- NewsCore
- June 17, 2011
THE United States will seek to hunt down and kill new al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri just as it did his predecessor Osama bin Laden, the country's top military officer said.
"There is not a surprise from my perspective that he's moved into that position," Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told journalists after the Egyptian was named the new al-Qaeda chief.
"He and his organisation are still threatening us, and as we did both seek to capture and kill - and succeed in killing - bin Laden, we certainly will do the same thing with Zawahiri."
"He and his organisation are still threatening us, and as we did both seek to capture and kill - and succeed in killing - bin Laden, we certainly will do the same thing with Zawahiri."
The warning comes as the Egyptian-born surgeon vowed to continue the terror organisation's "jihad" against the United States and Israel.
In Washington, White House press secretary Jay Carney dismissed the appointment of Zawahiri, bin Laden's longtime No. 2, saying it was "certainly not surprising nor does it change facts. Al Qaeda's ideology is bankrupt.
"Peaceful movements for change are the future for the region. al-Qaeda is the past."
The appointment of the 59-year-old Zawahiri had been widely predicted, although some terror analysts speculated he lacked bin Laden's potent charisma and ability to hold al-Qaeda together.
Now Washington's most wanted man, Zawahiri has been in hiding since the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the World Trade Centre.
However, he has issued regular videotapes calling for war on the West and in one released last week, vowed to pursue bin Laden's fight, warning "the man who terrified America in his life will continue to terrify it after his death."
Zawahiri's new appointment came six weeks after US Navy SEALs killed bin Laden in a raid at his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
A statement issued in the name of al-Qaeda's general command and posted on an Islamist website said: "the general command of al Qaeda announces, after consultations, the appointment of Sheikh Ayman al Zawahiri as head of the group."
The statement also said the terror group would relentlessly pursue its jihad (holy war) against the US and Israel "until all invading armies leave the land of Islam."
Al-Qaeda also pledged its support for the recent uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa, including those in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Syria.
It urged those involved in the uprisings to continue their "struggle until the fall of all corrupt regimes that the West has forced onto our countries."
Previously, Zawahiri was jailed for three years in Egypt for militancy and was implicated in the assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in 1981, and a 1997 massacre of tourists in Luxor, AFP reported.
Facing a death sentence, he left Egypt in the mid-1980s initially for Saudi Arabia, but then headed for Pakistan's northwestern city of Peshawar and then to Afghanistan, where he joined forces with bin Laden.
