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Al-Qaida's deputy leader sought to bolster the terror network's main arm in Iraq in a new video released yesterday, calling on Muslims to rally behind it at a time when the group is on the defensive, faced with US offensives and splits with other insurgent groups.

Ayman al-Zawahri defended the Islamic State of Iraq - the insurgent umbrella group headed by Al-Qaida - against critics among Islamic militant groups, saying it was a vanguard for fighting off the US military and eventually establishing a "caliphate" of Islamic rule across the region.

Al-Zawahri, the top deputy of Osama bin Laden, called on Muslims to follow a two-pronged strategy: work at home to topple "corrupt" Arab regimes and join Al-Qaida's "jihad," or holy war, in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia to fight and train "to prepare for the next jihad."

The Egyptian militant did not mention last week's failed car bombing attempts in Britain, which British authorities are investigating for Al-Qaida links. That suggested the video, posted yesterday on an Islamic militant website, was made before the events in London and Glasgow.

Al-Qaida's declaration of the Islamic State of Iraq last year was a dramatic move aimed at staking out its leadership of Iraq's insurgency. Allying itself with several smaller Iraqi Sunni insurgent groups, it presented the Islamic State as an alternative government within Iraq, claiming to hold territory.

The move quickly met resistance. Some Islamic extremist clerics in the Arab world said it was too soon to declare an Islamic state because the Islamic law qualifications were not yet met and argued that a true Islamic state is not viable while there are still US forces in Iraq.

Several large Iraqi Sunni insurgent groups publicly denounced Al-Qaida, saying its fighters were killing theirs and pressuring them to join the Islamic State. One group, the 1920 Revolution Brigades, has begun overtly cooperating with US forces and Sunni tribal leaders to attack Al-Qaida.

At the same time, increased US forces sent to Iraq this year are waging a number of offensives in suspected Al-Qaida strongholds north and south of Baghdad and in western Anbar province, claiming to have captured and killed a number of significant figures in the group.

The offensives have caused an increase in American casualties, but insurgent and militia attacks appear to have fallen in the past week.

Al-Zawahri spent much of the unusually long video - at an hour and 35 minutes - defending the Islamic State, criticizing those who refuse to recognize it "because it lacks the necessary qualifications" even while he acknowledged it had made unspecified mistakes.

"The Islamic State of Iraq is set up in Iraq, the mujahedeen (holy warriors) celebrate it in the streets of Iraq, the people demonstrate in support of it," al-Zawahri said, "pledges of allegiance to it are declared in the mosques of Baghdad."

He said Muslims around the world should "support this blessed fledgling mujahid garrison state with funds, manpower, opinion, information and expertise," saying its founding brought the Islamic world closer to "establishment of the caliphate, with God's permission."

Al-Zawahri appeared in the video - first reported by IntelCenter and SITE, two US-based groups that monitor militant messages - wearing a white robe and turban and, as he often does, took a professorial tone, making points by citing Islamic history and by showing clips of experts speaking on Western and Arabic media.

(China Daily via agencies July 6, 2007)