CAIRO, Egypt – Osama bin Laden’s chief deputy claimed the United States was on the brink of defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan in a videotape broadcast Thursday that appeared to be a rallying call for al-Qaida ahead of the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
“The defeat of America in Iraq and Afghanistan has become a matter of time, with God’s help,” Ayman al-Zawahri said on the tape, which was broadcast by the Arab television station Al-Jazeera. “The Americans in both countries are between two fires, if they continue they bleed to death and if they withdraw they lose everything.”
Al-Qaida has issued a bin Laden audio tape in the two previous years on Sept. 10, so Thursday’s video fits a pattern leading up to the attack anniversary, a U.S. intelligence official said.
U.S. officials have noted that some tape releases have preceded terrorist attacks. In April 2003, a taped voice thought to be bin Laden’s exhorted Muslims to rise up against Saudi Arabia and called for suicide attacks against U.S. and British interests. Suicide bombers struck Western housing compounds in the Saudi capital on May 12, killing 26 people.
Bin Laden and al-Zawahri are believed hiding along the Afghan-Pakistan border.
“Southern and eastern Afghanistan have completely become an open field for the mujahedeen,” or holy fighters, al-Zawahri said in excerpts of the tape aired by the Qatar-based station.
“The Americans are huddled in their trenches, refusing to come out to confront the holy warriors despite the holy warriors’ provoking them by shelling, shooting and cutting the routes around them and their defense concentrates on strikes from the air, which wastes America’s money in kicking up dust,” he added.
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