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Old 07-31-2006, 17:25   #1
MtnGoat
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New Video Speech of Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri On actions of Isreal in Lebanon and Gaza

Al-Qaeda vows to avenge Israel onslaughts on Lebanon, Gaza
07-27-2006, 11h37
DUBAI (AFP) turkishpress.com

Al-Qaeda second in command Ayman al-Zawahiri has vowed that the network would carry out attacks against Israel and its US backers to avenge the Israeli offensives against Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.

In a videotape aired by Arabic television channel Al-Jazeera Thursday, the right-hand man of Osama bin Laden also called for an alliance of Sunni and Shiite Muslim fighters transcending sectarian animosities and extending from Afghanistan to the Palestinian territories in order to liberate "the whole of Palestine".

"We cannot watch these rockets raining down fire on our brothers in Gaza and Lebanon and remain inactive and submissive," Zawahiri said.

It was the first reaction by Al-Qaeda to the onslaughts which started in late June in Gaza and on July 12 in Lebanon, triggered by the capture of Israeli soldiers by Palestinian militants and Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah movement.

"The rockets and missiles tearing apart the bodies of Muslims in Gaza and Lebanon are not purely Israeli. They come from and are funded by all the countries of the crusader alliance," Zawahiri said in a reference to the United States and Western allies.

"Hence, everyone who took part in the crime must pay the price ... The whole world is an open field for us. Like they attack us everywhere, we too attack them everywhere."

Zawahiri's comments -- in which he invoked revered Shiite figures like Prophet Mohammed's grandson, Imam Hussein, as well as figures revered by Sunnis -- indicated that Al-Qaeda, which is made up of Sunni Islamist extremists, was prepared to help Hezbollah despite differences with the Shiite sect.

"The war with Israel ... is a jihad (holy war) for the sake of God ... a jihad that seeks to liberate Palestine, the whole of Palestine, and to liberate every land which (once belonged to) Islam, from Andalus to Iraq," Zawahiri thundered.

"These events (in Lebanon and Gaza) show the importance of the jihadi fronts in Afghanistan and Iraq. All Muslims must assist them so that America's forces get out of them crippled ... and pay the price of its aggression against Muslims and its support for Israel," he said.

"Iraq has the benefit of being close to Palestine. Muslims must therefore back its mujahedeen until a mujahed Islamic emirate is set up there that would take the jihad, with God's help, to Palestine's borders.

"Then, the mujahedeen would join hands at the entrance of Palestine for the great conquest, God willing," Zawahiri added.

The turbanned Al-Qaeda number two, apparently referring to Washington's Shiite allies in Iraq, said the "crusader-Zionist aggression" might perhaps prompt "the traitors in Iraq to retreat from their shame and treason and stop justifying and backing the US-crusader presence" in the country.

Zawahiri also called for "the oppressed and downtrodden" throughout the world to close ranks with Muslims in "confronting injustice."

He slammed the "impotence and complicity" of Arab and Muslim governments and expressed outrage at world condemnation of the capture of Israeli soldiers whereas no one lifted a finger to free 10,000 Arabs held in Israeli prisons.

The White House said it was "not surprised" by Zawahiri's threats and charged that his stated concerns about Muslims were hypocritical.

"Many of the things that he has done have led to the murder of Muslims around the world by his own jidahists," said spokesman Tony Snow.

Snow said US officials had yet to positively confirm the authenticity of the recording but added that "it certainly looked like him."

Snow said Al-Qaeda, the network behind the September 11, 2001 terrorist strikes on the United States, had seen its military capability "significantly degraded" and was therefore firing broadsides in a rhetorical war.

Zawahiri had last appeared in a video also aired on Qatar-based Al-Jazeera on June 23 to vow that Al-Qaeda would avenge the death of its Iraq frontman, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed in a US air raid June 7.
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