DUBAI: Al Qaeda's number two leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, launched a scathing verbal attack on western targets, including the Pope, the United Nations and the United States president.
The Arabic-language television station Al Jazeera on Friday day reported that in a videotape message posted on the Internet Zawahiri branded Pope Benedict XVI an "imposter for his attitude to Islam and the Arab world."
Zawahari was referring to the Pope's recent speech in Germany in which, critics say, the head of the Roman Catholic Church seemed to link Islam and violence. The Pope's September 12 speech in which he quoted a medieval Christian emperor who equated "Islam with violence" has touched off a furore in the Muslim world.
Also in the video message, the righthand man to Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden called for a holy war in Sudan's Darfur against the "crusaders... of the UN," according to Al Jazeera.
Zawahiri called for "Muslims to join a jihad in Darfur against the forces of the crusaders related to the United Nations," the Qatar-based television station cited him as saying.
The United States has been leading international efforts to force Sudan to accept the deployment of a 20,000-strong UN peacekeeping force to halt ethnic violence in its western Darfur region.
At least 200,000 people have died and some 2.5 million have fled homes because of the unrest that began in early 2003 when African rebels launched a revolt to gain more autonomy from the Arab-dominated Khartoum government.
