G
Greg
Guest
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/12/16/alqaeda.video/index.html
(CNN) -- Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant warned in a video statement released Sunday that Iraqi tribal leaders who side with U.S. troops against al Qaeda fighters would face reprisals when Americans leave Iraq.
An image of al-Zawahiri taken from an earlier videotape.
"I warn those individuals from among the armed factions who have been involved in cooperation against the Mujahedeen that history is recording everything, and that they will lose both their religion and life," Ayman al-Zawahiri said.
"The Americans will soon be departing, God permitting, and won't keep defending them forever. And let them look at the fate of America's agents in Vietnam and the fate of the Shah of Iran. Intelligent is he who learns from other's mistakes," he added.
Al Qaeda's No. 2 called such Iraqi leaders "traitors" and "scum."
U.S. commanders have touted the decision in late 2006 by Sunni Arab tribal leaders in western Iraq to turn on Islamic jihadists loyal to al Qaeda as a major breakthrough in the Iraq war. Top U.S. officials have cited the leaders' cooperation as a sign of the "bottom-up" progress made in Iraq despite the inability of the central government in Baghdad to reach a political settlement in the nearly 5-year-old conflict.
In his statement, the fugitive al-Zawahiri called the U.S. position in Iraq deteriorating, "despite their desperate attempts to deceive and mislead." And he characterized Iraqi tribal leaders such as Sheik Abdul Sattar Abu Reesha, who was assassinated in September, as paid agents out to undercut the "Islamic State of Iraq," an al Qaeda front group.
"Those who have supported the Americans are the scum and the lowly ones, and their history is known to all," he said.
(CNN) -- Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant warned in a video statement released Sunday that Iraqi tribal leaders who side with U.S. troops against al Qaeda fighters would face reprisals when Americans leave Iraq.
An image of al-Zawahiri taken from an earlier videotape.
"I warn those individuals from among the armed factions who have been involved in cooperation against the Mujahedeen that history is recording everything, and that they will lose both their religion and life," Ayman al-Zawahiri said.
"The Americans will soon be departing, God permitting, and won't keep defending them forever. And let them look at the fate of America's agents in Vietnam and the fate of the Shah of Iran. Intelligent is he who learns from other's mistakes," he added.
Al Qaeda's No. 2 called such Iraqi leaders "traitors" and "scum."
U.S. commanders have touted the decision in late 2006 by Sunni Arab tribal leaders in western Iraq to turn on Islamic jihadists loyal to al Qaeda as a major breakthrough in the Iraq war. Top U.S. officials have cited the leaders' cooperation as a sign of the "bottom-up" progress made in Iraq despite the inability of the central government in Baghdad to reach a political settlement in the nearly 5-year-old conflict.
In his statement, the fugitive al-Zawahiri called the U.S. position in Iraq deteriorating, "despite their desperate attempts to deceive and mislead." And he characterized Iraqi tribal leaders such as Sheik Abdul Sattar Abu Reesha, who was assassinated in September, as paid agents out to undercut the "Islamic State of Iraq," an al Qaeda front group.
"Those who have supported the Americans are the scum and the lowly ones, and their history is known to all," he said.
