Al-Qaeda deputy releases new video

A new video of Osama Bin Laden's right hand man Ayman al-Zawahri has appeared on the Internet

The 95-minute film features al-Zawahri urging all Muslims to join forces in holy war against the West.

He says: "The first thing which our beloved brothers in Iraq must realise is the critical nature of unity, and that it is the gateway to victory.

"The mujahideen are not innocent of deficiency, error and slips, because they are humans who are sometimes right and sometimes wrong.

"And whether they are right or wrong, they must submit to the purified Shariah. The Shariah didn't come down for the angels, it came down for humans with their goodness and their badness. Thus the mujahideen must solve their problems among themselves.

"So if the agents of the Saudi state were to take control of government in Iraq or the regions of the people of the Sunnah, the Iraqis would then suffer the same repression and humiliation which the people suffer under Saudi rule under the pretext of combating terrorism and preserving security, ie: combating Jihad and preserving America's security."

He continued: "As for the second half of the long-term plan, it consists of hurrying to the fields of Jihad like Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia for Jihadi preparation and training.

"Thus it is a must to hurry to the fields of Jihad for two reasons: the first is to defeat the enemies of the Muslim community and repel the Zionist Crusade, and the second is for Jihadi preparation and training to prepare for the next stage of the Jihad."

The lengthy tape then included video excerpts such as footage from Thomas Kean, the Chair of the September 11 Commission, stating that al-Qaeda was one of the biggest security threats ever faced by the US.

In what appeared a similar attempt to convince Muslim viewers of al-Qaeda's might, the tape then inserted quotes from an Arab newspaper commentator stating he believed the terrorist group remained as strong as before.

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