Fidel Castro has said Osama bin Laden is in the pay of the CIA and was summoned up whenever George W Bush needed to scare the world.
"Any time Bush would stir up fear and make a big speech, bin Laden would appear threatening people with a story about what he was going to do," Mr Castro said.
"Bush never lacked for bin Laden's support. He was a subordinate."
Mr Castro made his remarks during a meeting with Lithuanian-born writer Daniel Estulin known for advancing conspiracy theories about world domination.
He said documents posted on WikiLeaks.org, the website that released thousands of classified US documents about the war in Afghanistan, "effectively proved he was a CIA agent".
However, the former Cuban president - who himself became America's enemy no.1 and survived multiple assassination attempts by the CIA - did not further elaborate.
During the meeting, Mr Estulin told Mr Castro that the real voice of bin Laden was last heard in late 2001, not long after the September 11 attacks.
He said the person heard making warnings about terror attacks after that was a "bad actor".
Mr Castro did take exception with one of Mr Estulin's major theses - that the human race must move to another habitable planet or face extinction.
The 84-year-old revolutionary said it would be better to fix things on Earth then abandon the planet altogether.
"Humanity ought to take care of itself if it wants to live thousands more years," Mr Castro told the writer.
Mr Castro stepped down due to ill health in 2006 - first temporarily, then permanently - and handed power over to his younger brother Raul.
He has remained head of the Cuban Communist party but stayed out of view for four years after falling sick before returning to the spotlight in July.
His comments about the al Qeada leader are the latest in a series of provocative statements.
Recently he warned that the planet is on the brink of nuclear war.
Mr Castro even predicted the threat of global conflict would mean that the final rounds of the World Cup would be cancelled last month.
He later apologised for jumping the gun.
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