translation of Al-Zawahiri's 9.29.06 statement

Ayman Al-Zawahiri Reacts to Bush, Pope; Urges Muslims to Support Mujahidin

On 29 September, a jihadist website has been observed to post several links to a new videotape for Ayman al-Zawahiri, second-in-command of Al-Qa'ida, produced by Al-Sahab Media, an underground media organization that produces Al-Qa'ida tapes. The tape is entitled "Bush, Pope of the Vatican, Darfur, and the Crusader Wars" and is dated "Sha'ban 1427 Hegira."The following is the translation of Al-Zawahiri's statement:[Al-Zawahiri first appears wearing a white robe and dark brown turban with an office setting in the background. He begins to speak in Arabic, with English subtitles appearing on the tape.]
In the name of God, praise be to God, and may peace and prayers be upon the Messenger of God, his family, companions, and allies.Muslim brothers everywhere, peace be upon you and the mercy of God and His blessings.The murderer and spiller of Muslim blood, Bush, has stated that he has secret prisons, in which he holds the dangerous leaders of the group of Qa'idat al-Jihad [Al-Qa'ida of jihad], including the mujahid brother Khalid al-Shaykh Muhammad, may God free him, and he has stated that during the three years after Khalid al-Shaykh Muhammad's arrest, the interrogators have been able to get from Khalid al-Shaykh Muhammad valuable information which has helped the Crusaders to kill and arrest a number of leaders of Al-Qa'ida. I want to ask this lying failure: Who are those leaders of Al-Qa'ida whose killing or capture was facilitated by the information extracted from Khalid al-Shaykh Muhammad? And I say to him: You lying failure, what is the size of your losses after the capture of Khalid al-Shaykh Muhammad, may God free him?Bush, you deceitful charlatan, three and a half years have passed since you captured Khalid al-Shaykh Muhammad, so how have you found us during this time? Losing and surrendering? Or, by the grace of God, attacking, seeking martyrdom, advancing, and injuring you on a daily basis. The strikes of the mujahidin deprived you of the pleasure of quenching your thirst for revenge with the capture of our champions, those who repeat what [Islamic poet] Abu-Firas [al-Hamadani] said:I have been captured, although my Friends are not defenseless in war Nor is my horse a foal Or, its master unskilled But if the elimination Of a man is decreed Then neither earth Nor sea can save him And my friends said Either fight or death.So I said they are two things The sweetest of which is bitter.But I will go to that In which there is no shame And enough for you are two things, The best of which is captivity.They say to me, You've sold safety for death.So, I said: By God I have not suffered loss.And will death abandon Me for an hour If captivity does not abandon me?Death is loss, so choose that Which preserves your memory For a man has not dies as long As his memory is preserved.And I tell him: You lying failure: Why can't you be brave at least once in your life and inform your nation of the disasters, which your forces are facing in Afghanistan and Iraq? Why don't you tell them how many million citizens of America and its allies you intend to kill in search of the imaginary victory and in breathless pursuit of the mirage towards which you are driving your people's sons in order to increase your profits? Can't you be honest at least once in your life, and admit that you are a deceitful liar, who intentionally deceived your nation, when you drove them to war in Iraq under the pretext of the presence of nuclear weapons there and under the pretext of Al-Qa'ida's connections with Saddam Husayn, following which evidence proved that you intentionally lied and misled? And do you have the courage to stand in front of your people and tell your nation that you lied to them and drove them -- and continued to drive them -- to terrible things for the sake of stupid fantasies?And I tell him: You frivolous charlatan, if the arrest of Khalid al-Shaykh Muhammad, may God free him, has helped you in the war on terror, why then are your forces retreating in secret from the south and east of Afghanistan and handing over their tasks to the NATO forces, which are screaming for help due to the horribleness of what is happening to them at the hands of the Taliban and Al-Qa'ida?I tell him that if arresting Khalid al-Shaykh Muhammad, may God set him free, enabled you to deal painful blows to Al-Qa'ida, why then your troops are making quick arrangements for withdrawal from Iraq? I also tell him that Khalid al-Shaykh Muhammad, may God set him free, has hurt you thou sands of times more than you hurt him. Abu-Firas says: They boast of removing my clotheswhile my clothes are red with their blood and a sword