WASHINGTON, March 25 (UPI) -- In a new audiotape, broadcast by Arabic television al-Jazeera, a voice said to be that of al-Qaida leader Ayman urged Pakistanis Thursday to overthrow President Pervez Musharraf because he was "a traitor."
The speaker, who Al-Jazeera said was al-Zawahiri, al-Qaida's second-in-command, called Musharraf "a traitor and a slave of America."
"I call on Pakistani troops not to follow the orders of Musharraf, and urge the people of Pakistan not to obey him," he said.
"It is the religious duty of Islamic scholars in Pakistan to expose the real face of Musharraf, the traitor," said the voice which apparently was that of al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden's right-hand man.
Al-Qaida has increased the intensity of its attacks on Musharraf since early this month when the Pakistani troops launched in the tribal area bordering Afghanistan a major offensive against armed men said to be associated with al-Qaida.
The tape addresses the ethnic Pashtun tribesmen living in this area and tells them that Musharraf had ordered the military offensive to punish the tribes for supporting the cause of jihad or holy war.
Pakistan was the only country that recognized Afghanistan's Taliban regime, al-Qaida's patron, for almost five years. But less than 24 hours after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Musharraf dumped the Taliban and joined the U.S.-led war against terror.
The move turned religious extremists across the Islamic world against Musharraf who has been the target of at least 10 assassination attempts in the last two years. In December, he also survived two bomb attacks, one of them by suicide bombers that killed more than a dozen people, including Musharraf's bodyguards.
"Musharraf wants to stab the holy uprising in Afghanistan in the back. The Pakistani people had offered a helping hand to their brothers in Afghanistan, that's why Americans delegated Musharraf to take revenge on the tribes along the border, especially the Pashtun," said the man thought to be al-Zawahiri while explaining the reason he wants Musharraf toppled.
He was referring to an ongoing military operation in Pakistan's South Waziristan tribal territory where Pakistani troops have been battling suspected al-Qaida militants and their local supporters for the last two weeks.
So far at least 30 Pakistani troops and an unspecified number of militants have died in the clashes. Last week, Musharraf caused worldwide speculations when he suggested that the fierce resistance his troops met in that area indicated that the militants were defending "a high-value target."
Some media reports speculated that the troops might have trapped bin Laden or al-Zawahiri. But later a Taliban spokesman in Afghanistan issued a statement saying that both al-Qaida leaders were safe and were in Afghanistan.
U.S. intelligence officials say that the tape broadcast Thursday could also be a message for his followers that al-Zawahiri was alive and safe.
The tape was broadcast at a time when Pakistani opposition parties also urged Musharraf to call off the military operation in South Waziristan.
Pakistan's cricket-legend-turned-politician Imran Khan Wednesday accused Musharraf of doing Bush's "dirty work" and said if he were asked to do so, he "would not have sent our troops to the tribal area to carry out a military operation."
"Gen. Musharraf is putting our soldiers at risk, killing people ... so that President Bush can win elections," Khan told the BBC.
Meanwhile, government officials in Washington told reporters that U.S. intelligence agencies were still trying to determine if the new tape was genuine.
The CIA has determined that the last two tapes al-Qaida released in February were those of al-Zawahiri.
On the new tape, the speaker warned Pakistanis that the Americans were after their nuclear program because "they do not want a Muslim state to have nuclear weapons."
The speaker also referred to Musharraf's decision to stop cross-border attacks in Kashmir, a region disputed between India and Pakistan for the last 56 years. By taking such actions, the speaker said, the Pakistani president was "strangling the jihad in Kashmir as well."
