Tuesday, September 20 2005 09:15 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

London: Al-Qaeda, for the first time claimed responsibility for carrying out the July 7 suicide bombings in London that killed 52 people.

In a videotaped message aired on Arab television station al-Jazeera yesterday (Sept 19, 2005), Al-Qaeda's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri said al-Qaeda had the 'honor' of carrying out the attacks.

"The London attack is one of the attacks that al-Qaida had the honor of carrying out against Zionist, British arrogance," said al-Zawahiri, who wore a black turban and a white shirt and spoke to someone off-camera.

"This blessed attack revealed the real hypocritical face of the West," al-Zawahiri said in the tape in reference to British threats to deport anti-West Muslim clerics to their countries of origin.

He also criticized the British Government's plans to deport the radical Jordanian cleric Abu Qatada and nine other foreign nationals said to be a threat to UK security.

Plans to toughen the UK's anti-terror laws following the bombings showed 'the dreadful colonial face of Britain,' he said.

Osama Bin Laden's key lieutenant also criticized Afghanistan's parliamentary elections and condemned Pakistan for closing religious schools in the country and for having close ties with the United States.

The interview was apparently conducted to commemorate the fourth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on Washington and New York, al Jazeera said.

The tape appeared to have been made recently as al-Zawahiri referred several times to Sunday's parliamentary elections in Afghanistan, which he said were held 'under the terror of warlords.'

"The elections have been conducted under the terror of [Afghanistan's] warlords," said al-Zawahiri in his latest tape, which included English subtitles and credits saying it was produced and translated by al-Sahab Media Production House.

The Egyptian-born al-Qaeda deputy said," The Taliban had moved out of Kabul but it has been active in the mountains and countryside, where the real power of Afghanistan lies."

Accusing US President George W. Bush and British Premier Tony Blair of lying to the people, al-Zawahiri claimed that the losses inflicted on the US-led forces in Iraq were much more than what the two Governments had been showing, al Jazeera said.

In a previous tape aired on September 2, he said the London bombings were proof al-Qaeda had moved the battle to 'the enemies' land.'

Two other militant Islamic groups have previously claimed responsibility for the bombings.