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Al Qaeda's No. 2 Follows bin Laden's Lead and Resurfaces
By HASSAN M. FATTAH
01/21/06 "New
York Times" -- -- DUBAI, United Arab Emirates,
Jan. 20 - Just a day after Osama bin Laden resurfaced in a
lengthy audiotape, a new recording by his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri,
appeared today, praising the "martyrs of holy war" in
Afghanistan, the Palestinian territories and elsewhere.
The Central Intelligence Agency confirmed today that the voice
on the 18-minute audiotape, posted on an Internet forum that has
carried Al Qaeda communiqués before, was Mr. Zawahiri's.
He read a poem honoring the "martyrs of jihad," or holy war, and
dedicated it to "Muslim brothers everywhere, to the mujahedeen
brothers in Islam's fortified borderlines against the
Zionist-Crusader campaign in Palestine and Iraq, Afghanistan and
Chechnya and to the lions chasing the crusaders' gangs and hired
hands in Afghanistan's mountains and valleys and its wounded
capital, Kabul."
"I am honored to present this mujahedeen poem, written by Maulai
Muhibbulla al-Qandahari, who carried the pen and the sword and
was known in the circles of scholars and the training camps and
the battlefields of jihad," he said.
It was not immediately clear when the recording was made and
whether it had any connection to the release of the Mr. bin
Laden's recording on Thursday. There was no mention, either, of
last week's missile attacks by the United States on a Pakistani
village in the country's remote northeast, where Mr. Zawahiri
was thought to be attending a dinner. Mr. Zawahiri appears not
to have been present, but his son-in-law and two senior members
of Al Qaeda are believed to have been among those killed,
Pakistani officials said.
The attacks, which killed 18 civilians, including women and
children, stirred anger across Pakistan, particularly in the
autonomous tribal regions, and were condemned by the Pakistani
government.
On Thursday, Mr. bin Laden broke a year's silence in a new
recording on Al Jazeera, the Arab satellite television news
channel, warning Americans that Al Qaeda was planning more
attacks on the United States but also offering a "long truce" on
undefined terms.
The C.I.A. verified the recording's authenticity, and officials
reasoned that the release might have been timed to assure his
followers that Mr. bin Laden was alive and well days after the
American airstrikes.
In the tape, Mr. bin Laden addressed the American people
directly, saying of his supporters, "Our situation is getting
better while yours is getting worse."
Mr. bin Laden offered the American people a vague truce, saying
"both sides can enjoy security and stability under this truce so
we can build Iraq and Afghanistan."
Vice President Dick Cheney, speaking Thursday on Fox News,
rejected the offer of a truce, saying: "We don't negotiate with
terrorists. I think you have to destroy them."
Copyright 2006The New York Times Company
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