Al-Qaida tries to upset Palestinian peace talks

Al-Qaida’s deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri denounced last month’s Middle East peace conference in the United States as a “betrayal” of Palestinians in a new audio tape posted on an Islamic militant Web site today.

It was the first reaction by the terror network to the conference, sponsored by President George Bush and attended by key Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, Syria and Egypt, as well as Palestinian and Israeli leaders.

The conference relaunched Palestinian-Israeli peace talks after a seven year hiatus. “The Annapolis meeting was held to turn Palestine into a Jewish state,” the voice, claimed to be that of al-Zawahri, said in the 20-minute tape that carried a still photo of the white-turbaned militant against a backdrop photograph from the Maryland conference.

“The czar of Washington invited 16 Arab countries … to sit in one room, at one table with the Israelis,” al-Zawahri said, adding that the conference “witnessed the betrayal deals to sell Palestine.”

Al-Zawahri mainly addressed Arabs, urging them to condemn the Annapolis conference and label Mahmoud Abbas as “the traitor,” adding that the Palestinian president “sold you out in Annapolis and in its aftermath”.

Al-Zawahri, seen by many counterterrorism experts as al Qaida’s operational chief, rather than Osama bin Laden, is believed to play a large role in directing al Qaida’s strategy on the ground and issues frequent videos and audio tapes, often laying out the network’s doctrinal line.