Bin Laden deputy’s ‘will’ published

American intelligence officials have translated a 100-page document they describe as Osama bin Laden’s top deputy’s ‘‘last will’’, it emerged today.

The volume was written by Ayman al-Zawahiri, head of Egyptian Islamic Jihad and bin Laden’s chief strategist, and smuggled out of Afghanistan in December.

And today the Washington Post reported that it tells how the terror chief said if al Qaida was facing military defeat, its key members should flee and regroup elsewhere.

The document was first published in part in London-based Arabic newspaper Asharq al-Awsat, which the Washington Post said had been passed to it by one of al-Zawahiri’s aides, who had smuggled it through Pakistan to the UK.

In it al-Zawahiri, whose wife and children were killed in an American bombing raid in November, hinted at al Qaida’s strategy if it faced imminent defeat.

‘‘If the entire movement, or part of it, faces a situation where the noose is being tightened around it and its collapse is a matter of days or hours, the movement must pull out as many personnel as possible to the safety of a shelter,’’ he wrote.

In Arabic, he said the men left behind could fight to the death confident that their cause would not die with them.

American intelligence officials believe al Qaida followed the strategy, letting leaders including bin Laden and al-Zawahiri flee from the cave complex of Tora Bora and leaving behind its foot soldiers to be defeated as the area was pounded by American bombers.

Al-Zawahiri is believed to have written the document’s final chapters while in a cave near Kandahar, once the Taliban’s spiritual capital and now in the hands of the new interim government.

He pledged ‘‘to spend whatever is left of life in serving the cause of Islam in its ferocious war against the tyrants of the new crusade’’.

And he said he was writing ‘‘while being a wanted man, a fugitive’’ - and told how he feared being captured, as well as saying what al Qaida leaders fear their men would do if they were taken prisoner.

‘‘Once the door of the cell is closed, the prisoner will wish that he had spent his entire life without a shelter rather than endure the humiliation of captivity,’’ he wrote.

‘‘The toughest thing about captivity is forcing the mujahid (holy warrior) under the force of torture to confess about his colleagues, destroy his movement with his own hands, and offer his and his colleagues’ secrets to his enemies.’’

And he echoed bin Laden’s call in a videotape revealed late in December that the American economy should be targeted, but also suggested al Qaida’s first goal should be to strike Americans and Jews ‘‘in our countries’’.

The terror lieutenant also told his followers what to believe if there was a crackdown on al Qaida in Islamic countries.

‘‘The masters in Washington and Tel Aviv are using the regimes to protect their interests and to fight the battle against the Muslims on their behalf,’’ he wrote.

The translation comes after the discovery of a computer used by al-Zawahiri and other al Qaida leaders in Kabul.

The computer was sold to the American Wall Street Journal by a looter and included plans for a chemical and biological weapons programme as well as letters between al Qaida operatives and the group’s leadership.

Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Britain was recognised as a ‘‘powerful force for good’’ around the globe in the wake of September 11.

In a New Year address to staff, Mr Straw said the US suicide hijackings, which triggered the war on terrorism, had shone a light on the ‘‘dedication and professionalism’’ of the staff of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

‘‘September 11 had a deep impact on all of us,’’ he said.

‘‘Yet in the days that followed those harrowing events in the United States, few of us could have imagined that, on this New Year’s Day, so many people would be freed of fear and oppression and that the Union Flag would once more fly over the British Embassy in Kabul.’’

British peacekeeping troops are in the Afghan capital Kabul but deployment of the full International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was still on hold tonight.

Despite assurances that a deal has been done, those countries involved have still not signed the military and technical agreement with the interim Afghan government.

A Ministry of Defence spokesman could only say that it was expected to be completed ‘‘within a few days’’.