Al-Qaeda’s second-in-command has branded United States President George Bush a ”lying failure” and urged Christians to convert to Islam in the wake of Pope Benedict XVI’s recent remarks about the Islamic faith.
In a video message released on Friday, Egyptian-born doctor Ayman al-Zawahiri asked: ”Bush, oh failure and liar, why can’t you be courageous for once and confront your people and tell them the truth about your losses in Iraq and Afghanistan?
”Why don’t you tell them how many millions of citizens of America and its allies you intend to kill in search of the imaginary victory and in breathless pursuit of the mirage towards which you are driving your people’s sons in order to increase your profits?”
Al-Zawahiri also taunts Bush for failing to dismantle al-Qaeda after the arrests of key members of the group such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the September 11 attacks on the US.
”Bush, you are a lying failure and a charlatan. It has been three-and-a-half years [since the arrests] … What happened to us? We have gained more strength and we are more insistent on martyrdom,” the Egyptian militant leader said.
The consequences of the US invasion of Iraq are currently the subject of intense public debate.
After the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and with the US mid-term elections just over a month away, there has been a flurry of political, publishing and diplomatic activity.
Elsewhere in the video, entitled Bush, the Pope of the Vatican, Darfur and the Crusader Wars, al-Zawahiri attacks Pope Benedict XVI, saying: ”This charlatan accused Islam of being incompatible with rationality while forgetting that his own Christianity is unacceptable to a sensible mind.”
His words refer to the Pope’s speech on September 12, in which he quoted a Byzantine emperor who said that everything Muhammad brought was evil and inhuman.
He went on to compare Pope Benedict to Pope Urban II, who ”provoked the people of Europe to fight the Muslims” in the Crusades.
”If Benedict attacked, we will respond to his insults with good things.
”We will call upon him and all of the Christians to become Muslims who do not recognise the Trinity or the crucifixion, and say that Allah united with the human.”
Al-Zawahiri also urged Muslims to launch a holy war against proposed UN peacekeepers in the Darfur region of Sudan.
”Oh Muslim nation, come to defend your lands from Crusaders masked as UN [troops]. Nothing will protect you except popular jihad,” he said.
The video, which runs to almost 18 minutes and includes sections in English and Arabic, was released by al-Qaeda’s media production arm, al-Sahab. It was released by the Washington DC-based Search for International Terrorist Entities Institute.
The video had been advertised on jihadist websites for several days, the institute noted.
A US intelligence official told the Associated Press that US experts viewed the latest video as a typical propaganda message, whose main thrust was a call for more people to join the jihad, or holy war. — Guardian Unlimited Â