DUBAI Al-Qaeda's second in command, Ayman al-Zawahri, said in an audio message to mark five years since the US-led invasion of Iraq that Washington's war had met with nothing but failure and defeat.

He mocked President Bush's decision to suspend troop withdrawals from Iraq this summer, saying that he was scared of admitting defeat and was trying to pass the problem on to his successor.

“What the American invasion of Iraq has reached today, after five years, is ... failure and defeat,” he said in the tape posted on a website used by Islamist groups. “The American troops, if they leave, will lose everything, and if they stay will bleed to death. This is what Bush has chosen for his army and his people, who elected him twice.”

The authenticity of the tape could not immediately be verified but the voice sounded like al-Zawahri.

He also warned the US against considering any agreement with Iran. “Iran's objectives are clear: the inclusion of southern Iraq and the east of the (Arabian) peninsula and spreading to join its followers in southern Lebanon,” he said. (Reuters)

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