Osama Bin Laden

Ayman al-Zawahri

　　BAGHDAD, Sept. 10 (Xinhuanet) -- Qatar-based al-Jazeera TV channel aired on Wednesday a new video tape purportedly of al-Qaida chief Osama Bin Laden and the second figure Ayman al-Zawahri. The tape, probably recorded at the end of April or in early May, showed the two men walking in the mountains.

　　Bin Laden praised the suicide hijackers who crashed planes into New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon near Washington on Sept. 11, 2001.

　　"He who wants to learn loyalty, sincerity, magnanimity and courage in support of religion ... should follow in the footsteps of Said al-Ghamdi, Mohammad Atta, Khaled al-Mihdar, Ziad al-Jarrah and their brethren, God rest their souls," he said.　

　"Those men caused great damage to the enemy and disturbed their plans," he added.

　　The channel also broadcast on Wednesday an audio tape claimed to be from al-Zawahri, who hailed Iraq's resistance against occupying forces.

　　"As long as people of Muslim nations, especially the Palestinians, feel unsafe, the Americans are unlikely to feel safe," a voice said in Arabic.

　　The voice expressed respect to the "ongoing resistant movements in Iraq" and urged relatives of American soldiers to persuade them not to fight Arab world or Islamic countries.

　　The tapes were aired on the eve of the second anniversary of the September 11 attacks, allegedly directed by the al-Qaida."On the eve of the second anniversary of the attacks on New York and Washington we challenge the America Crusade, which is taking pain in Afghanistan and Iraq," said the voice attributed to al-Zawahri.

　　Some US and Iraqi officials believe members of the al-Qaida terror network have joined the remnants of former Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein in conducting the almost daily attacks against the US-led coalition forces across Iraq.

　　At least 68 US soldiers have been killed in hostile fire in the country since US President George W. Bush declared the major comba tover on May 1.

　　Last Sunday, President Bush declared that Iraq had become the central battle ground of the global war on terror and vowed to "achieve this essential victory in the war on terror...to make our own nation more secure."

　　Supporting terror groups such as al-Qaida was one of the accusations the United States held on Saddam's regime as a pretext for the war on March 20, which resulted in the ouster of the regime in early April.

　　But Iraqi analysts blamed the US-led war for the rampant terrorist actions that rocked the conflict-plagued country, arguing that the US troops but not the Iraqis are the "magnet." Before the war on Iraq, al-Zawahri had pledged to shift the front of terror attacks "from the outskirts to the center of the Islamic world."

　　Five car bombings with clear terrorist look have killed over 120people in Iraq in the past month, among them were top UN envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello and Iraqi Shiite leader Ayatollah Baquer al-Hakim.

    Wednesday's footage was the first shown video image of Bin Laden since November, 2001, when his armed group suffered its major defeat as its host, the Taliban militia, was rooted out in Afghanistan by US troops.

    The release of the footage and the tape recording was almost simultaneous with a live broadcast of Bush's speech, boasting the progress in the two years of the war on terror. 

   While claiming the enemy is "wounded", Bush conceded at FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, that it is "still dangerous." Enditem