Following are excerpts from an interview with Al-Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri, which aired on Al-Jazeera TV on August 4, 2005.

Al-Zawahiri: As for the English, I say to them: Blair has brought destruction upon you, to the center of London, and he will have more of it, Allah willing. Oh the peoples of the Crusader coalition, we have offered you, at least, to stop your aggression against the Muslims. We have offered you... The lion of Islam, the mujaheed Sheik Osama bin Laden, may Allah protect him, has offered you a truce, so you will leave the lands of Islam. Did Sheik Osama bin Laden not tell you that you could not dream of security before we live it as a reality in Palestine and before all the infidel armies leave the land of Muhammad? But you have made rivers of blood in our countries, so we blew up volcanoes of rage in your countries. Our message to you is clear and unequivocal: You will not be saved unless you withdraw from our land, stop stealing our oil and our resources, and cease your support of the corrupt (Arab) rulers.

[...]

Oh Americans, what you have seen in New York and Washington, and the casualties you witness in Afghanistan and in Iraq, despite all the media blackout, are nothing but the casualties of the initial clashes. If you continue the same policy of aggression against the Muslims, you will see, Allah willing, horrors that will make you forget what you saw in Afghanistan... I mean, in Vietnam.

[...]

A fact that Bush, Rice and Rumsfeld conceal from you is that there is no way out of Iraq, other than immediate withdrawal, and that any delay in making this decision means nothing but more dead and casualties. If you don't leave today, you will definitely leave tomorrow, but with tens of thousands of dead, and many more crippled and wounded. The same lies they said about Vietnam, they repeat today about Iraq. Did they not say that they would train the Vietnamese to manage their own affairs, and that they defend freedom in Vietnam?