CAIRO, March 4 (Xinhuanet) -- In a fresh audio tape posted Saturday on Web site that is frequently used by Islamist groups, al-Qaida's No. two Ayman al-Zawahri had urged world Muslims to launch similar strikes against the West as those against New York, London and Madrid in the past.

¡¡¡¡Muslims "have to inflict losses on the crusader West, especially to its economic infrastructure with strikes that would make it bleed for years," said the calimed Zawahri on the tape. The speaker also called for an economic boycott against Denmark, Norway, France and Germany where satirical cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad had been published.

    "We have to prevent the crusader West from stealing the Muslims' oil which is being drained in the biggest robbery in history," he added.

    The authenticity of the tape could not be independently verified.

    Meanwhile, Zawahiri also spoke on Saturday in video footage broadcast on the Qatar-based Arabic television channel al-Jazeera, repeating the call he made in the audio tape posted on the Internet.

    He urged Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) to fight on and not to accept agreements between the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and Israel, reported al-Jazeera. The agreements was "surrender accords", Zawahiri was quoted as saying, calling on Hamas, victors in the Jan. 25 Palestinian parliamentary election, "to continue the armed struggle" against Israel. Enditem