DOHA, Qatar, Jan. 23 (UPI) -- Al-Qaida's second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri has mocked President George W. Bush's plan to send more troops to Iraq.
The Qatar-based al-Jazeera TV Tuesday aired a video-taped clip of Zawahiri challenging Bush to send the entire U.S. army to Iraq, vowing the Iraqi resistance would "bury ten armies like yours."
Al-Jazeera said the video, which had English subtitles, was taken from international news Web sites, but was reportedly intercepted by a U.S.-based terrorism think tank.
"I ask him, why send 20,000 only? Why not send 50,000 or 100,000?" Zawahiri asked. "Aren't you aware that the dogs of Iraq are pining for your troops' dead bodies? Send your entire army to be annihilated at the hands of the mujahedeen to free the world from your evils because Iraq, the land of the Caliphate and Jihad, is able to bury ten armies like yours, with Allah's help and power."
This was the first al-Qaida reaction to Bush's new strategy in Iraq, in which the president announced on Jan. 9 he would send around 20,000 additional troops to restore stability in the war-torn country.
In an audio tape posted on an Islamic Web site on Jan. 5, Zawahiri called on Muslims to join Somalia's Islamist fighters to attack Ethiopian forces that helped the provisional Somali government push out the Islamic courts from power.
Zawahiri's frequent messages in the past year have raised questions on the whereabouts of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, who was reported by a French newspaper last year to have died of kidney failure. But the report could not be confirmed and al-Qaida's messages have not mentioned his status.
