakistani leaders to blitz Taliban goons imposing Islamic law in the Swat Valley, forcing "about a million" civilians to be "homeless and refugees."

"Obama and his administration have planted new seeds to increase hatred for and revenge against America," Bin Laden said in an audio clip broadcast on Al Jazeera satellite TV.

"This is part of a long pattern of Bin Laden criticizing American Presidents since Clinton - whose picture Al Qaeda used for target practice," said Peter Bergen, a terrorism expert.

The top thug has been "bipartisan" in slamming America's Pakistan policy, added the author of "The Osama Bin Laden I Know."

Bin Laden's reference to "a million" Swat refugees dates the recording to around May 11, which a foreign counterterror agent told the Daily News "is a marker to show he's still around."

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, speaking in Cairo, insisted Bin Laden had tried "to shift attention away from the President's historic efforts to ... have an open dialogue with the Muslim world."

Bin Laden - believed hiding in northwest Pakistan, and possibly in upper Swat - promised Obama his minions will strike the U.S. for following "in the steps" of George W. Bush.

Obama has kept up Bush's pace of CIA strikes against Al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan's tribal belt bordering Afghanistan.

"So, let the American people prepare to continue reaping what the chiefs of the White House sow during the coming years and decades," Bin Laden said.

jmeek@nydailynews.com