TOLEDO, Ohio, Oct 29 (AFP) - Osama bin Laden jolted the US presidential election Friday with a warning of new September 11 but brought a unified response from campaign arch-rivals John Kerry and President George W. Bush that America will not be intimidated.
Bin Laden's message came just four days from the end of the neck-and-neck race that has been dominated by national security and the aftermath of the 2001 attacks on the United States that killed 3,000.
"Let me make this very clear. America will not be intimidated or influenced by an enemy of our country," Bush told reporters during a campaign stop at Toledo, Ohio. "I am sure Senator Kerry agrees with this.
"I also want to say to the American people that we are at war with these terrorists. And I am confident that we will prevail."
Kerry made an equally blunt response, vowing to "destroy" bin Laden if he is elected president.
"In response to this tape of Osama bin Laden, let me just make it clear, crystal clear, as Americans we are absolutely united in our determination to hunt down and destroy Osama bin Laden and the terrorists.
"They are barbarians and I will stop at absolutely nothing to hunt down, capture or kill the terrorists wherever they are, whatever it takes," Kerry told reporters on the tarmac at West Palm Beach airport before he got a flight to Miami on his latest campaign tour.
US television news channels broke into their programs to show the Al-Qaeda leader's ominous message to the American people broadcast by the Al-Jazeera network. US intelligence officials and the White House said the tape appeared authentic.
"Despite the fact that we are into the fourth year after September 11, Bush is still misleading you and hiding the real reason from you, which means that the reasons to repeat what happened remain," bin Laden said in his threat.
Bin Laden also warned that it made no difference who wins Tuesday's elections.
"Your security is not in the hands of Kerry, Bush or Al-Qaeda. Your security is in your own hands. Any state which does not play havoc with our security would automatically ensure its own security," he said.
Bin Laden's name has been repeated thousands of times during speeches by the election rivals and each has sought to present himself as a stronger leader in the global war on terror.
At a rally in New Hampshire earlier in the day, Bush flanked himself with people who lost close relatives on September 11 -- the attacks that transformed his presidency.
Bush declared: "The pain was greatest for the families of the lost. This nation must never forget their pain.
"On the day of that tragedy, I made a decision: America will no longer respond to terrorist murder with half measures and empty threats. We will no longer look away from gathering dangers and simply hope for the best."
He added: "I will fight these enemies with every asset of our national power. We will do our duty and we will protect the American people."
Kerry has vowed to fight a "smarter" and "more effective" war on terror and said Bush blundered in ordering the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 while bin Laden was still on the run.
He has repeatedly condemned Bush for "outsourcing" the hunt for bin Laden to Afghan war lords when the Al-Qaeda leader was believed to be holed up in the Tora Bora caves of Afghanistan in late 2001.
A day after Kerry got a boost from rock legend Bruce Springsteen, Bush was to use California's Hollywood superstar governor Arnold Schwarzenegger at a rally in Columbus, Ohio, to bolster his bid for a second term.
Polls out Friday meanwhile suggested Bush moving onto Democratic turf in the country's heartland, with Kerry fighting hard in other key swing states ahead of Tuesday's vote.
One poll indicated neither candidate had made a dent in the basic attitude of Americans towards the Iraq war.
The Harris survey found the percentages who backed or disagreed with the invasion stayed constant through months Kerry criticism and Bush's staunch defense of the war.
But a new video, apparently of the Al-Qaqaa munitions dump in Iraq, heightened a controversy over a huge cache of missing explosives.
While top administration officials have said there is no proof the explosives were at Al-Qaqaa when the US-led invasion was completed in April 2003, the video was shot nine days after the fall of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad and shows what appears to be high explosives still in barrels and bearing International Atomic Energy Agency seals.
"The photographs are consistent with what I know of Al-Qaqaa," David Kay, a former head of the US hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, told The New York Times. "The damning thing is the seals. The Iraqis didn't use seals on anything. So I'm absolutely sure that's an IAEA seal."
Kerry has highlighted Bush's refusal to explain administration action over the missing explosives.
"The president's shifting explanations and excuses and attacks on me demonstrate once again that this president believes the buck stops everywhere but with the president of the United States," he said Thursday.
10/29/2004 22:32 GMT - AFP