DUBAI (AFP) — Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden declares "war" on Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in a new message to be released by the network's media arm, according to an Islamist website on Thursday.
"Al-Qaeda will declare war on the tyrant Pervez Musharraf and his apostate army through the voice of the lion, Sheikh Osama bin Laden, God protect him," according to the site often used by Islamist groups.
The threat from bin Laden -- the Western world's most wanted man -- was swiftly dismissed by Pakistan.
"We are already committed to fighting extremists and terrorists -- there is no change in our policy," chief military spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad told AFP.
"If someone is hurling threats at us, that is their view. The whole nation is behind us and the Pakistan army is a national institution," Arshad added.
IntelCenter, a US organisation which monitors Islamist websites, said the video or audio message, entitled "Come to Jihad," was expected to be released by Al-Qaeda's media arm As-Sahab in the next 72 hours.
The threat against Musharraf surfaced just as Pakistan's election commission named October 6 as the date for a presidential poll in which the embattled military ruler will seek re-election in uniform.
A string of videos and audio messages have been issued by Al-Qaeda to mark the sixth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001, some featuring bin Laden who had previously not been seen for three years.
"The imminent call by bin Laden to fight against Musharraf demonstrates Al-Qaeda's long-standing and deep hatred for the Pakistani regime, its principal enemy in the region," said Yasser Serri, director of the Islamic Observatory based in London.
In another video released by Al-Qaeda's media arm, Al-Sahab, bin Laden's deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri also warned that Musharraf would be "punished" over the killing of leading rebel cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi in the storming of the Red Mosque in Islamabad in July.
Pakistan, which became a US ally after the September 11 attacks, has suffered a dramatic upsurge in Islamist violence since the siege and storming of the Al-Qaeda-linked mosque which left more than 100 people dead.
In the tape, the bearded and bespectacled Zawahiri branded Pakistani security forces "hunting dogs under (US President George W.) Bush's crucifix.
"Let the Pakistani army know that the killing of Abdul Rashid Ghazi and his male and female students and the demolishing of his masjid and two madrassahs (mosque and religious schools) has soaked the history of the Pakistan army in shame and despicableness which can only washed away by retaliation against the killers of Abdul-Rashid Ghazi and his students," he said.
In the same Al-Qaeda video, Zawahiri and others taunt the United States over alleged Islamist victories in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere and calls for Muslim allies of Washington to be driven from power.
The 81-minute video is a compilation of old TV news clips mixed with new comments from Zawahiri, and details were made public on Thursday by SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors Islamist websites.
Zawahiri, bin Laden's Egyptian-born right hand man, was last month described by US intelligence chief Michael McConnell as Al-Qaeda's "intellectual leader."
In a previous videotape issued to coincide with the September 11 anniversary, the Saudi-born bin Laden praised as a "champion" one of the plane hijackers.
He had also appeared in another video on September 7, the first sighting of the terror mastermind since October 2004 when he had threatened new attacks against the United States just days before the US presidential election.
Despite a massive manhunt and a 25-million dollar bounty on his head, bin Laden has evaded capture and has regularly taunted the United States and its allies through warnings issued on video and audio cassettes.
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