Al Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri has poured scorn on a US congressional bill tying war funding to a pullout from Iraq, saying it reflected US failure, according to a video posted on the Internet Saturday.
"This bill reflects American failure and frustration," Zawahiri said in the video interview produced by As-Sahab, a media outfit that specialises in al Qaeda online material. A link to the video, which features English subtitles, was provided to AFP by the Washington-based Site Institute.
Zawahiri said the bill would deprive insurgents of "the opportunity to destroy the American forces which we have caught in a historic trap." He went on to "ask Allah that they only get out of it (Iraq) after losing two hundred to three hundred thousand killed, in order that we give the spillers of blood in Washington and Europe an unforgettable lesson."
US President George W. Bush on Tuesday vetoed the bill passed by Congress a few days earlier. The bill would allocate 124 billion dollars in emergency funding for US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, but contained a call for US combat troops to start coming home from Iraq by October 1 and for most of them to be withdrawn by March 2008. The turbaned Zawahiri, right hand man of al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, appeared in the video with book shelves behind him.