al-Qaida threatens more attacks on Americans

al-Qaida today threatened more attacks on Americans and dismissed the US campaign to dismantle the terrorist group as a ‘‘Hollywood script’’ without effect.

‘‘al-Qaida still maintains its military, security, economic and informational structures,’’ spokesman Sulaiman Abu Ghaith told Algerian newspaper El Youm.

‘‘al-Qaida will organise more attacks inside American territory and outside, at the moment we choose, at the place we choose and with the objectives that we want,’’ Abu Ghaith said.

The interview by the al-Qaida spokesman followed one posted on the Internet on June 2 in which Abu Ghaith threatened attacks on Americans and Jews, targeting ‘‘both people and buildings.’’

The editor in chief of El Youm said the interview it published was carried out on Sunday via two intermediaries.

Editor H’Mida Ayachi said that El Youm formulated the questions that were faxed to an intermediary. A second intermediary actually asked the questions. He would not say where the interview took place.

Abu Ghaith said that al-Qaida ‘‘functions according to a rigorous, secret logic’’ and that it cannot be knocked out.

He dismissed the US led strikes on Afghanistan to rout out al-Qaida.

‘‘The American campaign is but a Hollywood script with its victims thousands of innocent villagers killed without having been implicated in the battle.’’

al-Qaida and its leader Osama bin Laden are the main suspects behind the September 11 terror attacks in the United States. The whereabouts of bin Laden are not known.