Al-Qaida chief boasts of fronts against U.S.

Al-Qaida backed away from "big operations" in recent years because it has been fighting the United States directly, the terrorist group's leader in Afghanistan said in an interview on Arab-language TV.

"Al-Qaida's big operations decreased because we now have several open fronts through which the Americans are inflicted (damage)," said Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, according to a translation released Monday by Washington's monitors SITE Intelligence Group.

Former U.S. president George W. Bush had argued one reason for deploying troops to Iraq had been to fight the terrorists on an overseas battleground as a form of defence against attacks on U.S. soil.

But the withdrawal from Iraq ordered by U.S. President Barack Obama showed the jihad, or holy war, had succeeded there, Abu al-Yazid said in his comments, which aired Sunday on pan-Arab al Jazeera TV.

"This American enemy has decided to flee and to leave Iraq after six years," he said.

Abu al-Yazid pledged al-Qaida will use Pakistan's nuclear weapons against the United States if it captures them, said headlines from reports ahead of the comprehensive translation.

"God willing, the nuclear weapons will not fall into the hands of the Americans," he said about U.S. safeguards to seize control over Pakistan's nuclear weapons if Islamist fighters come close to doing so.

"We will take control of them and fight the Americans with them."

Pakistan has been battling al-Qaida's Taliban allies in the Swat Valley since April after their thrust into a district 100 kilometres northwest of the capital raised fears the nuclear-armed country would slip into militant hands.

Abu al-Yazid renewed a recent appeal he made for Islamists to send cash to the group, suggesting it is seriously short of funds to cover weapons and training costs.

But he said there would eventually be more "big operations" to "please Muslims and infuriate the infidels."

He said a ceasefire was possible between the United States and al-Qaida -- if Washington acceded to a host of jihadist demands. These included abandoning support for Israel, withdrawing from "Muslim lands" and releasing prisoners. "If America agrees to our conditions . . . there is no harm, then, in a ceasefire," he said.

There is apparently little reconciliation possible between al-Qaida, which has Sunni Muslim fundamentalist views, and Shia-led governments, such as that of Iran.

"Concerning Iran, we consider it a state of hypocrisy and division," Abu al-Yazid said. "It fights Islam and Muslims, and fights the Sunni people in Iraq."