Al Qaeda leader claims responsibility for capture of American

ISLAMABAD. December 3. KAZINFORM Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has claimed responsibility for the capture in August of a 70-year-old U.S. citizen in Pakistan, according to a number of radical websites known for carrying militants' messages; Kazinform refers to CNN.

In the eighth episode of a series called "A Message of hope and glad tidings to our people in Egypt," the speaker sent a "message of support and encouragement" to members of al Qaeda and the Taliban as well as to "our female oppressed prisoners."

"We did not forget you and we will not forget you, God willing, and therefore in order to release you, we have been successful, thanks to God almighty, to capture an American Jew called Warren Weinstein," he said.

He described the captive as "a former employee and a current contractor working with the U.S. government in its aid program to Pakistan, which aims to fight the jihad in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and just like the Americans arrest any suspect linked to al Qaeda and the Taliban, even if they were far related."

The speaker then listed eight demands that he said, if met, would result in Weinstein's release. They included the lifting of the blockade on movement of people and trade between Egypt and Gaza; an end to bombing by the United States and its allies in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia and Gaza; the release of anyone arrested on charges of belonging to al Qaeda and the Taliban; the release of all prisoners in Guantanamo and American secret prisons and the closure of Guantanamo and the other prisons; the release of terrorists convicted in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center; and the release of relatives of Osama bin Laden, the founder of al Qaeda who was killed in May in Pakistan.

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