U.S.-led forces launched offensives in three Iraqi rebel strongholds on Thursday on a day Osama bin Laden's deputy ridiculed the U.S. military, saying their defeat in Iraq was just a matter of time. U.S.-led forces killed nearly two dozen insurgents in a town near the Syrian border and bombed targets in Falluja, west of Baghdad, for the third straight day. Troops mounted a major offensive in Tal Afar, a suspected haven for foreign fighters about 60 miles east of the Syrian border in northern Iraq, and went into the tense town of Samarra north of Baghdad, while keeping up pressure on Falluja. The fighting in Tal Afar killed 22 insurgents and wounded more than 70 people, a local government health official said.
Ayman al-Zawahri, the number two figure in al Qaeda, poured scorn on efforts by the United States to quell the insurgency which Iraq's U.S.-backed government says is fueled partly by foreigners linked to al Qaeda. Zawahri appeared in a new videotape aired on the Arabic Al Jazeera television station, taunting Washington by saying fighters had turned U.S. plans for the oil-rich country upside down. "The defeat of America in Iraq and Afghanistan has become just a matter of time. In both countries, if they continue they will bleed to death and if they withdraw they lose everything," Zawahri said, appearing on the tape wearing a white turban with a machine gun at his side. Al Jazeera did not say how it obtained the tape, which was aired two days before the third anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States blamed on bin Laden and al Qaeda.
Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said in footage aired by Al Arabiya television on Thursday Iraq had captured four important al Qaeda figures who had entered the country from abroad. He gave no more details. |