Send all troops, says al-Qaeda
January 24, 2007 04:00am
AL-QAEDA'S second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has defiantly mocked US President George W. Bush's plan to send extra troops to Iraq, saying he should send his entire army to be annihilated.
The online video message coincided yesterday with new intelligence that the former al-Qaeda leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, planned to send militants to the US on student visas to carry out attacks on US soil.
But the plot, which came to light during a raid on an al-Qaeda safe house in Iraq early last year, never got off the ground and Zarqawi was killed later in an attack by US forces, officials said.
Yesterday, al-Qaeda also claimed to have shot down a US helicopter on Saturday.
On Saturday, 25 US troops died, including 12 in the helicopter crash, in one of the highest single-day death tolls since the US-led invasion of March 2003.
But the al-Qaeda claim came only after a US official said the helicopter might have been hit by a shoulder-fired missile.
In the group's most recent video, Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's deputy, repeatedly pokes fun at Mr Bush's plan for Iraq, as well as the US-led mission to rid Afghanistan of the Taliban.
"In his latest speech, Bush said in his ramblings that he would send 20,000 of his soldiers to Iraq. I ask him: why send only 20,000 soldiers? Why don't you send 50,000 or 100,000?" Zawahiri says in the 15-minute recording.
"Don't you know that the dogs of Iraq are impatient to devour the carcasses of your soldiers?
"On the contrary, you must send your entire army to be annihilated at the hands of themujaheddin so that the whole world will be rid of your wickedness."
Mr Bush announced on January 10 that he would send an additional 21,500 troops to war-torn Iraq.
Iraqi and US forces, reinforced by up to 10 brigades, are preparing a broad offensive against insurgent and militia groups that is to focus on Baghdad in an attempt toquell sectarian violence that killed tens of thousands of Iraqis last year.
Under the new security plan for Baghdad, 3200 extra US troops have landed in the capital, where much of the violence is centred.
The aim of the plan is to crack down on insurgents and militias engaged in the communal bloodletting.
Mr Bush has waged an aggressive public relations campaign over the past week to warn against pulling out of Iraq hastily, and Iraq was expected to be one of the prominent issues in his annual State of the Union speech overnight.
But Zawahiri says: "Iraq, the country of the caliphate and of jihad, is capable of being a tomb for 10 of your armies."
"It is al-Qaeda and the Taliban, led by the emir of the believers, Mullah Mohammed Omar (may God save him), who have deprived the Americans of a safe haven in Afghanistan.
"Security must be shared: if we are safe, you will be too ... If we are hit and killed, you will inescapably be hit and killed.
"Today, the duty of every Muslim is to bear arms or to support and serve those who bear the arms."
Zawahiri also lashes out at Mr Bush over the conflict in Somalia, saying Islamist fighters would "break the back" of Ethiopian forces backing government troops in the Horn of Africa nation.
"I announce the good news to Bush: he has bogged down his Ethiopian slaves in a real disaster in Somalia," Zawahiri says.
"The mujaheddin will break their back.
"The Americans, who encouraged them on to their ruin and are giving them orders from afar so that they die in their place, will not even shed tears for them."
news.com.au |
