 08-04-2005, 12:15 PM | #1 |
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Source-age. Quote: 
Ayman al-Zawahri, al-Qaida's second-in-command, speaks in a video aired by al-Jazeera in which he warned Britons that Tony Blair's policies will bring more destruction to London.Photograph: al-Jazeera/Reuters
The al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, warned in a video broadcast today that Tony Blair's policies would bring "more destruction" to London.
The tape is the first message from Bin Laden's inner circle to directly mention the July 7 suicide bombings in which 52 people were killed in the UK capital, and which Zawahiri described as "volcanoes of wrath".
His message was broadcast by the Qatar-based al-Jazeera television station, which has broadcast tapes from him and Bin Laden in the past.
Zawahiri said: "Blair's policies will bring more destruction to Britons after the London explosions, God willing".
The Egyptian-born terrorist leader appears to refer to an audio tape which was broadcast on the al-Arabiya television station last April in which a speaker purported to be Bin Laden offers a ceasefire to countries that decide not to "interfere" in Muslim countries, although not the US.
In today's tape, referring to the nations who have contributed troops to the US-led coalition in Iraq, Zawahiri says: "As to the nations of the crusader alliance, we have offered you a truce if you leave the land of Islam.
"Hasn't Sheik Osama bin Laden told you that you will not dream of security before there is security in Palestine and before all the infidel armies withdraw from the land of Mohammed?
"Instead, you spilled blood like rivers in our countries and we exploded the volcanoes of wrath in your countries."
Zawahiri goes on: "Our message is clear: you will not be safe until you withdraw from our land, stop stealing our oil and wealth and stop supporting the corrupt rulers."
He also warns in the United States in today's tape that tens of thousands of its military personnel will die if it does not immediately withdraw its troops from Iraq.
Downing Street refused to give any instant comment on the Zawahiri tape.
A report by the foreign policy think tank Chatham House in July said there was a link between the Iraq war and the London bombings. But the prime minister at first denied it was a factor. Later Mr Blair said Iraq was "an excuse" but argued that terrorists with an "evil ideology" would always find grievances to justify attacks.
Toady's footage shows Zawarhi wearing white robes, with an AK47 assault rifle by his side. Behind him was a muddy brown sack cloth of a kind that has often been used in al-Qaida tapes to hide geographical features that could provide clues to where they were filmed.
The new tape came as around 6,000 police were today out in force in a major London security operation.
Officers patrolled the capital's public transport system exactly four weeks after the July 7 attacks and a fortnight after the failed July 21 bombings. Analysts said it was likely al-Qaida had timed the message to be broadcast on a Thursday.
Some officials in the UK and US have expressed anxieties about the media covering tapes from al-Qaida leaders.
The July 7 attacks were carried out by four suicide bombers, three of whom lived in West Yorkshire.
Experts believe it is unlikely that the London attacks were carried out with the direct involvement of the al-Qaida leadership, and were more likely to have been inspired by al-Qaida in a similar way to the Madrid bombings in March 2004, which claimed 191 lives.
However there has been speculation that the London plots may have been orchestrated by some form of "mastermind" who travelled to the country, recruited Britons and gave them training and help with explosives before fleeing the UK ahead of the attacks.
Zawahiri is a former eye doctor who merged his militant faction with al-Qaida in Afghanistan in the late 1990s. Today's tape was the first to appear from Zawahiri since September 2004, when he said that the US was on the brink of defeat in both Iraq and Afghanistan. That tape was also broadcast on al-Jazeera.
The last videotape from Bin Laden emerged on October 29 last year ahead of the US elections on November 2. In the tape he threatened another attack like September 11 and said "[President George] Bush is still deceiving you ... and therefore the reasons are still there to repeat what happened".
Bin Laden is suspected to be hiding somewhere around the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, and is the subject of a huge military manhunt that has so far proved fruitless. | |
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