Al-Qaeda leader Yazid warns India of more Mumbai-style attacks

LONDON: A top al-Qaeda commander, who was reported killed in a US drone strike last year, has appeared in a video warning India of more Mumbai-style terror attacks if it tried to attack Pakistan.

"India should know that it will have to pay a heavy price if it attacks Pakistan," Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, believed to be al-Qaeda's military commander in Afghanistan and ranked behind No 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri, said in a 20-minute video in Arabic.

Yazid, who the Pakistani military said may have been killed in fighting last August in the Bajaur tribal region, said: "The Mujahideen will sunder your armies into the ground, like they did to the Russians in Afghanistan.

"They will target your economic centres and raze them to the ground."

Yazid denounced the ban on militant groups in Pakistan following the Mumbai attacks and asked the people of Pakistan to rise up and overthrow the government and President Asif Ali Zardari, the BBC reported.

The al-Qaeda leader is said to have been involved in a number of terror attacks, including last year's Danish Embassy bombings, in Pakistan and had claimed the responsibility of assassinating former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.



He was last heard in August 2008 when he confirmed the death of al-Qaeda chemical-weapons expert Midhat Mursi al-Sayid Umar.