Al-Qaeda threatens attacks in Gulf, Israel

DUBAI: Al-Qaeda warned in a video aired on the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks that US allies Israel and the Gulf Arab states would be its next target in a campaign that would seal the West’s economic doom.

Deputy al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri said in remarks apparently addressed to Western leaders: “I tell them do not bother yourselves with defending your forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. These forces are doomed to failure.

“You have to bolster your defenses in two areas ... the first is the Gulf, from which you will be evicted, God willing, after your defeat in Iraq and then your economic doom will be achieved,” he said in the video broadcast in part on the Arabic al-Jazeera television channel.

“And the next (target) is Israel. The current of holy war is closing on it and your end there will put an end to the Zionist-crusader supremacy.”

Zawahri also condemned United Nations forces in Lebanon as “enemies of Islam”, the first implicit threat against the international peacekeeping detachment.

Zawahri’s warning of attacks in the Gulf, the world’s top oil exporting region, follows previous calls by al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to target oil facilities to cripple the West.