DUBAI (AFP) - Al-Jazeera television broadcast a new message attributed to Al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri calling on young Muslims to resist the "Crusader campaign" and threatening the interests of several Western and Asian countries.
The message focused particularly on countries supporting the US-led coalition in Iraq and pointed out that their interests were everywhere.
"We must start the resistance from now ... against the Crusader campaign ... like resistance in Iraq, Afghanistan, in Palestine and in Chechnya," he said, taking aim in particular at the United States, Britain and France.
"Young Muslims, here is our message ... if we are killed or taken prisoner, continue the path (of resistance) after us. Don't betray God and his Prophet," said the voice attributed to be Zawahiri's.
"It's the era of Muslim resistance, after the (Arab) governments submitted to the Zionist occupant. We should learn the lesson of Chechnya, Afghanistan, of Iraq, of Palestine.
"Don't wait for the American, British, French, South Korean, Hungarian and Polish forces to enter Egypt, the Arabian Peninsula, Yemen and Algeria to start the resistance," the speaker added.
"We should start the resistance from now. The interests of the Americans, English, Australian, French, Polish, Norwegian, South Korean and Japanese are everywhere," he said.
"All (these countries) participated in the occupation of Afghanistan or Iraq or Chechnya, or help Israel to survive," added the voice.
Zawahiri, the righthand man of Osama bin Laden, was last heard in a videotape broadcast by the Qatar-based news channel on September 9 in which he forecast a US defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The US intelligence agency, the CIA, said then it believed that tape to be authentic and could have been recently recorded.