Al Qaeda threatened Saturday to avenge the killing by US forces last week of the militant network's chief in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in an Internet message addressed to the Islamic world.
"God has preserved the patient leaders, such as Sheikh Osama bin Laden and Sheikh Ayman al-Zawahiri (bin Laden's number two) and their partisans, to continue fighting and to avenge" Zarqawi, the message said.