TIMELINE: Recent Bin Laden messages

(Reuters) - Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has urged Muslims to break the Israeli-led blockade of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, and fight Arab governments that deal with the Jewish state, according to websites.

More than 50 messages have been broadcast by bin Laden, his second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri and their allies since the September 11 attacks in 2001.

Following is a chronology of major statements attributed to bin Laden in the last two years.

June 30, 2006 - Bin Laden in an audiotape praises the late al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as a "lion of jihad".

July 1 - Bin Laden warns Iraq's Shi'ite majority of retaliation for attacks on Sunni Arabs and says his group will fight the United States anywhere in the world.

July 6 - A year on from bombings in London which killed 52 people, al Qaeda issues a video with comments from Zawahri, bin Laden and one bomber.

September 7, 2007 - Bin Laden appears in his first videotape for nearly three years, to mark the sixth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the United States. In a message to the American people, bin Laden says the United States is vulnerable despite its economic and military power.

November 29 - Bin Laden urges European countries in an audiotape to end their alliance with U.S. forces in the Afghan conflict.

March 19, 2008 - Bin Laden threatens the European Union in an audio recording with grave punishment over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad.

March 20, 2008 - Bin Laden urges Muslims to keep up the struggle against U.S. forces in Iraq as a path to "liberating Palestine".

May 16, 2008 - Bin Laden, in a new audio tape, urges the fight against Israel to continue and says the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at the heart of the Muslim battle with the West. The speech was addressed to "Western peoples".

May 18, 2008 - Bin Laden urges Muslims to break the Israeli-led blockade of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, and fight Arab governments that deal with the Jewish state in an audio tape posted on the Internet.