Al-Qaeda leader calls for new attacks on West

Al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri called for new 9/11 style attacks against the West in a message released Thursday.

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The second audio tape released under the title "A Message of Hope and Glad Tidings to the People of Egypt" showed a still image of Egyptian-born Zawahiri behind which a 35-minute speech is delivered.

Zawahiri complained that the Muslim world trails behind the West in technological
know-how and military weaponry.

"If we are not able to produce weapons equal to the weapons of the Crusader West, we can sabotage their complex economic and industrial systems,” he said in the audio message, according to the US-based Site monitoring service.

"The mujahideen must invent new ways, ways that never dawned on the minds of the West," he continued.

"An example of this brave and courageous thinking is the use of airplanes as a mighty weapon”, Zawahiri said referring to the 9/11 attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

Almost 3,000 people died when Al Qaeda plotters crashed hijacked airliners into New York's World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania on 11 September 2001.

Zawahiri's previous message, issued last week, appeared to have been recorded before the demonstrations erupted in Egypt on 25 January and did not address the popular revolt which toppled Mubarak from power.

In his lecture, Zawahiri also criticised the Coptic Christian Orthodox Church, accusing it of provoking Muslims and encouraging conflict.

He called the church a "danger" to Egypt, and urged Arab Christians to avoid fighting Al-Qaeda and not look toward the United States and the West as sources of power and influence.

Demonstrators in Egypt have been anxious to reject sectarian division.