Muslims urged to join jihad by al-Qaida chief

Osama bin Laden’s deputy has warned that the United States faces not individual terrorists or groups but an international community of Muslims that will seek to destroy it and its allies.

By The Newsroom

Published 10th Jun 2011, 07:00 BST

Ayman al-Zawahri, al-Qaida’s long-time No 2 and considered the network’s operational head, was delivering a 28-minute videotaped eulogy to the dead al Qaida leader.

He also sought to cast a role for the terror group in the popular uprisings shaking the Arab world.

“Today, praise God, America is not facing an individual, a group or a faction,” he said, wearing a white robe and turban with an assault rifle leaned on a wall behind him. “It is facing a nation that is in revolt, having risen from its lethargy to a renaissance of jihad.”

Al-Zawahri also heaped praise on bin Laden, who was killed in a May 2 raid by US forces.

Al-Zawahri, who is believed to be operating from somewhere near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, also criticised the US for burying bin Laden at sea, claiming it “trembled at the idea of him having a tomb”.

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