DUBAI, Sept 29: Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Al-Qaeda number two, in a video posted on the Internet on Friday called US President George Bush a liar who had ‘failed in his war against Al-Qaeda’, Al-Jazeera television reported.

The Qatar-based Arabic-language satellite station said that in the video, ‘Zawahiri called Bush a liar and said he had failed in his war against Al-Qaeda’.

On Thursday, Islamist websites on the Internet had said there would be a new video message posted by Zawahiri entitled ‘Bush, the pope, Darfur and the Crusades’.

In a previous video posted on the Internet to mark the fifth anniversary of the Sept 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, Zawahiri warned that the Gulf and Israel would be the next targets of Al-Qaeda.

“You should worry about your presence in two areas,” he said in a message to western powers. “The first is the Gulf, from where you will be expelled, God willing, after your defeat in Iraq, and your economic ruin will be achieved. And the second is Israel, because the jihadi reinforcements are getting closer, with God’s help and power, and your defeat there will put an end to the superiority of the Zionists and Crusaders.—AFP

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