Bin Laden's deputy releases new video

Al-Qaida’s Number 2 mocked both US President George Bush and the US Congress bill setting a pullout timetable for US troops from Iraq, in a new insurgent video intercepted tonight by a US-based group.

In the video, Amman al-Zawahri – who acts as Osama bin Laden’s deputy – is shown in a white Arab robe and white turban, seated before a bookshelf, the Washington-based SITE Institute said.

Al-Zawahri speaks sarcastically of the US troop pullout tying war funding to a withdrawal timetable, said SITE, which tracks terror messaging. The one hour seven minutes long video was dated May and had English subtitles.

“This bill will deprive us of the opportunity to destroy the American forces which we have caught in a historic trap,” al-Zawahri says, adding that the bill is evidence of American “failure and frustration”.

“We ask Allah that they (US troops) only get out of it after losing 200,000 to 300,000 killed, in order that we give the spillers of blood in Washington and Europe an unforgettable lesson,” al-Zawahri added.

He made no mention of Bush vetoing the bill last Thursday – an indication the video may have been made after Congress passed the legislation but before the veto.

Al-Zawahri also smirked at the US troops’ ongoing Baghdad security plan, recounting the April 12 suicide bombing at the Iraqi Parliament cafeteria in the heavily protected Green Zone in Baghdad, when a bomber slipped through security and blew himself amid lunching lawmakers, killing one Sunni legislator.

The attack cast heavy doubt about progress in the latest US-Iraqi bid to clamp off violence in the capital. An al-Qaida led amalgam of Sunni insurgents in Iraq claimed one of its “knights” had carried out the attack.

“And lest Bush worry, I congratulate him on the success of his security plan, and I invite him on the occasion for a glass of juice, but in the cafeteria of the Iraqi parliament in the middle of the Green Zone,” al-Zawahri says.

SITE said al-Zawahri also claimed al-Qaida fighters in Iraq were “nearing closer to victory over their enemy, despite this sectarian fighting” that has convulsed the country.

Al-Zawahri ranted on a score of other topics in the video, including fighting in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Algeria, and Somalia. He also made references to Saudi Arabia, Egyptian constitutional reforms meant to cement the regime’s hold on power, and the US Pentagon release of the confessions of al-Qaida number 3, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed – the alleged September 11 mastermind who was captured in Pakistan in March 2003.

With staple belligerence, al-Zawahri courted minorities to join the Holy War, or jihad.

“Al-Qaida is not merely for the benefit of Muslims,” he says. “That’s why I want blacks in America, people of colour, American Indians, Hispanics, and all the weak and oppressed in North and South America, in Africa and Asia, and all over the world, to know that when we wage Jihad in Allah’s path, we aren’t waging Jihad to lift oppression from the Muslims only, we are waging Jihad to lift oppression from all of mankind, because Allah has ordered us never to accept oppression, whatever it may be.”

In a previous, March 11 video, al-Zawahri had accused the Palestinian militant Hamas of selling out by agreeing to respect past peace deals with Israel.

Today, he further derided the Palestinian government for its refusal to maintain a militaristic approach, SITE said.

“I thank Allah for the bounty of extremism, militancy and terrorism and everything else we are labelled with,” al-Zawahri said.

Saturday’s video was the fifth message – including posted video and audio tapes - by al-Zawahri this year. Osama bin Laden has not surfaced in any communications since mid-2006.