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Al-Qaida Leader Lashes Out at Bush

Posted on: Monday, 30 January 2006, 21:00 CST

WASHINGTON _ Al-Qaida's No. 2 leader emerged in a new video Monday to lash out at President Bush for trying to kill him this month.

Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama Bin Laden's deputy, called Bush a "butcher" and a "failure" for a CIA missile strike Jan. 13 by a Predator drone, which government officials claim killed four high-ranking al-Qaida operatives as well as women and children.

Al-Zawahri did not deny or confirm that top aides were killed.

Terrorism experts said Al-Zawahri risked his safety for a propaganda bonanza to get the new video to Al-Jazeera TV by courier from his mountain lair in record speed _ a potential blunder the CIA will try to use to track him.

"He took risks to get this out quickly, which is a measure of his anxiety," said Vince Cannistraro, a former CIA counterterrorism chief, who said most tapes take at least six weeks to reach media outlets.

Referring to bin Laden's truce plea in a Jan. 19 tape, which Bush rejected, al-Zawahri said bin Laden "offered you a decent exit from your dilemma but your leaders ... insist on throwing you in battles and killing your souls in Iraq and Afghanistan and _ God willing _ on your own land."

"Butcher of Washington, you are not only defeated and a liar, but also a failure," al-Zawahri said, addressing Bush in an unusually angry tone. "Bush, do you know where I am?"

Without his trademark Kalashnikov rifle and dressed in a white turban and robes against a black backdrop, he scoffed, "In seeking to kill my humble self and four of my brothers, the whole world has discovered the extent of America's lies and failures."

Al-Zawahri also invited Bush to become a Muslim. "Should you accept, you become a brother and God forgives you all that is past."

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Source: Daily News

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