“Al-Qaida Leader: U.S. ‘Broken’ in Iraq,” from AP, with thanks to JE:
CAIRO, Egypt – Hundreds of suicide bombings in Iraq have “broken the back” of the U.S. military, al-Qaida’s No. 2 said in a video posted Saturday “” the latest in a series of messages from the terror network.
The video by Ayman al-Zawahri, posted on an Islamic militant Web forum, came within the same week as an audiotape by al-Qaida’s top leader Osama bin Laden and a video by the head of al-Qaida’s branch in Iraq “” a volley of messages by the group’s most prominent figures.
Al-Zawahri, an Egyptian militant believed to be hiding in Afghanistan or Pakistan, also denounced the leaders of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Iraq as “traitors” and called on Muslims to rise up to “confront them.”
He said that U.S. and British forces in Iraq had bogged down in Iraq and “have achieved nothing but loss, disaster and misfortune.”
Al-Qaida in Iraq “alone has carried out 800 martyrdom operations (suicide attacks) in three years, besides the sacrifices of the other mujahedeen, and this is what has broken the back of American in Iraq,” al-Zawahri said….
This is in line with his bedrock assumption that the U.S. lacks the will to prevail in a long-term struggle. And since official Washington and the mainstream media seems to lack the will even to define the conflict properly, he may be right.
Al-Zawahri’s 16-minute video posted Saturday, entitled “A Message to the People of Pakistan,” was mainly dedicated to criticism of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, accusing him of undermining his own country to help the United States, Israel and India….
“Every soldier and officer in the Pakistani military should know that Musharraf is throwing them into the burner of civil war in return for the bribes he is getting from the United States,” al-Zawahri said
“For this reason I call on every soldier and officer in the Pakistani army to disobey the orders of his commanders to kill Muslims in Pakistan or Afghanistan or otherwise he will be confronted by the mujahedeen,” he said.
Al-Zawahri is speaking in accord with Qur’an 4:92, which forbids a Muslim to kill a fellow believer intentionally.