CAIRO, Egypt – In a new video aired Monday, al-Qaida’s No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahri, mocked President Bush as a “failure” in the war on terror, called him a “butcher” for killing innocent Pakistanis in an airstrike and chastised the United States for rejecting Osama bin Laden’s offer of a truce.
Al-Zawahri, wearing white robes and a white turban, also threatened a new attack in the United States.
The video, broadcast on Al-Jazeera TV a day before Bush delivers his State of the Union address, provided the first concrete evidence that al-Zawahri is still alive after the Jan. 13 airstrike in eastern Pakistan that targeted him but killed four other al-Qaida leaders and 13 villagers.
The message came on the heels of a Jan. 19 audiotape by bin Laden, the al-Qaida leader’s first tape in more than a year. Bin Laden said his followers were preparing an attack in the United States and offered the Americans a conditional truce, though he did not spell out the terms.
A U.S. counterterrorism official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in compliance with office policy, said there is no reason to doubt the authenticity of the al-Zawahri video, which U.S. intelligence officials were analyzing.
The official noted that the video was disseminated quickly, demonstrating al-Zawahri’s ability to get his message out even faster than bin Laden. That suggests the two are not hiding together and bin Laden may be in a more remote location than his deputy, the official said.
U.S. officials had said after the bin Laden tape that no intelligence indicated an imminent al-Qaida attack. On Monday, FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko said the bureau would ask agents around the country to review ongoing cases and tips in light of the latest video, especially with the State of the Union in Washington and the Super Bowl in Detroit this week.
Al-Zawahri said in the video that he had a number of messages in the wake of the Pakistan airstrike.
In one, he invited Bush to convert to Islam. “If you accept, you will become a brother in our faith and God will forgive you your sins,” the Al-Jazeera news-reader quoted him as saying. The invitation was not in the two short excerpts aired by the Arab satellite station.
He said the airstrike targeted himself and four of his “brothers” in al-Qaida. Instead, he said, it killed 18 civilians – “men, women, and children” – and he called Bush “the butcher of Washington.”
“Bush, you are not only defeated and a liar, but, with God’s help and might, a failure. You are a curse on your own nation and you have brought and will bring them only catastrophes and tragedies,” he said.
He said he had a message “to the American people, who are drowning in illusions. I tell you that Bush and his gang are shedding your blood and wasting your money in failed adventures.”
“The lion of Islam, Sheik Osama bin Laden, may God protect him, offered you a decent exit from your dilemma. But your leaders, who are keen to accumulate wealth, insist on throwing you into battle and killing your souls in Iraq and Afghanistan and – God willing – on your own land,” he said.
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