Cairo – In a new video aired Monday, al-Qaeda’s No. 2 man, Ayman al-Zawahri mocked President Bush as a “failure” in the war on terror, called him a “butcher” for killing innocent Pakistanis in a miscarried 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 and speaking in a forceful and angry voice, also threatened a new attack on the United States – “God willing, on your own land.”
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 was still alive after the Jan. 13 airstrike in eastern Pakistan that targeted him but killed four other al-Qaeda leaders and 13 villagers.
The message came on the heels of a Jan. 19 audiotape by bin Laden, the al-Qaeda 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 terms.
U.S. officials had said after the bin Laden tape that no intelligence indicated an imminent al-Qaeda 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 al-Zawahri video, especially with two major events in the United States this week – the State of the Union speech in Washington and the Super Bowl in Detroit.
Al-Zawahri said in the video that he had a number of messages to give in the wake of the airstrike.
In one message, 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.
He said the airstrike in Pakistan by an unmanned Predator craft targeted himself and four of his “brothers” in al-Qaeda. 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.
“Bush, do you know where I am? I am among the Muslim masses enjoying God’s blessing of their support, care, generosity and protection,” al-Zawahri 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.”
