Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden vowed in a new audio message to retaliate against Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf for the killing of a rebel cleric and the raid on his mosque in July, a US website said today.
"We in al-Qaeda organisation call on God to witness that we will retaliate for the blood of ... Abdul Rashid Ghazi and those with him against Musharraf and those who help him, and for all the pure and innocent blood," it quoted bin Laden as saying in English excerpts of his comments.
"So Pervez, his ministers, his soldiers and those who help him are all accomplices in spilling the blood of ... Muslims. He who helps him knowingly and willingly is an infidel like him," bin Laden said.
"It is obligatory (under Islam) for Muslims in Pakistan to carry out jihad and fighting to remove Pervez, his government, his army and those who help him," he said.
More than 100 of Ghazi's followers were killed in an assault on the Lal Masjid, a mosque and school complex. The group is sympathetic to the Taliban, who were removed from power in Afghanistan by US-led forces.
Bin Laden's audiotape, issued by al-Qaeda's media arm As-Sahab, was part of a 23-minute video which carried an English translation of his remarks and showed old footage of him and other figures of his movement. The tape could not be authenticated, but it was posted on the main Islamist websites.
Earlier today, al-Qaeda's second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri called on Muslims to fight the United States and its allies around the world, in a new video.
Marking the sixth anniversary of the September 11th attacks, Zawahri said: "Stand, o nation of Islam, under the victorious banner of the Prophet ... and campaign against the crusader banner of (U.S. President George W.) Bush.
"Go forth ... to the mujahideen, bear them arms, back them, defend them and don't be intimidated by the power of America, for these two blessed attacks have revealed that it is a power of iron and fire, with no faith or morals or principle."
Zawahri, who praised the actions of al-Qaeda-linked groups fighting in Afghanistan, north Africa, Somalia, Chechnya and Iraq, also called on Pakistanis to avenge the killing of Ghazi.
Zawahri called on Muslims to restore al-Andalus - the Arabic name given to parts of the Iberian peninsula under Muslim rule at various times from the 8th century.
"O our Muslim nation in the Maghreb .... restoring al-Andalus (is impossible) without first cleansing the Muslim Maghreb of the children of France and Spain, who have come back again after your fathers and grandfathers sacrificed their blood cheaply in the path of God to expel them," he said.
He also called on Muslims in Sudan to fight a force of African Union and UNpeacekeepers set to deploy to the volatile western region of Darfur. He said Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir had abandoned Islam.
"The ... mujahideen sons ... must organise jihad against the forces invading Darfur as their brothers organised the jihadi resistance in Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia," he said.
Bin Laden and Zawahri are believed to be hiding in the border area of Afghanistan and Pakistan, a mountainous, inaccessible region that US intelligence has described as a safe haven for al-Qaeda and their Taliban allies.
The latest audiotape was the third posting featuring a new message from bin Laden to appear this month.