"Al-Qaida's military's capabilities have been significantly degraded and
everybody knows that, and so now Ayman al-Zawahri is issuing tapes," Snow added.
Al-Zawahri said al-Qaida planned to attack opponents wherever vulnerable.
"All the world is a battlefield open in front of us," he said in portions of
the tape broadcast by Al-Jazeera television. "Like they attack us everywhere, we
will attack them everywhere."
Speaking from what appeared to be a television studio, Osama bin Laden's
deputy reissued threats against the United States, specifically for its backing
of Israel.
"The shells and missiles that are ripping apart Muslims' bodies in Gaza and
Lebanon are not purely Israeli, but are supplied by all the countries of the
crusader coalition," he said. "We cannot just watch these shells as they burn
our brothers in Gaza and Lebanon and stand by idly, humiliated."
Bob Ayers, a security analyst at London's Chatham House think tank, said the
message was a reminder of al-Qaida's role as a reference point for radical
Muslims. "The real message that they're sending to all of us is that they're
still there, they're still effective," he said.
Al-Zawahri spoke while seated in front of photographs of Mohamed Atta, the
ringleader of the Sept. 11 attacks, and Mohammed Atef, also known as Abu Hafs
al-Masri, a former bin Laden lieutenant who was killed by a U.S. airstrike in
Afghanistan in 2001. Their photos flanked a picture of the World Trade Center in
flames.
Some observers speculated al-Zawahri's use of that backdrop was a coded
message to al-Qaida followers.
But Evan Kohlman, founder of the U.S.-based al-Qaida tracking organization
globalterroralert.com, said the photos were chosen because of the dead
militants' hatred of Israel and support for the Palestinian cause.
He also discounted speculation that al-Zawahri's call for Islamic unity meant
he was holding out a hand to radical Shiites, the backbone of Hezbollah.
"Any idea that this is pro-Hezbollah is wrong," Kohlman said. "This is
anti-Israel. That's what this is about. With this tape, al-Zawahri seems to be
suggesting that the jihad to liberate Palestine is a natural outgrowth of the
jihad in Iraq," he said.
Hezbollah spokesman Hussein Rahhal refused to comment on the al-Zawahri tape.
