Al Qaeda's second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri appeared in a videotape posted on the Internet today, the second recording since he was reported to have been killed or wounded in Pakistan last month.
The video posted on a website often used by al Qaeda showed Zawahri in white robes and white turban in front of a green backdrop, praising Abu Khabab al-Masri and three other militants killed in Pakistan's border region in July.
It was not clear when the tape was recorded but it was the second audio or video tape of Zawahri to appear since he himself was reported to have been killed or wounded in a suspected US missile strike in Pakistan's South Waziristan tribal region.
Earlier this month, an English-language audio tape purportedly made by Zawahri in which he attacked Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf was dropped off at an office of Pakistan's ARY One television channel.
US television network CBS News in a report early in August cited an intercepted letter from Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud requesting a doctor be sent to treat the wounded Zawahri.
The whereabouts of Zawahri and al Qaeda leader bin Laden have not been known since US-led forces launched a hunt for them in Afghanistan after the al Qaeda attacks on the United States on September 11th 2001.
Reuters