Real battle yet to begin tape warns

DUBAI - An audio tape purportedly from top al Qaeda official Ayman al-Zawahiri warned the United States yesterday that it would pay a high price if it harmed any of the detainees at the US base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

The tape broadcast by Dubai-based Al Arabiya television also said that the "real battle" against the US had not started yet.

Washington is holding more than 600 people from 42 nations as prisoners at a special camp at the Guantanamo Bay naval base. US plans to try six of them in military tribunals that can hand out death sentences sparked international criticism.

"America has announced it will start putting on trial in front of military tribunals the Muslim detainees at Guantanamo and might sentence them to death.... I swear in the name of God that the crusader America will pay a dear price for any harm it inflicts on any of the Muslim detainees," said the tape.

An Arabiya official said the channel believed the voice was that of Zawahiri - considered to be al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's right-hand man. It was not clear when the tape was made.

Zawahiri has appeared at bin Laden's side in almost every videotaped statement from the al Qaeda leaders since the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US, which killed more than 3000 people.

"We tell America only one thing. What you have suffered until now is only the initial skirmishes. The real battle has not started yet," the tape said.

"Let those who conspire with America know that America is incapable of protecting itself... and let every captive held by the infidels be assured that the day of liberation is [coming] soon," it added.

It was the first audio tape said to be by Zawahiri since May 21 when another taped message made threats against the US.

US President George W. Bush vowed last week to thwart what he said was a "real threat" of new al Qaeda attacks and the Homeland Security Department has warned the airline industry that al Qaeda was planning new suicide hijackings and bombings in the US or abroad.

The prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay naval base include nationals from Britain, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Afghanistan but the US military has not given a precise breakdown.

The detainees, suspected members of al Qaeda and others caught in what Bush calls the "war on terrorism", have been held and interrogated without being charged.

Human rights groups have criticised Washington for refusing to give the detainees the rights accorded to prisoners of war under international treaties.

Last month Washington said six suspects, including two Britons and an Australian, could face military trial. It accused them of attending "terrorist" training camps and said they may have been involved in financing al Qaeda.

Bowing to pressure from Britain and Australia, Washington said later it would not seek the death penalty in any military trials held for the two Britons and Australian.

Meanwhile, classified sections of the US Congress' September 11 report lay out a web of connections among Saudi businessmen, royal family, charities and banks that may have aided al Qaeda or the suicide hijackers, according to people who have seen the report.

The report raises the possibility that one or more Saudi men who were connected to some of the hijackers or their acquaintances were tied to Saudi intelligence.

It is also said to suggest that a Muslim imam in the US may have been a facilitator for some hijackers.

The Saudi Ambassador to the US, Prince Bandar, said yesterday that any suggestion the two Saudi men were agents of the Saudi Government was "blatantly false".

US investigators are setting out anew to determine whether the connections are innocent coincidences in an Islamic culture that urges charitable support or a pattern of pro-terror money and patronage flowing from the wealthy kingdom that is a longtime US ally, say Government officials.

Some of the most sensitive information is said to involve what US agencies are doing to investigate Saudi business figures and organisations.

But the congressional investigators warn that leads they have dug up for the FBI and CIA to pursue are at times contradictory or circumstantial. US intelligence and FBI investigators were said to view the evidence of ties to Saudi intelligence as unclear.

- AGENCIES