Zawahiri urges Lebanon to reject UN resolution

The Al-Qaeda's number two has called on Lebanon Muslims to reject the UNSC resolution that ended last summer's war with Israel.

Al-Qaeda's number two has called on Lebanon's Muslims to reject the UN Security Council resolution that ended last summer's war with Israel, in an audiotape broadcast on Al-Jazeera television.

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"I call on the brothers of Islam and of jihad (holy war) in Lebanon not to yield to Resolution 1701 and not to accept ... The presence of international and crusader (Western) forces in south Lebanon," said Ayman al-Zawahiri, righ-hand man of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, on Tuesday.

"The American plot in Lebanon is the same as in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the Gulf countries, Algeria and Somalia," he said, denouncing as "traitors ...

Those who cooperated with the crusader and Zionist campaign" in Lebanon last summer.

Resolution 1701 led to an August 14 ceasefire in the 34-day war that broke out when Israel retaliated to a cross-border raid by rebels of the Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah, who captured two soldiers.

It also stipulated an enhanced presence of UN peackeepers in the south of the country.