Dubai, July 1 (Reuters): A purported audio tape by al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden warned Iraq’s Shia majority today of retaliation over attacks on Sunnis and that his group would fight the US anywhere in the world.

Bin Laden, making his second Internet broadcast in two days, also warned the world community to stay out of Somalia, where Islamists have fought their way to power in Mogadishu.

“We will fight (US) soldiers on the land of Somalia ... and we reserve the right to punish it on its land and anywhere possible,” said the speaker on the tape, sounding like the Saudi-born militant. No immediate independent verification of the voice was immediately available but the tape was posted on an Internet site used by Islamists.

Bin Laden, a Sunni, said the Sunni minority in Iraq was being annihilated.

“It is not possible that many of (the Shias) violate, alongside America and its allies, (the Sunni cities of) Ramadi, Falluja, Mosul .... (and) that their areas would be safe from retaliation and harm,” he said. Bin Laden said he endorsed Abu Hamza al-Muhajir as the new leader of al Qaida in Iraq after the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

On Somalia, he said: “We warn all the countries in the world not to respond to America by sending international troops to Somalia.” Bin Laden also criticised the President of Somalia’s secular interim government, Abdullahi Yusuf.