Friday, September 2 2005 10:23 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Dubai: Al-Qaeda's second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has threatened new attacks against Western countries similar to those which rocked Britain in July 2005, in a videotape aired by Qatar-based Al-Jazeera TV.

"The lands and interests of the countries which took part in the aggression against Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan are targets for us," Zawahiri said in the tape broadcast late last night (September 2, 2005), in which he also called the July 7, 2005 London bombings a 'slap for the policy' of British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The videotape, in which Zawahiri hailed the London conquest as similar to that in Madrid last year and the United States in September 2001, also showed footage of one of the London suicide bombers, Mohammad Sidique Khan, who outlined the reasons for his action.

"We will respond in kind to all those who took part in the aggression on Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine," said Zawahiri, shown with an automatic rifle at his side.

"Just as they made rivers of blood flow in our countries, we will make volcanoes of anger erupt in their countries," Osama bin Laden's right-hand man said.

"We warned you (before), but it seems you want us to make you taste death in all its horror," Zawahiri told 'the people of the crusader alliance' led by United States (US) President George W Bush and Blair. "Taste some of what you made us taste," he said.

Zawahiri linked the London bombings to the spurning by European Governments of a truce offer by bin Laden last year.