DUBAI, May 21: Osama bin Laden’s top lieutenant on Wednesday called upon Muslims to carry out more suicide attacks against Western targets.
In a taped message aired by Qatar’s Al Jazeera channel, Ayman Al Zawahiri, number two in the Al Qaeda network, urged Muslims to force Westerners out of their lands by attacking them and emulating the Sept 11, 2001, suicide hijackings in the United States.
“O Muslims, muster your resolve and hit the embassies of America, England, Australia and Norway, their interests, their companies and their employees ... Set the ground ablaze under their feet ... Kick these criminals out of your homelands,” said the voice.
“Do not allow the Americans, British, Australians, Norwegians and other Crusaders, the killers of your brethren in Iraq, to live in your countries and benefit from their resources.”
“Learn the lesson from your 19 brethren who attacked America with their planes, in New York and Washington, wreaking on it unprecedented havoc from which it is still reeling,” Zawahiri said in a reference to the Sept 11 attacks that struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
“The Crusaders and Jews understand only the language of killing and blood. They can only be persuaded through returning coffins, devastating interests, burning towers and collapsed economies,” the voice intoned.
Ayman al Zawahiri, whose remarks appeared to have been made during the Iraq invasion, lashed out at Arab countries which helped the US during the invasion.
Muslim rulers had been “unmasked” by granting the United States facilities to attack Iraq and hosting troops of the United States and the United Kingdom, he said, naming Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Egypt, Yemen and Jordan.
“Here is Saudi Arabia (allowing) planes to take off from its airfields, here is Kuwait (hosting) huge armies marching (on Iraq) from its territory, while the campaign’s command is based in Qatar, Bahrain hosts the Fifth Fleet and warships sail through Egypt’s (Suez) Canal,” he said.
As to Yemen, “Crusader ships are refuelling from its ports” and “Crusader armies have deployed in Jordan, where batteries of Patriot missiles have also been set up, to protect Israel.”
And “after all this, they profess in all hypocrisy to oppose the war on Iraq,” Zawahiri said.
Osama’s lieutenant reassured Iraqis that they were not alone, predicting glad tidings for them.
“You are not alone in the battle. Your mujahideen brethren are lying in wait for your enemies,” Zawahiri said, addressing the Iraqi people.
“The mujahideen in Palestine, Afghanistan, Chechnya and in the heart of America and the West are inflicting various kinds of death on these Crusaders.”
—AFP
