Iraq Qaeda leader issues tape on 9/11 anniversary

By Yara Bayoumy

DUBAI (Reuters) – Al Qaeda’s leader in Iraq accused U.S.
and Iraqi forces of using toxic gas in an attack on a northern
town, in an audio tape posted on a Web site on the fourth
anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

A speaker sounding like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Washington’s
most wanted man in Iraq, said in an undated recording that
foreign forces wanted desperately to leave Iraq after suffering
heavy losses, and that they would inevitably face defeat.

“In Tal Afar, the Crusaders went in waves using the most
destructive of weapons and the most poisonous of gasses,” said
the speaker on the recording, about 10 minutes long, posted on
Sunday on an Islamist Web site that often carries messages from
al Qaeda and other insurgent groups in Iraq.

“They (the Crusaders) are now back in Tal Afar, after they
have failed many times before, where they tasted humiliation
and defeat. They came back and destroyed the city to finish off
the mujahideen.

“Your enemy today is living its worst days in Iraq. They
are trying to get out of Iraq, but they cannot find the way to
do it,” the speaker said.

“Oh mujahideen, beware, pick up your weapons and be
prepared for the moment … for the time for the divisive
battle has almost come.”

U.S. and Iraqi troops have launched an offensive against
rebels and foreign fighters they say have infiltrated Tal Afar
and are using the northern town as a conduit for equipment and
men crossing illegally from Syria to fight the Shi’ite and
Kurdish-led Iraqi government and occupying U.S. forces.

Iraq’s government said on Saturday, when the bulk of the
fighting drew to a close, that as many as 141 insurgents had
been killed and 197 were captured, many of them Arabs from
countries other than Iraq.

The speaker on the tape blasted Iraqi security forces for
collaborating with “infidel” American forces, saying they were
corrupt and responsible for the deaths of Sunnis.

“Where are the rights of the Sunnis? They are the ones who
are being killed, and thousands of them have been displaced,
only because they’re Sunnis.”

The Iraqi government is facing a Sunni Arab insurgency
which it says is behind attacks on Iraqi police and soldiers
and U.S. troops on a daily basis across the country.

The speaker also said the deaths after Hurricane Katrina in
the United States were the answer to the prayers of those
oppressed in Iraq or Afghanistan.

“The storm that hit the United States was the result of
every mother or father’s prayer, or an orphaned son, or a woman
whose honor was taken away in Iraq or Afghanistan.”