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Qaeda threatens more UK attacks
10/07/2007 19:14 - (SA)
Dubai - Al-Qaeda's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahri, threatened on Tueasday more attacks on Britain two weeks after failed bombings in London and Glasgow.
"I say to (Former British Prime Minister Tony) Blair's successor that the policy of your predecessor drew catastrophes in Afghanistan and Iraq and even in the centre of London," he said in a tape posted on a website used by al-Qaeda-linked groups.
"If you did not learn the lesson then we are ready to repeat it, God willing, until we are sure you have fully understood."
It was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the tape.
The recording came just days after two car bombs were found in London and a burning jeep was rammed into Glasgow Airport in Scotland - botched attacks which Prime Minister Gordon Brown said were associated with al-Qaeda.
Zawahri also criticised Britain's controversial decision to award author Salman Rushdie a knighthood, saying Queen Elizabeth had sent a clear message to Muslims by honouring a novelist who had insulted Islam, and vowed that the militant group was preparing a response.
Rushdie is best known for his novel The Satanic Verses, which outraged many Muslims and prompted death threats that forced him to live in hiding for nine years.
Zawahri said the least Muslims could do was to boycott Britain to protest Rushdie's knighthood.
The Egyptian cleric, who has spoken out regularly in audio-taped messages in recent months, also called on Muslims in Pakistan to fight President Pervez Musharraf, whose troops have besieged a mosque run by a Taliban-style group in Islamabad.
"I say to the Muslims in Pakistan that the real challenge to Musharraf lies not in demonstrations nor in elections... but by backing jihad in Afghanistan," he said, without referring specifically to the standoff at the Red Mosque.
"An Islamic emirate in Afghanistan is the hope for real change in the region and hopefully the final blow to the Crusaders ... in South Asia."
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