Osama bin Laden's deputy Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri issued a new video calling for Muslim fighters to strike Western interests worldwide and for regime change in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. "The struggle against the corrupt regimes and the corruptors is in two phases... In the short term, one must take aim at the interests of the Crusaders and Jews," Zawahiri said in the new video.

"All those who have attacked the (Islamic) nation must pay the price, in our countries and theirs, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Palestine and in Somalia, but above all where one can strike a blow against their interests," he said.

Zawahiri predicted defeat for the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying "The wind --- by the grace of Allah -- is blowing against Washington."

Zawahiri referred to a long-term plan, consisting of using Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia as camps for jihadi preparation and training. "In the long term one must work seriously to change these corrupt regimes and corruptors," said Zawahiri, attacking Egypt and Saudi Arabia, both US allies.

To achieve that aim "one must win over popular sympathy for a change to Islamic Jihadism," he said, but also emphasising "the necessity of using force to provoke that change."

Zawahiri dedicated a considerable part of his message to attacking Saudi royals and officials as "rapacious ones who want to possess the land, that which it holds and those who people it." He singled out Prince Bandar bin Sultan for allegedly receiving secret payments of more than one billion dollars from Britain's BAE following a 1985 aircraft deal with Riyadh.

Zawahiri cracked a joke to take a swipe at Egyptian authorities for their alleged use of torture, referring to an Egyptian newspaper article he read which mentioned a fax sent by a jailed dissident from behind bars. Do prison cells in Egypt have fax machines, he asked, "and I wonder, are they connected to the same line as the electric shock machine or do they have a separate line," he said, according to AFP.

© 2007 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)