Zawahiri's new video

AL-Qaeda has released a new videotape featuring it's number 2 man, SheikAyman Zawahiri.

The video was in Arabic, and is titled "The Hateful British, and their Indian Slaves"
(Rushdie is an apostate Muslim originally born in India)

Most of the video is concerned with the knighting of Salmon Rushdie by Queen Elizabeth, and makes a direct threat against Britain for the `insult to Islam'.
Apparently Foreign Secretary Margaret Becker's apology wasn't quite groveling enough.

In the video Zawahiri says "Blair left a clear message for Muslims before leaving office, defeated and overwhelmed. The message of the Queen of Britain, the Head of the Church of England and the Prime Minister was very clear. It told the Muslims: If you think that you are defeating us and forcing us to leave Iraq and Afghanistan, we will insult your prophet and his kin and we will consider whoever does it a hero of ours. Therefore, I say to Elizabeth and Blair that the message had arrived, and we are preparing a hard-set response, God willing."

He then says "Now speaking to Blair’s successor, I tell him: your predecessor’s policy has brought upon your people the disasters and the defeats in Afghanistan and Iraq, and even in the center of London. If you have not understood the lesson yet, we are ready to repeat it again for you, God willing, until we are sure that you clearly understand it."

Another key part of the video concerns the ongoing war in Lebanon. Sheik Zawahiri calls on all Muslims in Lebanon to rebel against the Zawahiri government, and threatens: “Those who conspire against jihad and the mujahideen in Lebanon through American weapons, Zionist corruption, and Saudi money must start to dig their graves with their own hands.”

This is a shout out to the aq-Qaeda allied Fatah al-Islam,who are fighting the Lebanese army in the Nahr al-Bared camp and elsewhere.

As Britain and America begin to appear to draw away from the region, al-Qaeda appears to be developing its morale and seems to be more encouraging to its followers.

Osama bin-Laden and Sheik Zawahiri can see what's going on in Congress and in Parliament and read the New York Times.