Qaeda's Zawahri threatens more attacks in UK: tape

By Lin Noueihed

DUBAI (Reuters) - Al Qaeda's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahri, on Tuesday threatened more attacks on Britain, two weeks after two failed bombings and criticized the country's decision to award author Salman Rushdie a knighthood.

"I say to (Former British Prime Minister Tony) Blair's successor that the policy of your predecessor drew catastrophes in Afghanistan and Iraq and even in the centre of London," the Egyptian cleric said in an audio tape posted on the Internet.

"If you did not learn the lesson then we are ready to repeat it, God willing, until we are sure you have fully understood."

It was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the 20-minute tape, which appeared on a Web site used by al Qaeda-linked groups with a still photograph of Zawahri.

The recording came just days after two car bombs were found in London and a fuel-packed jeep was rammed into Glasgow Airport in Scotland -- botched attacks which Prime Minister Gordon Brown said were associated with al Qaeda.

Zawahri also attacked Britain's controversial decision to award Rushdie a knighthood, saying Queen Elizabeth had sent a clear message to Muslims by honoring a novelist who had insulted Islam, and said the group was preparing a response.

Rushdie is best known for his novel "The Satanic Verses", which outraged many Muslims and prompted death threats that forced him to live in hiding for nine years.

Zawahri said the least Muslims could do was to boycott British goods to protest Rushdie's knighthood.

A spokesman for Brown rejected Zawahri's comments.

"We do not intend to dignify this with a response," the spokesman said. "As the prime minister has said, the British people will remain united, resolute and strong and we will not allow terrorists to undermine the British way of life."

ATTACK IN LEBANON, PAKISTAN

Zawahri, who has spoken out regularly in audio-taped messages in recent months, also called on Muslims in Pakistan to fight President Pervez Musharraf, whose forces killed a rebel Islamist leader and more than 50 militants on Tuesday when they stormed an Islamabad mosque compound after a week-long siege.

"I say to the Muslims in Pakistan that the real challenge to Musharraf lies not in demonstrations nor in elections... but by backing jihad in Afghanistan," he said, without referring specifically to the siege and violence at the Red Mosque.

"An Islamic emirate in Afghanistan is the hope for real change in the region and hopefully the final blow to the Crusaders ... in South Asia."

Zawahri, who last year called for attacks on United Nations peacekeepers patrolling Lebanon's southern border with Israel, also blessed a bombing that killed six Spanish troops in June and called for more.