'Tell me why Muslims hate you' Al-Zawahiri also compares the loss of the al Qaeda in Iraq leader to losses Americans have experienced in the war in Iraq. "Tell me how your drunkard and runaway soldiers get killed; tell me how many of you were killed in reality and how much did your economy really lose and how the morale of your soldiers is down. And not only that, but tell me why Muslims hate you so much, and also why you are hated so much by your innocent victims all over the world," he says.
"Bush is lying to you when he tells you that you will win when you kill Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar and the members of al Qaeda and Taliban. He is hiding a lot behind his lies. He is hiding the true catastrophe that you are facing," al-Zawahiri says. "You are not facing individuals or organizations. But in reality you are facing the Islamic nation, whose soul is now inhabited by the spirit of jihad."
It was al-Zawahiri's second videotaped message this week. On a message posted Wednesday night on Islamic web sites, he addresses his message to the people of Afghanistan and talks about what he calls "crimes against the Afghan people by the Americans."
He claims to have recorded the earlier message May 30, the day after deadly riots in Kabul. He does not mention al-Zarqawi in that video.
Al-Zawahiri, too, has been the target of a U.S. airstrike. In January the CIA targeted a building in Damadola, Pakistan. The attack killed 17 people, including four al Qaeda operatives, but al-Zawahiri was not there.
The al Qaeda leader later released a videotape that was aired on the Arabic-language station Al-Jazeera. In it he taunted the United States and President Bush.
"I will meet my death when God wishes," he said. "Bush, do you know where I am? I am among the Muslim masses, enjoying their care with God's blessings and sharing with them their holy war against you until we defeat you."
Al-Zawahiri's wife and children were killed in December 2001 during a U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan.
An Egyptian-born doctor from a prominent family, al-Zawahiri is al Qaeda's second in command and is thought to be bin Laden's personal physician.
