Zawahiri threatens Gulf, Israel
Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports [Ar.] that Ayman al-Zawahir threatened Monday in a videotape aired on Aljazeera to launch “new attacks” in Israel and the Gulf. He also announced that the biggest Algerian armed group would join “Qaeda al-Jihad in Mesopotamia [Iraq].” A prominent member of the Salafiyah Group for Mission and Battle confirmed that the organization had been negotiating to join the group founded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi for some time.
Al-Zawahiri promised defeat and withdrawal to US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. He said that the Americans would then be expelled from “the Gulf.” The US has military facilities at al-Udaid, Qatar and uses Manama, Bahrain, as a naval base. Al-Zawahiri seemed to be pledging to hit such facilities.
>Al-Hayat says that he also complained that the UN resolution authorizing UN peacekeeping forces in southern Lebanon had the effect of cutting the Hizbullah fighters off from the Palestinian ones.
Zawahiri seems aware that Hizbullah has grown in popularity for fighting Israel in the Lebanon War, and that al-Qaeda has been contrasted as having never fought the Israelis.