Bin Laden will "haunt" America: al Qaeda deputy (Reuters)

CAIRO (Reuters) – Osama bin Laden's longtime lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahri, said the United States faces rebellion throughout the Muslim world after killing the al Qaeda leader, according to a YouTube recording posted on Wednesday.

In what appeared to be his first public response to bin Laden's death in a U.S. commando raid in Pakistan last month, the Egyptian-born Zawahri warned Americans not to gloat and vowed to press ahead with al Qaeda's campaign against the United States and its allies.

"The Sheikh has departed, may God have mercy on him, to his God as a martyr, and we must continue on his path of jihad to expel the invaders from the land of Muslims and to purify it from injustice," Zawahri said in the 28-minute clip.

"Today, and thanks be to God, America is not facing an individual or a group ... but a rebelling nation which has awoken from its sleep in a jihadist renaissance challenging it wherever it is."

Zawahri's association with bin Laden's predates the al Qaeda attacks on the United States in September 2001 that led to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

While the bespectacled Zawahri has been touted as successor to bin Laden, experts on al Qaeda say that another Egyptian militant, Saif al-Adel, is in interim command of al Qaeda.

In the video, Zawahri warned Americans not to rejoice at bin Laden's death. "You should await what will befall you after every celebration," he said.

He condemned U.S. forces for burying bin Laden at sea, a move opposed by senior Muslim clerics as un-Islamic. The Americans said the burial included Muslim rite and took place at sea to deny bin Laden's followers a shrine.

"He terrified America when he was alive and is terrifying it as a dead man, to the point that they shudder at the prospect of giving him a grave because of what they know of the love of tens of millions for him," he said.

Bin Laden, Zawahri said, would continue to "haunt America and Israel and their Crusader allies, their corrupt agents."

"His famous pledge that 'you won't dream of security until we live it as a reality and until you depart the land of Islam' will continue to deprive them of sleep."

Zawahri pledged allegiance to Taliban leader Mulla Omar, who is spearheading fighting against U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan, calling him the "emir of the faithful."

Zawahri praised the citizen revolts in his native Egypt and other Arab countries, calling on Pakistanis to follow suit: "Shake off the dust of humiliation and overthrow those who have sold you in the slave market to the United States."

(Reporting by Omar Fahmy and Ahmed Tolba; Writing by Sami Aboudi)

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Bin Laden's No. 2: Muslims will destroy America (AP)

CAIRO – Osama bin Laden's deputy warned Wednesday that America faces not individual terrorists or groups but an international community of Muslims that seek to destroy it and its allies. He was delivering a 28-minute videotaped eulogy to slain al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

Ayman al-Zawahri, al-Qaida's longtime No. 2 and considered the network's operational head, also sought to cast a role for the terror group in the popular uprisings shaking Arab world.

"Today, praise God, America is not facing an individual, a group or a faction," he said, wearing a white robe and turban with an assault rifle leaned on a wall behind him. "It is facing a nation than is in revolt, having risen from its lethargy to a renaissance of jihad."

Al-Zawahri also heaped praise on bin Laden, who was killed in the May 2 raid by U.S. Navy SEALs in the Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad. Al-Zawahri, who is believed to be operating from somewhere near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, also criticized the U.S. for burying bin Laden at sea.

"He went to his God as a martyr, the man who terrified American while alive and terrifies it in death, so much so that they trembled at the idea of his having tomb" he said.

Al-Zawahri — who referenced the toppling of rulers in Tunisia and Egypt and continued uprisings in Libya, Yemen and Syria — tried to cast recent developments as in line with his group's longtime goal: to destroy America and its allies. He said America now faces the international Muslim community.

"Our brothers who are working in Islam in all places, I tell you that our hands are extended to you and our hearts are open to you, so that we can work together to make Allah's word the highest and to make Islamic law in Muslim lands the ruler, not the ruled," he said in a video released on militant websites.

Al-Qaida has long sought to topple many of the Arab leaders whose regimes have been shaken or toppled by popular uprisings this year, though militant Islam has played next to no role in any of them and most activists say they seek civil, not religious rule.

Within days of the bin Laden raid, al-Qaida had issued a statement vowing to keep fighting the United States, a message that was likely designed to convince followers that the organization would remain vigorous and intact even after its founder's demise.

But al-Zawahri's eulogy was the first comment by one of his potential successors on bin Laden's killing.

He also said U.S. officials withheld the release of photographs of bin Laden's body, fearing the "Islamic peoples' anger and hate" for America. He claimed bin Laden "achieved what he wanted to do, which is to incite the Islamic nation to holy war, and his message had reached all."

Al-Zawahri, who is Egyptian, is a less charismatic figure believed to lack bin Laden's ability to bring together the many nationalities and ethnic groups that make up al-Qaida. His appointment as the next al-Qaida leader could further fracture an organization that is thought to be increasingly decentralized.

The eulogy included five poems of praise for bin Laden, describing him alternately as modest, noble and shrewd commander and "the vanguard of jihad against the communists and then the Crusaders," a reference to bin Laden's campaign in the Afghan war against the Soviets in the 1980s and the Sept. 11, 2011 attacks against the United States.

Al-Zawahri also vented his anger at Pakistani military leaders and politicians, implying they had a role in bin Laden's death.

"I call on the Pakistani nation to rise up against the mercenary military traitors and the corrupt politicians who turned Pakistan into an American colony, allowing it (America) to kill or capture whoever it wants," al-Zawahri said.

He concluded by saying bin Laden will remain a "source of horror and a nightmare chasing America, Israel and their allies."

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Additional reporting from Associated Press writer Maamoun Youssef.

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