DUBAI, 13 June 2004 — Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television aired a taped message late Friday, attributed to Ayman Al-Zawahiri the No. 2 in the Al-Qaeda terror network, criticizing US initiatives in the Middle East.
“America isn’interested in reforms. What it wants is to replace the existing regimes with new ones. The supposed American reforms can’t help us to realize our independence and our pride,” the message said.
The human rights which Washington recognizes “are the rights of the criminal man to debase Muslim man,” the voice, attributed to Osama Bin Laden’s right-hand man, added.
“Real reform begins from within in sowing the wish for resistance in our spirits, in our children and in future generations,” he added. Al-Arabiya did not say when the message was recorded and its authenticity had not been independently verified.
Al-Zawahiri, a fugitive like Bin Laden, is a 53-year-old Egyptian ex-doctor and considered the brains, and increasingly the main operational leader, of Al-Qaeda.
World leaders at the just-completed Group of Eight summit in the United States adopted a plan to promote reform in the Middle East and North Africa on Wednesday but some expressed deep skepticism about US President George W. Bush’s hopes to democratize the region.
The plan calls for G-8 members to assist homegrown liberalization in the Arab and Muslim worlds and outlines a “Partnership for Progress and a Common Future with the Region of the Broader Middle East and North Africa,” which foresees financial, vocational, educational and human rights programs.
