Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden threatened direct terrorist action against Israel in an audio recording posted on the Internet this weekend.

The arch-terrorist said he wanted to "assure our people in Palestine that we will expand our jihad there. We intend to liberate Palestine, the whole of Palestine from the (Jordan) river to the sea."

Israeli security officials have been warning for years that Al Qaeda was planting the seeds for a base of operation out of Palestinian-controlled territories. The global terrorist network remains popular among the Palestinian Arabs, who erupted in public celebration when Al Qaeda terrorists brought down the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001.

During a session of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Sunday, committee chairman Tzahi Hanegbi said Israel was taking the Bin Laden threat very seriously, noting that Al Qaeda has managed carry out major attacks in the US, London and Madrid, and without vigilance could easily repeat those gruesome successes in Israel.