DUBAI, Dec 20: In a new message attributed to him, and aired cautiously by the Al Jazeera television network, Al Qaeda number two Ayman al Zawahiri has once again taunted the Americans, who are revelling in the capture of Saddam Hussein.

On Friday night, the Qatar-based satellite television aired an audiotape purportedly of Osama bin Laden’s right-hand man, who has been given up for dead several times, in which he said the Americans are weak and beginning to stagger under the blows of Al Qaeda.

The tape was made to mark the second anniversary of the battle of Tora Bora, when US-led forces in Afghanistan sought to wipe out Osama bin Laden and other leaders of the group, Al Jazeera said.

In his purported message, Mr Zawahiri said he wanted to prove “the heroic resistance (in Dec 2001) of 300 fighters who faced thousands of American soldiers and their allies in the battle of Tora Bora”.

The message, said to have been made last month during Ramazan, claimed that half the besieged fighters had managed to flee American forces under a 12-day onslaught by B-52 bombers targeting caves where Osama and his followers hid, hungry and freezing.

The second anniversary of the battle coincided with deadly bombings in Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, all claimed by Al Qaeda, whose leader has been stripped of his Saudi citizenship.—AFP