Al-Qaeda deputy Ayman al-Zawahri said his terror network carried out the July 7 London bombings in a statement broadcast on an Arab satellite television station, marking the group’s first direct claim of responsibility for the attacks that killed 52 people.
The Egyptian-born militant also criticised the legitimacy of Sunday’s Afghanistan parliamentary elections and condemned Pakistan — the one-time ally of Afghanistan’s deposed Taliban regime — for forging strong ties with the United States.
”The blessed London attack was one which al-Qaeda was honoured to launch against the British Crusader’s arrogance and against the American Crusader aggression on the Islamic nation for 100 years,” al-Zawahri said in the tape aired on Monday on Qatar-based al-Jazeera TV.
”In their final testament, the heroic brothers in the London attacks … provided great lessons to the Islamic nation and Muslims in Pakistan to oppose the infidels,” said al-Zawahri, who wore a black turban and white shirt and spoke to someone off-camera who was interviewing him.
In another tape aired on September 2, al-Zawahri, who is thought to be hiding along the rugged Afghan-Pakistani border, issued a veiled claim of responsibility for the attacks that also killed the four bombers.
”This blessed attack revealed the real hypocritical face of the West,” said the gray-bearded al-Zawahri in his latest tape, which included English subtitles and credits saying it was produced and translated by al-Sahab Media Production House, a shadowy purported al-Qaeda media organisation.
While there was no immediate way to verify al-Zawahri’s claim, the coordinated attacks on three London underground stations and a double-decker bus bore all the hallmarks of the group that has claimed responsibility for numerous bombings, including the September 11 2001 attacks.
Shortly after the London bombings, which were carried out by four bombers including two of Pakistani descent, two militant Islamic groups said they were responsible, but both had made dubious claims in the past.
A spokesperson for London’s metropolitan police had no immediate comment on al-Zawahri’s latest tape.
Afghanistan ‘under terror of warlords’
The tape, only five minutes of which were shown, appeared to have been made recently as al-Zawahri referred several times to Sunday’s parliamentary elections in Afghanistan, which he said were held ”under the terror of warlords”. He was apparently referring to still-warring factions in Afghanistan who were behind the country’s civil conflict of the 1990s.
Al-Zawahri said northern Afghanistan has turned into a battlefield of ”chaos, looting, rape and drug trafficking which had flourished under the American occupation before they carried out these elections, which are nothing but a farce”.
”Thieves and warlords are controlling affairs in the country, where international monitors can’t observe more than 10 constituencies even if they wanted to,” he added.
Amid threats by al-Qaeda’s former Taliban hosts to disrupt Afghanistan’s legislative elections, just more than 50% of people turned out to vote, but the figure was lower than many hoped. In the country’s October 2004 presidential polls, turnout was 70%.
Al-Zawahri also slammed Iraq’s January elections, which Sunni Muslims boycotted amid threats of attacks by al-Qaeda’s frontman there, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Al-Zawahri also criticised the United Nations for praising the US running of the vote.
”They [the Americans] obtained a forged testimony from the UN, which monitored nothing except for theatrical constituencies in some towns,” he said. ”This is an example of the UN’s hypocrisy, which they [Americans] claim has given them international legitimacy.”
Britain was also denounced by the al-Qaeda deputy, who claimed Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government was planning to deport firebrand cleric Abu Qatada and nine other Islamic extremists detained in Britain in the wake of the July 7 bombings.
‘Spiritual ambassador’
Spanish officials have described Abu Qatada as al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden’s ”spiritual ambassador in Europe”.
British authorities were planning to hand over Abu Qatada and nine others to their respective countries despite London’s belief ”that they will be subjected to torture and possibly death if deported”, al-Zawahri claimed.
He also belittled US demands for political reform around the world, including in Islamic countries, saying ”there is no reform without jihad [holy war] for the sake of God and any call for reform without jihad will eventually be greeted by death and failure”.
”Our enemies will not give us our rights without Jihad,” he said. ”The Americans will not allow any Islamic regime to take power in the heart of the Islamic world unless it is a regime collaborating with them like what happens in Iraq.”
The spokesperson for al-Jazeera, which has aired numerous al-Qaeda tapes and statements in the past, was not immediately available for comment.
But the station’s anchor said the entire tape was not aired, including excerpts where al-Zawahri claimed that the US and Britain were not revealing the true number of soldiers killed or wounded in Iraq.
The anchor said al-Zawahri also urged Islamic insurgents in Iraq to unite in their campaign against the US-led occupation and criticised Pakistan’s close ties with the US and closure of Islamic schools in Pakistan. — Sapa-AP