Pakistani jihad call

Bin Laden urges overthrow of Musharraf government

CAIRO, Egypt. Osama bin Laden called on Pakistanis to wage holy war on their president yesterday, saying in a new recording that it was their religious duty to overthrow Gen. Pervez Musharraf for his alliance with the U.S. against Islamic militants.

The message was the third from bin Laden this month after a long lull, coming in a flurry of al-Qaida propaganda marking the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the United States.

Joining in, bin Ladens chief deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, issued a video yesterday seeking to galvanize Islamic fighters from North Africa to Afghanistan.

Al-Zawahri, who is seen by some counter-terrorism experts to be al-Qaidas operational chief rather than bin Laden, said the United States is losing wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
What they claim to be the strongest power in the history of mankind is today being defeated in front of the Muslim vanguards of jihad (holy war) six years after the two raids on New York and Washington, he said.

The string of video and audio messages around the anniversary has shown an increased sense of triumphalism in al-Qaidas tone at a time when U.S. intelligence reports say its core leadership appears to have regrouped in the Afghan-Pakistani border region.

``You can actually see the increase in the number of videos tie in with recent U.S. assessments that al-Qaida is resurgent, that it is much stronger,’’ said Michael Jacobson, a former FBI terrorism expert now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

``They’re feeling more stable, feeling much more secure, so its not a surprise that they're able to put out more videos,’’ he added.

Many of the messages have hammered on U.S. struggles in Iraq to push the claim that Islamic militants are winning, and bin Ladens video against Musharraf signaled that al-Qaida wants to turn its guns on one of the United States most important allies in fighting the terror network.

The tape from bin Laden, al-Qaidas most symbolic and charismatic figure, adds weight to the declaration of jihad against the Pakistani leader.

In a 23-minute video showing previously released footage of bin Laden, the al-Qaida leaders voice delivered a call to jihad in Arabic with English subtitles, but the message also was released in versions dubbed in Urdu and Pashtu — languages widely used in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

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