Al-Qaeda threatened to avenge the killing by of the network's chief in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in an Internet message addressed to the Islamic world.
"God has preserved the patient leaders, such as Sheikh Osama bin Laden and Sheikh Ayman al-Zawahiri and their partisans, to continue fighting and to avenge" Zarqawi, the message said.
"The death of Sheikh Abu Musab is but one more (cause of) indignation that the hands of treason have added to the list of indignations, which inspires the heroism of Islam in their fierce battle against the forces of apostasy," said the statement, signed by Al-Qaeda of Jihad in Afghanistan.
It expressed the group's condolences to the "Islamic nation" for the loss of "a lion of Islam and a pillar of jihad," and promised "trouble for the enemies of Allah."
