ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, June 18 (UPI) -- Al-Qaida's top lieutenant under Osama bin Laden urged Muslims in a recorded message to continue their jihad against U.S. and Western interests.
Ayman al-Zawahiri, in a video aired on Arabic language television network Al-Jazeera, said Islamic nations should be allowed to run free of foreign interference, CNN reported Saturday.
"Kicking out the invading crusader forces and the Jews will not only happen by demonstrations and by shouting in the streets. Reform and expulsion of the invaders out of the Muslim land will only be accomplished by fighting for the sake of God," al-Zawahiri said in the video, his first since February.
He accused U.S. embassies in Islamic countries of "meddling," and said, "We cannot imagine any reform while our land is occupied by the crusaders who are stationed on all our land, from end to end."
The leader urged Palestinians to continue to fight.
"I salute my brothers in the Muslim stronghold of Palestine, and I ask them by God not to abandon their jihad and not to lay down their weapons and not to believe the advice given to them by the secularists."
