MIDDLE EAST:AL-QAEDA has pulled off a propaganda coup by answering questions put to it by hundreds of people invited to take part in an online "open meeting" with Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
In the internet question and answer session, Dr al-Zawahiri insisted that his organisation does not kill innocent people and justified attacks against "Crusaders", Jews and their agents and allies in Arab lands.
Al-Qaeda's chief ideologue also predicted that "jihadi influence" will spread "to Jerusalem" after the Americans leave Iraq, and attacked the UN as "the enemy of Islam", defending the bombing of its offices in Iraq and Algeria. Bin Laden, he claimed, is "healthy and well". Dr al-Zawahiri, thought to be in hiding in Afghanistan or Pakistan, regularly appears in video or audio clips, but this is the first time he has responded to questions posted on online Islamist forums.
The exercise was announced last December by al-Qaeda's media arm, al-Sahab, with media outlets invited to take part.
The 90-minute audio tape was released to subscriber-only Arabic-language websites with hundreds of links on free file-sharing sites allowing the material to be downloaded. It was accompanied by an English transcript.
"It's the first time the al-Qaeda leadership has done a Q&A session," said Brynjar Lia, a Norwegian jihad specialist.
"Zawahiri wants to overcome the isolation forced on him by circumstances and talk to his fan club like any star . . . It shows how they like to comment on current events and present al-Qaeda as a force in international affairs".
Dr al-Zawahiri ignored questions submitted by the Guardian in London, but replied to several others about attacks targeting civilians. "We haven't killed innocents, not in Baghdad, nor in Morocco, nor in Algeria, nor anywhere else," he told a questioner identified as an Algerian medical student. "And if there is any innocent who was killed in the mujahideens' operations, then it was either an unintentional error or out of necessity."
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb claimed responsibility for December's attacks on the UN office and the Constitutional Council building in Algiers, which killed more than 60 people, including 17 UN workers.
"The UN is an enemy of Islam and Muslims. It is the one which codified and legitimised the setting up of the state of Israel and its taking over of the Muslims' lands." he said. He seemed defensive about why al-Qaeda had not attacked Israel. He said the group had attacked a synagogue in Tunisia, bombed a Kenyan hotel with Israeli tourists and fired missiles at an Israeli airliner taking off from Mombasa, Kenya.
Analysts say al-Qaeda is uncomfortable relating to Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, which is fighting a nationalist struggle rather than being part of the global jihadi effort. He also criticised the militant Lebanese Shia movement Hizbullah for agreeing to a "Crusader" presence - a UN force. -(Guardian service)