whose blade broke in them and a butt of a spear whose head is destroyed in their chests. Khalid al-Shaykh Muhammad is a soldier of Islam who has been fighting its enemy; first the Russians, and then the Americans, for more than 20 years. I also tell him that Khalid al-Shaykh Muhammad is the leader of the march, the pioneer of an awakening, and the vanguard of a nation, and he has left behind him thousands others who have learned from him or those who learned from those who learned from him and who take their example his life story and his continuous sacrifices and giving in the path of God so that the word of God be the highest and the word of the unbelievers be the lowest. I also tell him that what you have committed against Khalid al-Shaykh Muhammad and the other Muslim captives in your prisons and the jails of your slaves in Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, and elsewhere is not a secret to anyone and we are a people who do not tolerate oppression and we do not abandon our revenge until our chests are healed of those who aggressed against us. By the grace of God, we are seeking to extract revenge on behalf of Islam and Muslims from you, your soldiers, and your allies. So be patient if you can when you face the horrors of war because we, with God's help, will tolerate it. Al-Barudi [an Egyptian poet] may God have mercy on his soul said: When the people call on each other, And the spears cross and war rages on, When the people want to flee from death And the horses chests heave, And when the blows become severe, And when the empty earth turns with us As if we have drunk of a glass from which no one awakes,I tolerate it until its sky becomes clear And I am patient when misfortune strikes.Bush, you deceitful charlatan: You have captured Ramzi Yusuf, Umar Abd-al-Rahman, Wali Khan, Ibn al-Shaykh, Ramzi Bin-al-Shibah, Khalid al-Shaykh Muhammad, Abu-al-Faraj al-Libi, and hundreds of Islam's mujahidin and heroes in your war against Islam which you call the war on terror. And your agents in the Arabian Peninsula, Yemen, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan have captured thousands of the youth and soldiers of Islam. You have let them taste various types of torture at the hands of your tormentors and agents. But, by the grace of God, we are taking revenge on their behalf on a daily basis from your soldiers and the soldiers of your allies and agents in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, the Arabian Peninsula, and all Muslim countries from Indonesia to Morocco and even in your own country every day. The horror of fighting only increases our determination to sacrifice and give more of ourselves in the path of God. Abd-al-Rahman Bin-Hassan Bin Thabit [an old Arab poet], may God be pleased with him, said: I am from honorable people who increase in their courage with the severity of events. Bush, you deceitful charlatan: Be aware that the liberation of our captives is a debt on our shoulders, which we must fulfill, with God's help and power. You should know, O deceitful charlatan, that you are not facing individuals or organizations but you are facing the Muslim nation in which the spirit of jihad flows and which rejects humiliation under Zionist-Crusader arrogance. So are you able to kill or capture the nation of Islam. Therefore, stop bluffing by saying that you have captured this one or killed that one because your soldiers who have been killed are filling the fields in Iraq and Afghanistan and their colleagues are fleeing from death to death by committing suicide out of despair.
[Here the setting changes: Al-Zawahiri now appears in a white robe and a white turban with a light brown cloth covering the background. Also, in this part, there are no English subtitles]
The second issue that I want to talk about is the statement made by the pope of the Vatican, who blasphemed God and insulted the reverend Prophet [Muhammad], peace and prayers be upon him, and what this charlatan said; that Islam is unreasonable. The pope with his contradictive remarks has pretended to have forgotten that his Christianity cannot be accepted by a sound mind because it includes superstitions like the trinity, the crucifixion, redemption, the original sin, the infallibility of the pope, and the church's forgiveness of sins. He forgot that the book he deems holy does not have an authentic source and did not descend on Jesus, peace be upon him. Rather, it is about what was written about Jesus, peace be upon him, without specifically identifying its writers, translators, or original texts. After the bishops selected parts of the book and accepted them as legal, they considered other parts as illegal, without having clear justifications or intelligible proofs for this.
