Yes, he's still alive and kicking.

BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | 'Embrace Islam' Bin Laden urges

A new video tape purportedly made by al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden has urged the American people to embrace Islam in order to stop the war in Iraq. Unnamed US officials said they believed the speaker, who makes no overt threats against the US, was indeed Bin Laden. It is his first video in three years.

The speaker makes no overt threats to the US and did not directly call for attacks, according to transcripts of the tape obtained by several media organisations in the United States. Instead, he tells the American people that they have failed to persuade the Bush administration to stop the war in Iraq. "You made one of your greatest mistakes, in that you neither brought to account nor punished those who waged this war," the speaker in the tape says, according to the transcript obtained by ABC News. "You permitted Bush to complete his first term, and stranger still, chose him for a second term, which gave him a clear mandate from you... to continue to murder our people in Iraq and Afghanistan". The speaker tells the American public that there are two ways to end the war in Iraq: "The first is from our side, and it is to continue to escalate the killing and fighting against you." The second way, he continues, is to reject America's democratic system and convert to Islam. "It has now become clear to you and the entire world the impotence of the democratic system and how it plays with the interest of the peoples and their blood by sacrificing soldiers and populations to achieve the interests of the major corporations". "I invite you to embrace Islam," the speaker says. "The leaders of the West - especially Bush, [Tony] Blair, [Nicolas] Sarkozy and [Gordon] Brown - still talk about freedom and human rights with a flagrant disregard for the intellects of human beings," he adds.

The fact he makes referance to the new French President Nicolas Sarkozy proves that at the latest this was recording in may after Sarkozy's victory.

So, why is this man still managing to evade international forces nearly 6 years after 9/11 then?

Thoughts?

Because he has lotsa moneys and about 500 million sympathisers.

Osama bin Laden makes Solid Snake look like an amateur.