DUBAI, Sept 10: Two days before the third anniversary of Sept 11, Osama bin Laden's right-hand man emerged for the first time in a year to warn Americans of imminent defeat for their armies in Iraq and Afghanistan.

With Americans needing no reminder of their vulnerability to potential terrorist attack, Al Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri was shown on Al Jazeera television late Thursday doing just that.

"(Americans) will no longer be safe while their government does not stop committing its crimes against Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine," said the fugitive Egyptian cleric, shown on the tape with an assault rifle at his side.

"The American defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan has become just a question of time, God willing," he told the world, nearly three years to the day since the Sept 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.

"In the two countries, the Americans are between two fires: if they remain there they will bleed to death, and if they withdraw they will have lost everything." Zawahiri said Al Qaeda's mujahedeen had foiled US forces in Iraq and left them hiding in the trenches in Afghanistan.

"In Iraq, the mujahedeen foiled the American plan after the interim government showed such weakness," said the 53-year-old Zawahiri, considered by Washington to be Al Qaeda's ideologue and main strategist.

He claimed that the terror network's mujahedeen were in control of "the entire east and south of Afghanistan" with the support of the people. "The Americans are dug into their trenches and refuse to come out to face the mujahedeen, despite their provocations by bombing and besieging them."

The Americans and other foreign troops simply "defend themselves with air raids," he said in the tape. "In Kabul, the Americans and the peacekeeping forces are the target of rocket attacks by the mujahedeen are constantly in fear of martyr (suicide) operations," Zawahiri added.

According to the Qatar-based channel, Zawahiri also denounced plans to "destroy the Arab-Muslim world, including the Arabian peninsula, Egypt and Sudan." An eye surgeon with a 25 million dollar US bounty on his head, Zawahiri was last seen in a video broadcast almost the same time a year ago. -AFP

TAPE AUTHENTIC, SAYS CIA