MIDDLE EAST: A senior al Qaeda leader has warned US President George Bush to prepare for more attacks on the United States.
In an audiotape broadcast yesterday by Al Jazeera television, Ayman al-Zawahri said: "Bush, strengthen your defences and your security measures for the Muslim nation which sent you the legion of New York and Washington has determined to send you legion after legion seeking death and paradise."
Zawahri, Osama bin Laden's right-hand man, also appeared to single out France in its league of enemies, accusing Paris of displaying "Crusader hatred" towards Islam by banning Muslim headscarves from state classrooms.
By turning on France in an audiotape broadcast on Dubai-based Al Arabiya television, Zawahri went beyond now familiar tirades against the United States, Britain, Gulf Arab states and other supporters of last year's US-led invasion of Iraq. "France is the country of freedom which defends freedom to show the body and to be immoral and depraved. In France you're free to show yourself but not to dress modestly," he said in reference to the headscarf ban.
"This is a new sign of the Crusader hatred which Westerners harbour against Muslims while they boast of freedom, democracy and human rights," said the voice on the tape.
The authenticity of both recordings aired on the two Arab televisions could not immediately be verified, but they sounded like previous messages attributed to the Egyptian Zawahri, regarded as bin Laden's deputy and thought to be hiding with him somewhere near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
In Pakistan, meanwhile, troops backed by helicopters and artillery detained 25 people, including Arabs, in raids on hideouts of al Qaeda and Taliban militants in a remote tribal area near the Afghan border, officials said.
Military spokesman Major-General Shaukat Sultan said the "routine" operation followed a tip-off about "foreign terrorists" who failed to surrender by a February 20 deadline.
He said a few foreigners had been detained along with passports, weapons, ammunition and audio cassettes. Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat said a "sizeable" number of suspects had been detained and there had been no casualties.
Intelligence officials said 25 people, including Saudi, Egyptian and Yemeni nationals, were among those held and others could be Uzbeks or Chechens.
"We are trying to establish their identity," one intelligence source said, but added that no top al Qaeda figures were thought to be among those held.