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Al-Qaida deputy taunts Bush, issues more threats

CAIRO - Seventeen days after a U.S. airstrike in eastern Pakistan targeted but missed Osama bin Laden's second in command, a feisty and angry Ayman al-Zawahri showed up in a videotape with a fresh taunt for President Bush.

"Bush, do you know where I am?" Zawahri, wearing white robes and a white turban, said in the tape aired Monday on Al-Jazeera TV. "I am among the Muslim masses, enjoying God's blessing of their support, care, generosity and protection."

Al-Qaida's No. 2 mocked Bush as a "failure" in the war on terror, called him a "butcher" for killing innocent Pakistanis in the airstrike, chastised his administration for rejecting bin Laden's offer of a truce and threatened a new attack in the United States - "God willing, on your own land."

The video, broadcast a day before Bush delivers his State of the Union address, provided the first concrete evidence that Zawahri was still alive after the Jan. 13 airstrike that killed 13 villagers and possibly other al-Qaida leaders. U.S. intelligence officials are analyzing the tape for authenticity.

The message came on the heels of a Jan. 19 audiotape by bin Laden, the al-Qaida leader's first tape in more than a year. Bin Laden said his followers were preparing an attack in the United States and offered a conditional truce.

The Homeland Security Department had no immediate plans to raise the nation's terror threat levels because of the Zawahri tape, said spokesman Russ Knocke.

U.S. officials had said after the bin Laden tape that no intelligence indicated an imminent al-Qaida attack. On Monday, FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko said the bureau would ask agents to review ongoing cases and tips in light of the latest video, especially with the State of the Union in Washington and the Super Bowl in Detroit this week.

In one message, Zawahri invited Bush to convert to Islam. "If you accept, you will become a brother in our faith and God will forgive you your sins," the Al-Jazeera news-reader quoted him as saying. The invitation was not in the excerpts aired by the Arab satellite station.

Mark Ensalaco, an international terrorism expert at the University of Dayton, Ohio, said the tape's release may have been timed for Bush's State of Union address.

"Having bin Laden and al-Zawahri appear in quick succession in these tapes underscores the fact that they're alive and well and still plotting attacks," he said.

[Last modified January 31, 2006, 00:31:49]