Al-Qaida Warns of More London Destruction

The deputy of the al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden warned in a video broadcast today that Tony Blair's policies would bring "more destruction" to London.

The message, delivered by Ayman al-Zawahri, was broadcast by the Qatar-based al-Jazeera television station, which has aired tapes from Bin Laden and Zawahri in the past.

It is the first message from al-Qaida's inner circle to directly mention the July 7 London suicide bombings, in which 52 people were killed. Zawahri described the bombs as "volcanoes of wrath".

"Blair's policies will bring more destruction to Britons after the London explosions, God willing," he said.

The Egyptian-born terrorist leader also appeared to refer to an audio tape broadcast by the al-Arabiya television station last April. In that tape, a speaker purported to be Bin Laden offered a ceasefire to nations deciding not to "interfere" in Muslim countries, although the offer was not extended to the US.

In the tape broadcast today, Zawahri - referring to countries which have contributed troops to US-led forces in Iraq - said: "As to the nations of the crusader alliance, we have offered you a truce if you leave the land of Islam.

"Hasn't Sheik Osama bin Laden told you that you will not dream of security before there is security in Palestine and before all the infidel armies withdraw from the land of Mohammed?

"Instead, you spilled blood like rivers in our countries, and we exploded the volcanoes of wrath in your countries. Our message is clear: you will not be safe until you withdraw from our land, stop stealing our oil and wealth and stop supporting the corrupt rulers."

He also warned the US that tens of thousands of its military personnel would die if it did not immediately withdraw from Iraq.

"As for you, the Americans, what you have seen in New York and Washington, what losses that you see in Afghanistan and Iraq, despite the media blackout, is merely the losses of the initial clashes," he said.

"If you go on with the same policy of aggression against Muslims, you will see, with God's will, what will make you forget the horrible things in Vietnam and Afghanistan."

Referring to the US president, George Bush, the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, he said: "The truth that has been kept from you by Bush, Rice and Rumsfeld is that there is no way out of Iraq without immediate withdrawal, and any delay on this means only more dead, more losses.

"If you don't leave today, certainly you will leave tomorrow, and after tens of thousands of dead, and double that figure in disabled and wounded."

Downing Street refused to make any immediate comment on the tape. In July, a report by the foreign policy thinktank Chatham House said there was a link between the Iraq war and the London bombings.

Mr Blair at first denied the war was a factor. He later said it was "an excuse", but argued that terrorists with an "evil ideology" would always find grievances to justify attacks.

Today's tape showed the Egyptian-born Zawahri wearing white robes, with an AK47 assault rifle by his side. Behind him was a muddy brown sack cloth of a kind often used in al-Qaida tapes to hide geographical features that could provide clues to where they were filmed.

The new tape came as around 6,000 police were out in force in a major London security operation today.

Officers patrolled the capital's public transport system exactly four weeks after the July 7 attacks and a fortnight after the failed July 21 bombings. Analysts said it was likely al-Qaida had timed the message to be broadcast on a Thursday.

The July 7 attacks were carried out by four suicide bombers, three of whom lived in West Yorkshire.

Experts believe it is unlikely that they were planned with the direct involvement of the al-Qaida leadership, and were more likely to have been inspired by the terror group in a similar way to the Madrid bombings of March 2004, which claimed 191 lives.

However there has been speculation that the London plots could have been orchestrated by a "mastermind" who travelled to the country, recruited Britons and gave them training and help with explosives, fleeing before the attacks were carried out.

Zawahri is a former eye doctor who merged his militant faction with al-Qaida in Afghanistan in the late 90s.

Today's tape was the first from him since September 2004, when he said the US was on the brink of defeat in both Iraq and Afghanistan. That message was also broadcast on al-Jazeera.

The last videotape from Bin Laden emerged on October 29 last year, prior to the November 2 US elections. He threatened another attack on the US, saying: "Bush is still deceiving you ... and therefore the reasons are still there to repeat what happened".

Bin Laden is suspected to be hiding somewhere around the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, and is the subject of a huge military manhunt that has so far proved fruitless.