Al-Qaeda second in command Ayman Al-Zawahiri vowed yesterday that the network would carry out attacks against Israel and its US backers to avenge the Israeli offensives against Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. In a videotape aired by Arabic television channel Al-Jazeera, Osama Bin Laden’s right-hand man also called for an alliance of Sunni and Shiite Muslim fighters transcending sectarian animosities and extending from Afghanistan to the Palestinian territories in order to liberate “the whole of Palestine.”“We cannot watch these rockets raining down their fire on our brothers in Gaza and Lebanon and remain inactive and submissive,” Zawahiri said in the footage. It was the first reaction by Al-Qaeda to the onslaughts that started in late June in Gaza and on July 12 in Lebanon, triggered by the capture of Israeli soldiers by Hamas and Hezbollah respectively. “The rockets and missiles tearing apart the bodies of Muslims in Gaza and Lebanon are not purely Israeli. They come from and are funded by all the countries of the crusader alliance,” Zawahiri said in a reference to the United States and Western allies.
“Hence, everyone who took part in the crime must pay the price ... The whole world is an open field for us. Like they attack us everywhere, we too attack them everywhere.” Zawahiri’s comments indicated that Al-Qaeda was prepared to help Hezbollah despite differences with the Shiite sect. “These events (in Lebanon and Gaza) show the importance of the jihadi fronts in Afghanistan and Iraq. All Muslims must assist them so that America’s forces get out of them crippled ... and pay the price of its aggression against Muslims and its support for Israel,” he said.