Bin Laden deputy vows to continue fight against US
Al Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri has warned in a video broadcast that the terror network would go on with its fight against the United States until it changed its policy towards Muslims.
"I have a final piece of advice for America that I must give: you must choose between two ways of behaving towards Muslims: either you deal with them on the basis of respect and mutual interest or you treat them as easy prey," he said in an extract of the video shown by Arab satellite news channel Al Jazeera.
"But you must know that we are a nation of patience and perseverence. We will persevere with our fight against you until the end of time," he said.
Zawahiri is the right-hand man of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the terror mastermind behind the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001.
Washington believes Zawahiri, who faces a death sentence in Egypt and like bin Laden has a $US25 million bounty on his head, is the main strategist and key ideologist in the Al Qaeda hierarchy.
In an audiotape message aired on October 1, also on the Doha-based Al Jazeera, Zawahiri called on young Muslims to resist the "Crusader campaign" and threatened the interests of several Western and Asian countries.
Since the September 11, 2001 attacks, Zawahiri has surfaced occasionally in taped audio or video messages calling for more strikes on the United States.
The United States tends to examine such tapes closely for hidden messages amid suspicions that Al Qaeda communicates secretly about operations to its followers through them.
The last time Zawahiri was seen was in a tape shown on Al Jazeera just two days before the third anniversary of the September 11 attacks, in which he forecast a US defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan.
- AFP
