Laden tape shows he is greatly weakened: Obama

The latest audio tape released by the Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden claiming responsibility for the failed December 25 plane bombing by a Nigerian terror suspect, reveals that he has weakened over the years, the US president said on Tuesday.

"Bin Laden sending out a tape trying to take credit for a Nigerian student who engaged in a failed bombing attempt is an indication of how weakened he is because this is not something necessarily directed by him," Barack Obama told the ABC news in an interview.

"Since 9/11, we have put in a series of measures that make us much safer now than we were before 9/11. The Al Qaeda itself is greatly weakened from where it was back in 2000," Obama said in response to a question.

Nigerian national Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian national, had tried to blow up a North West Airlines plane on December 25.

The plane had some 300 people on board.

During interrogation, Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had said that he was trained and given the explosives by al-Qaeda in Yemen, which too claimed responsibility for this.