PARIS, April 22: A purported senior Al Qaeda operative who escaped from a US airbase in Afghanistan last July called on members on Friday in a video statement to move to fight in Saudi Arabia, predicting they would soon overcome US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“You must have a precise programme in mind: we will soon conquer America (the United States) in Afghanistan and Iraq. We must then head directly towards the peninsula of Mohammed (Saudi Arabia),” Saudi Mohammad al Qahtani said in the video statement released on the internet.

“We will have acquired great military experience... We call on our brothers who are fighting at the moment in the peninsula of Mohammed to continue their fight. We will soon be there,” he said.

Mr Qahtani was one of four Al Qaeda members who escaped from the US Bagram airbase last July.

The escape of the four men, described by the US army as ‘dangerous combatants’, is a source of embarrassment at the main US base in Afghanistan.

Qahtani’s message was accompanied by a film of an Al Qaeda attack carried out under his own command by 28 Al Qaeda operatives and Taliban against an American base in Khost in Afghanistan. The website said the attack was his first operation since the escape.

Qahtani called on Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden to continue to lead the fight against the West.

“Oh our beloved Sheikh Osama bin Laden, may God take care of you... Continue on this path. Incite us with your good words to fight the enemies of Allah among the Jews and the Christians. Your good words are for us a lighthouse which lights the way. Every one of your words increases our ardour to fight the Jews and Christians,” he said. —AFP