Al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri warned in a video, aired by the
pan-Arabic television al-Jazeera, on Monday that his group is
planning to launch a new wave of attacks on Israel and the Gulf
countries.
"You should not waste your time in reinforcing your troops in
Iraq and Afghanistan because their fate is doomed," al-Zawahri said
in the footage aired on the fifth anniversary of the Sept.
11attacks on the United States.
"You have to reinforce your troops in two regions. First is the
Gulf, ...and second is Israel," he added.
Meanwhile, the deputy al-Qaida leader also accused the
governments of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia of supporting Israel
during its fighting with Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas.
In other parts of the videotape aired by CNN earlier in the day,
al-Zawahri urged Muslims to step up attacks against the United
States and the West, and threatened to launch new terror
attacks.
Al-Zawahri's warning of attacks in the Gulf region, the world'
stop oil exporting region, follows previous calls by al-Qaida
leader Osama bin Laden to target oil facilities to cripple the
West.
In the past, al-Qaida had carried out several attacks against
the Gulf countries.
In 2003, Saudi Arabia, where Osama bin Laden was born, was
raided by the Saudi al-Qaida wing during which a series of
shootings and suicide bombings targeted mainly foreigners in the
kingdom.
In February, al-Qaida militants conducted a failed attack on the
world's largest oil processing plant in Saudi Arabia.
(Xinhua News Agency September 12, 2006)
