Bin Laden ‘to issue tribute to al-Zarqawi’

Osama bin Laden will issue a videotaped message paying tribute to slain al-Qaida in Iraq chief Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a message on an Islamic militant website said today.

The message did not say when the video would be posted or whether bin Laden himself would appear in the video.

The al-Qaida leader has issued three audiotapes this year but has not appeared in a video since one issued on October 29, 2004.

A similar “advertisement” was issued for an al-Zarqawi tribute put out last week by bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri. The advertisement appeared on the Web a day before the video was posted on Friday.

Al-Zarqawi, who headed one of Iraq’s most notorious insurgent groups, swore loyalty to bin Laden but is believed to have had sometimes rocky ties with al-Qaida’s core leadership, based in the Afghan-Pakistani border region. The Jordanian-born al-Zarqawi was killed on June 7 in a US airstrike north east of Baghdad.

The advertisement for the bin Laden video was in the form of a blue banner signed by As-Sahab, the al-Qaida production branch.

The banner flashed the message, “Good News Soon,” followed by a picture of a smiling al-Zarqawi and the words, “A tribute to the martyr of the Islamic nation and prince of the martyrdom-seekers, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, God rest his soul, from Sheik Osama bin Laden, God preserve him.”

The banner then flashes a picture of bin Laden.