Zawahiri Calls Bush a 'Butcher' in Video

Al Qaeda Leader Warns of Attacks Against U.S.

President Bush, with Sec. of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, in background, makes remarks to the media after meeting with his cabinet in the Cabinet Room of the White House, Monday, Jan. 30, 2006, in Washington. (AP Photo/Lawrence Jackson) (Lawrence Jackson - AP)

Al Qaeda's second in command taunted President Bush in a new video broadcast today, referring to the U.S. leader as the "butcher of Washington" and warning of new attacks against Americans inside the United States.

Ayman Zawahiri, an Egyptian doctor who is the top deputy in Osama bin Laden's terrorist network, denounced a Jan. 13 U.S. airstrike in eastern Pakistan that killed several al Qaeda leaders but missed its main target: Zawahiri himself. The airstrike, carried out by a missile-firing Predator drone on a house in the remote Pakistani village of Damadola, reportedly killed several women and children in addition to the al Qaeda operatives. The attack prompted anti-American demonstrations and drew criticism from the Pakistani government, which said it was not consulted before the strike.

The video, broadcast on the al-Jazeera Arabic satellite television network, was evidently produced and delivered in a remarkably short time for an organization that President Bush has said repeatedly is "on the run" from a U.S. offensive against it. Besides the Jan. 13 airstrike, the video referred to a bin Laden audiotape that was aired on al-Jazeera on Jan. 19. That tape, the first from bin Laden in more than a year, warned that al Qaeda was preparing new attacks in the United States. But citing U.S. public opinion against the war in Iraq, bin Laden also offered a vague "long-term truce based on just conditions" to permit the reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan.

In the new video, Zawahiri condemned the Bush administration for rejecting the offer.

Referring to the airstrike, the 54-year-old Egyptian said: "The American airplanes, in collaboration with their agent of the Jews and Crusaders Musharraf, launched an airstrike on Damadola near Peshawar around the Eid holidays, during which 18 Muslim men, women and children were killed in this fight against Islam which they call terrorism," according to a translation by CNN.

Zawahiri referred to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, a key U.S. ally who nevertheless condemned the airstrike, saying it was "not coordinated with us" and violated Pakistani sovereignty.

"Their claim was to target this poor man and four of my brothers," Zawahiri said of the attack, making reference to himself. "The whole world discovered their lies as the Americans fight Islam and the Muslims."

In an interview published Sunday in The Washington Post, Musharraf said Pakistani authorities were still investigating the attack on Damadola but that "probably . . . there were five or six Arabs or foreigners killed there."

According to a translation of the video by al-Jazeera, Zawahiri addressed Bush in taunting tones over the U.S. failure to locate him in the more than four years since al Qaeda carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

"Butcher of Washington, you are not only defeated and a liar, but also a failure," Zawahiri said. "You are a curse on your own nation."

He asked, "Bush, do you know where I am? I am among the Muslim masses."

Wearing a white turban and white robes and speaking against a solid black background, the bespectacled Zawahiri also addressed the American people, who he said "are drowning in illusions."

"I tell you that Bush and his gang are shedding your blood and wasting your money in frustrated adventures," Zawahiri said, according to al-Jazeera.

"The lion of Islam, Sheikh Osama bin Laden, may God protect him, offered you a decent exit from your dilemma," he said. "But your leaders, who are keen to accumulate wealth, insist on throwing you in battles and killing your souls in Iraq and Afghanistan and -- God willing -- on your own land."

The excerpts quoted by al-Jazeera did not include any elaboration on Zawahiri's implied threat to carry out more attacks on U.S. soil. In the tape aired Jan. 19, bin Laden referred to suicide bombings in Europe and asserted that similar strikes in the United States were only a matter of time.

"Operations are in preparation, and you will see them on your own ground once the preparations are finished," bin Laden warned.