al Qaeda's Zawahiri calls for Holy Jihad against Israel.

`Watch my finger now..don't blink infidels...you are getting sleepy..'

In the message broadcast by Al-Jazeera JihadTV Ayman al-Zawahri, second in command to Osama bin Laden, called for a Holy Jihad against Israel and said that al-Qaeda now views "all the world as a battlefield open in front of us."

(Tell us something we didn't know...)

The Egyptian-born mullah said that the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah and Palestinian militants would not be ended with "cease-fires or agreements."

"It is a Jihad for the sake of God and will last until (our) religion prevails ... from Spain to Iraq," al-Zawahri said. "We will attack everywhere."

Gee, I guess the recent dhimmi-itis of the Spanish government just excited the jihadi's appetite.

He also said that Arab regimes were complicit in Israeli fighting against Hezbollah and the Palestinians. "My fellow Muslims, it is obvious that Arab and Islamic governments are not only impotent but also complicit ... and you are alone on the battlefield. Rely on God and fight your enemies ... make yourselves martyrs."

This is interesting in that it allies the largly Sunni al Qaeda and their offshoots to Shiite Hezbollah and Syria. The lines are being drawn.

Al-Zawahri had an interesting set director for this little production; a picture of the burning World Trade Center was on the wall behind him along with photos of two other jihad `martyrs'. One appeared to be a bearded Mohammed Atta, Zawahiri's fellow Egyptian and the ringleader of the 9/11 attacks. The other was Mohammed Atef, also known as Abu Hafs al-Masri, another bin-Laden lieutenant who got onthe wrong side of a US hellfire missile in Afghanistan back in November 2001.

al-Jazeera decided not to transmit the entire tape..they just used the jucier bits, interspersed with commentary from an anchor. Jihad TV said the tape was eight minutes long, but they only aired about half of it. They also wouldn't say how they got the tape....as if that's a mystery.

"The shells and rockets ripping apart Muslim bodies in Gaza and Lebanon are not only Israeli (weapons), but are supplied by all the countries of the crusader coalition. Therefore, every participant in the crime will pay the price," al-Zawahri said.

"We cannot just watch these shells as they burn our brothers in Gaza and Lebanon and stand by idly, humiliated."

Al-Zawahri said Muslims everywhere must rise up to attack "crusaders and Zionists" and support jihad (holy war) "until American troops are chased from Afghanistan and Iraq, paralyzed and impotent ... having paid the price for aggression against Muslims and support for Israel."

Yadda Yadda.

On the serious side, al Qaeda's little jihad version of MTV gives the formal OK to `volunteers' from throughout the Muslim world to flow into Lebanon (and Iraq, don't forget) through Syria, and I had at least one report of a company of Iranian Republican Guards who did exactly that, disembarking out of uniform at the Homa military Airport. They won't be the last.