O our Muslim nation, these acts of insolence did not come single. Rather, they were part of a series of insults targeting Islam, such as the writings of Salman Rushdie, the honored guest of the White House, France prohibiting wearing scarves in schools, US desecration of the Holy Koran, the US pressure to hold Wafa'i Qustantin and her sisters to the vaults of torture in the monasteries that are protected by the US-Crusader influence, and the cartoons insulting the character of the reverend messenger, peace and prayers be upon him. All of these insults coincide with the Crusade on Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine, including the carpet bombing of villages, violation of the women's honor, torture, secret jails, and other forms of the dirty Crusader-Zionist series of the Crusader US campaign against Islam and Muslims.The charlatan Benedict XVI reminds us of the speech delivered by his predecessor Pope Urban II in the 11th century in Claremont in France, in which he instigated the people of European to fight Muslims and wage Crusade wars because the pagan Muslims, the enemies of Christians, as he claimed, desecrate the grave of Jesus Christ, peace be upon him. He deliberately lied to the mob of the West and ignored the crystal-clear facts; namely, that Muslims are not pagan and that they eradicated paganism wherever they go. They are monotheists who worship the One and Only God who begot not, nor is He begotten; and there is none like unto Him. He also ignored the fact that Muslims cannot be enemies of Jesus Christ, peace be upon him, because they believe in his prophecy and consider him an apostle messenger of inflexible purpose. They believe in the Bible that descended on him and believe in all God's prophets, messengers, and books.The result of this charlatanism was Crusade wars that lasted for about two centuries and ended with the utter defeat upon the Crusader West.Benedict XVI fabricated lies against us, but we respond to this insult by benevolence, inviting him and all Christians to Islam, religion of monotheism, which does not know trinity, the superstition of crucifixion, redemption, and incarnation. It is the religion the well-guarded book of which has not been distorted or changed and defies humans to create a book of its like.However, if they insist on their failed Crusader war, let them have the same fate of Urban II and those who obeyed him and believed his lies.The third issue that I want to talk about is the Crusader plan to send Crusader forces to Darfur, which is about to become a new field for the Crusader wars. O nation of Islam, rise to defend your land and sanctities against the aggression of the Crusaders who are using the cover of the United Nations. You will only be protected by a popular jihadist war which the mujahidin are undertaking.As for the government of Khartoum, which conceded the south, is too week to defend Darfur after inciting wars and seditions in it. This government permits the impermissible, seeks its own interest, and ga rners spoils. How can a government of a defeated belief be steadfast in the face of the gravity of wars?Is it not the government that had dissolved the popular defense forces so as to hand over the south to the US-Zionist influence? So it cannot be farther from leading popular jihad. So, honorable and noble people of Darfur, cling to your religion, and resolve your differences among yourselves. Do not allow the conniving and deceitful government of Khartoum or the anti-Islam Crusader West to intervene among you. Be prepared to fend off the Crusader campaign against you.Our Muslim nation, at the end of my speech, I would like to emphasize a number of things to you:First, you should realize the powerlessness of the governments in control of the Muslim land against the forces of Crusader invasion. These governments are suffering two kinds of impotence. The first is ideological, for they accepted the legitimacy of the Unit ed Nations, which is in violation of Islam. This organization obliges all those governments to maintain Israel's sovereignty and territorial integrity, for it is a member, like them, to the United Nations. They also suffer behavioral impotence, for they agreed to remain in power through submission to the will of the Crusader West and allowing it to occupy the Muslim land in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine. Second, you should realize the impotence of many resounding names who install themselves as leaders of the Muslim masses. I will specifically mention three categories: The category of those who are ideologically-defeated, those who accepted the governance of the masses instead of the governance of the Shari'ah [Islamic law]. They acknowledged the legitimacy of the corrupt rulers and accepted the national bond instead of Muslim brotherhood and the Sykes-Picot borders instead of the Islamic caliphate. They entered Kabul aboard America's tanks, under the cover of its Cross, and the protection of its bombers. They participated in the councils of the occupation, and then in the rigged elections and referendums in Iraq and Afghanistan. The second category is the category of the deceptive merchants of religion, those who colluded with the US occupation of Iraq, before, during, and after the invasion. They also participated in defending the US occupiers and waged a war against the Muslims and mujahdin in the name of Islam in the service of the US master. The third category is the category of the clerics of beggary, those who sold their religion for salaries and posts. They approved of recognizing Israel and reconciliation with it. They sold off Palestine, and installed their rulers as pious followers of God. They labeled those who confront their corruption as being extremists and infidels. Third, we should renounce all the resolutions and treaties of capitulation, beginning with the resolution on the partition of Palestine, and ending with Resolution 1701, passing through the Camp David and Oslo accords. All these are resolutions and treaties that hand over the land of Islam to its enemies, recognize the legitimacy of the Zionist entity, and incriminate those who wage jihad against it. Fourth, the Muslim nation should wage a popular jihadist war against the Crusader campaign. What the enemies of Islam fear most is the popular jihadist war. Fifth, the Muslim nation should realize that Afghanistan and Iraq are the most two important fields for confronting the contemporary Crusader war. Therefore, the Muslim nation should support the mujahdin in these two countries with all its power. God, be He blessed, says: Those who believe, and adopt exile, and fight for the Faith, in the cause of Allah as well as those who give (them) asylum and aid,- these are (all) in very tru th the Believers: for them is the forgiveness of sins and a provision most generous. [Koranic verse]Our last prayer is: Praise be to God, Lord of the universe. May God's peace and blessings be upon our Prophet Muhammad, his household, and companions.


Source:
http://www.centcom.mil/sites/uscentcom1/What%20Extremists%20Say/Ayman%20Al-Zawahiri%20Reacts%20to%20Bush,%20Pope.aspx?PageView=Shared