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Last update - 01:50 31/12/2006
Deputy Al-Qaida leader calls Abbas, Fatah 'secular traitors'
By The Associated press

The deputy leader of Al-Qaida, Ayman al-Zawahri, on Saturday lashed out at Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah movement in a audio-taped holiday greeting addressed to the Palestinian people and Muslims in other countries.

Al-Zawahri wished the Palestinian people a happy Eid al-Adha but criticized Fatah, which has recently renewed dialogue with Israel.

"Those who had sold Palestine, the secular traitors, can not be your brothers. Do not recognize their legitimacy. ... And don't sit with them ... and do not sign with them the documents that will make you lose Palestine," said al-Zawahri in the 15-minute audiotape posted on a web site commonly used by Islamic insurgents.

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The source of the tape could not immediately be verified, but a banner posted on the Web site said it came from Al-Qaida's media production house, al-Sahab.

The deputy leader of Al-Qaida also accused moderate Arab leaders of being traitors for cooperating with the United States in the greeting marking the most important Islamic holiday.

Al-Zawahri did not mention Saddam Hussein's execution in the tape, suggesting it was made before the ousted leader's hanging on Saturday.

The No. 2 Al-Qaida leader denounced Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in an apparent reference to recent arrests and detentions of several members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.

"I greet my brothers inside the prisons of Mubarak, the traitor," he said.

Al-Zawahri criticized the Saudi Arabian kingdom, praising prisoners there who he claims have exposed the government's "loyalism to America, that orders them [the Saudis] to serve the crusader's forces that bomb Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq and that orders them to recognize Israel and give away Palestine."

Saudi Arabia has been waging a three-year crackdown on Al-Qaida in the kingdom. Security forces have killed or captured most of the Al-Qaida branch's known top leaders, most recently in gunbattles in December. The militants had launched a campaign in 2003 to overthrow the U.S.-allied royal family.

As part his Eid greeting, al-Zawahri vowed to set detainees in the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay and the Iraqi prison of Abu Ghraib free.

"Consider this a promise as long as I live," he said.

Al-Zawahri also extended his Eid greeting to Iraq, praising the leader of Al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, and urged Muslims in Somalia, Chechnya, Indonesia, the Philippines and Algeria to keep on fighting the "infidels and crusaders."

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