Posthumous Bin Laden audio recording released

Updated at 7:28 a.m. Eastern

WASHINGTON - Shortly before his death, Osama bin Laden recorded a message praising the Middle East protest movements and predicting that revolutions would spread across the region.

"I think that the winds of change will blow over the entire Muslim world, with permission from Allah," bin Laden said in the 12-minute message released online Wednesday.

The message was released as a video, but it contains only an audio track and a photo of the terrorist leader.

CBS News senior White House correspondent Bill Plante reports there has been no formal reaction from the White House, but tell CBS News the U.S. expected bin Laden to try and capitalize on the uprisings of the "Arab spring," and had expected to find some kind of comments on the subject in the trove of materials American forces took from his Pakistan compound.

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Though both bin Laden and the West have generally supported protest movements in Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere, their goals are very different. The West hopes the protests will lead to democratic reforms. Bin Laden and his followers saw many Middle East governments as corrupt and hoped their collapse would lead to government based on their interpretation of Islamic law.

CBS News terrorism analyst Juan Zarate tells "The Early Show" that the timing of al Qaeda's decision to release the new message from bin Laden is interesting in the context of President Obama's pending speech Thursday on the Middle East.

"Al Qaeda has put this out there as part of a messaging war," says Zarate, adding that the timing may or may not be coincidence. "Certainly this audio was floating out there, but al Qaeda reads the newspapers. They know what's going on. And they certainly they wanted to get his (bin Laden's) voice out there."

In the recording, Bin Laden accused rulers of building themselves into idols and manipulating the media to stay in power.

"So, what are you waiting for?" he implored listeners. "Save yourselves and your children, because the opportunity is here."

Bin Laden was killed by Navy SEALs in a daring May 2 raid. U.S. intelligence officials were aware that the recording was in the pipeline. The video was released to jihadist websites by al Qaeda's media arm and was obtained and translated by SITE Intelligence Group.

Bin Laden was known to record many of his thoughts, and intelligence officials are poring over the recordings discovered in his Pakistani compound. But it's unclear whether he released any other recordings prior to his death or whether this is the final sermon from the terrorist mastermind.