New al-Qaida tape urges Muslims to imitate 9-11

As the nation goes on high alert for terror, a new taped message purportedly from al-Qaida urges Muslims to imitate the Sept. 11 attacks and “light a fire under the feet” of the United States and its allies.

The Arabic-language satellite station Al-Jazeera, based in Qatar, is airing excerpts of the audio tape, which it says is of Ayman al-Zawahri.

The Egyptian eye doctor is Osama bin Laden’s right-hand man and would likely be the one to succeed bin Laden in the event of his arrest or death.

On the tape, al-Zawahri urges Muslims to intensify their holy war against Americans and Jews, by striking at missions and commercial interests of the U.S., Britain, Australia and Norway.

“Consider your 19 brothers who attacked America in Washington and New York with their planes as an example,” he said in one excerpt.

“The crusaders and the Jews only understand the language of murder, bloodshed … and of the burning towers,” al-Zawahri said in a reference to the World Trade Center in New York, the target of the deadly hijackings in 2001.

Al-Qaida was blamed for the 9-11 attacks, as well as last week’s car bombings at Western compounds that killed 34 people in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Al-Jazeera chief editor Ibrahim Hilal told The Associated Press the station received the tape last night, but would not say how.

“The quality is not very good. It’s an 11-minute tape and we’ve aired the most significant and the newsworthy parts,” Hilal said.

At a State Department briefing, spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters experts were analyzing the tape to determine its authenticity.

“Whether we’ll be able to determine authenticity or not, I don’t know,” he said. “What I would say is that the text is inflammatory. We have to question why a network would air this kind of inflammatory rhetoric. It’s a series of threats. It’s a series of diatribes. It’s a series of calls for people to commit horrible acts against innocent people. And so to that extent, airing this tape is irresponsible, in our view.”

Boucher said a U.S. official may go on Al-Jazeera to rebut al-Zawahri’s message, as has been done in the past.