AFHGANISTAN: Ayman al-Zawahri, the number two figure in al-Qaeda, appeared in a new videotape aired on Al Jazeera television yesterday, ridiculing US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. "In both countries, if they continue they will bleed to death and if they withdraw they lose everything," said Zawahri, the right-hand man of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
"East and south Afghanistan have become an open arena for the Mujahideen. The enemy are limited to their capitals," the Egyptian-born Zawahri said.
"The Americans are hiding in their trenches and refuse to come out to face the Mujahideen, as the Mujahideen shell and fire on them, and cut roads off around them. Their defence is only to bomb by air, wasting US money as they kick up dust."
Zawahri, wearing a white turban with a machine gun at his side, spoke to camera for several minutes.
Turning to Iraq, he said anti-US fighters had turned Washington's plans for the oil-rich country upside down.
"In Islamic Iraq the Mujahideen have turned America's plan head over heels. The defeat of America in Iraq and Afghanistan has become just a matter of time," he said.
Al Jazeera, the influential Arabic broadcaster, did not say how it obtained the tape. Zawahri looked little different from how he has in previous videotapes.
Al Jazeera said elsewhere on the tape he announced that "the age of security has passed for Americans, and they will not have security until they stop their crimes against Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine".
Some analysts say video and audio messages from bin Laden and Zawahri may be aimed at triggering attacks by followers. They point to messages from one of the two in advance of the Bali disco bombing and Limburg tanker attacks in Yemen in 2002, as well as the Madrid bombing earlier this year.
"In some cases messages may have worked as a trigger for attacks, and the Bali bombing stands out as an example," said Ken Katzman, a terrorism expert at the Congressional Research Service in Washington.
Meanwhile in Iraq yesterday, US-led forces initiated operations in three rebel strongholds, killing nearly two dozen insurgents in a town near the Syrian border and bombing targets in Falluja for the third straight day.
Troops mounted a major offensive in Tal Afar, a suspected haven for foreign fighters about 100 km east of the Syrian border in northern Iraq, and went into the tense town of Samarra north of Baghdad, as well as keeping up pressure on Falluja, west of the capital, through air strikes.
The fighting in Tal Afar killed 22 insurgents and wounded more than 70 people, a local government health official said.
"The situation is critical," Rabee Yassin, general manager for health in Nineveh province, said. "Ambulances and medical supplies cannot get to Tal Afar because of the ongoing military operations."
There were no immediate reports of any US or Iraqi government casualties in the fighting which local government sources said had killed 57 since Saturday.
US forces said the assault was in response to provocation after they and Iraqi security forces "were repeatedly attacked by a large terrorist element that has displaced local Iraqi security forces throughout recent weeks".