Al Qaeda Promises More Attacks on U.S.

Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda organization pledged defiantly Tuesday that a “storm of airplanes” will continue to attack American targets until the United States ends its “crusade” against Afghanistan and Islam.

In a menacing video message addressed to the entire Islamic world, Al Qaeda spokesman Sulaiman abu Ghaith also called on Muslims in more than 50 nations to “uphold their religion” by attacking American interests worldwide.

“The Americans must know that the storm of airplanes will not stop and there are thousands of young people who look forward to death, like the Americans look forward to living,” he said in the taped message aired on Al Jazeera, an Arab all-news television network, broadcast from Qatar.

“America must know that the battle will not leave its land until America leaves our land, until it stops supporting Israel, until it stops the blockade against Iraq,” Abu Ghaith said.

It was the second video released by Al Qaeda since Sunday, when the U.S. began its military offensive against terrorism, dubbed Operation Enduring Freedom.

Abu Ghaith warned that the new war against the United States will target all American facilities and personnel. He said that Americans “must know” that the Islamic world will not allow its brethren to come under attack.

“The jihad today is a duty of every Muslim. . . . God says fight. . . . The American interests are everywhere, all over the world. Every Muslim has to play his real and true role to uphold his religion. And fighting and jihad are a duty,” he said.

The Al Qaeda spokesman praised the men who crashed their hijacked jetliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon for doing “a good deed” by moving the battle onto American soil.

For all the bravado, Abu Ghaith’s message to the Muslim world also hinted at angry desperation. The proclamation, which followed three days of air assaults on Afghanistan by American and British warplanes, complained about having to live “under this bombardment.” And Abu Ghaith said plaintively that Al Qaeda has a “fair and just case.”

In addition, given the international coalition against terrorism and the military might lined up against it, Al Qaeda’s threats rang somewhat hollow, analysts said.

In bellicose language, Abu Ghaith warned that Muslims will fight “unbelievers” with everything they have.

“We shall be victorious. The Americans have opened a door that will never be closed,” he pledged.

Neither the White House nor the State Department had any immediate comment on the Al Qaeda statement. Indeed, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell did not see the first Bin Laden statement Sunday, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Tuesday.

But some U.S. analysts predicted that the new threat could eventually backfire on the extremist movement, first by reinforcing the resolve of the international coalition confronting Al Qaeda and then by showing the group’s inability to follow through on its warnings.

Given the group’s limited ability to counter American bombs, Al Qaeda’s propaganda is merely psychological warfare, analysts said.

“They’re trying to unsettle the American public as well as the Western world. Even if they don’t have the capability, because they’ve demonstrated they’ve done it once, they want to make Americans think they can do it again and that Americans will always be vulnerable. But it’s not going to work,” said Henri Barkey, a former State Department policy planning staff member who worked on Mideast terrorism issues and now heads Lehigh University’s International Relations Department.

Al Qaeda is “upping the ante” by making ever greater threats against U.S. interests, Barkey added.

“If the attacks Al Qaeda calls for don’t happen--and I don’t believe they will--then the movement’s credibility comes into question,” Barkey said. “The tables will be turned on Bin Laden, and he will be shown not to command that much of a following or be that much of a threat.

“And that will be a psychological victory for us.”