Qaeda threatens Bush in new video

The terror group says Bush has blood on his hands from the punishment and torture of 'soldiers of Islam'.

A new Al-Qaeda video released on Friday threatens to avenge the imprisonment of terrorist plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and declares the US-led fight against the terrorist group as a failure.

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In the nearly 18-minute-long video, entitled 'Bush, the Pope, Darfur and the Crusades', Al-Qaeda's second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri claims that US President George W Bush has blood on his hands from the "punishment and torture" of "the youth and soldiers of Islam" - including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Mohammed, who the US believes was the key planner of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, was moved recently from a secret prison outside the US to the military detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, along with 13 other top Al-Qaeda suspects.

Zawahiri also mentions an Al-Qaeda terrorist campaign of "daily" revenge against US agents in the Arabian peninsula, Yemen, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Indonesia and Morocco, who have captured "thousands of the youth and soldiers of Islam."

The IntelCenter analysts said in an e-mail that Friday's video was the 48th video released so far in 2006, including 14 with Al-Zawahiri. This is triple the number issued in 2005, he said.