In an audio recording purportedly made by al-Qaeda-linked militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and found online yesterday, assassination threats are made against Iraq's interim prime minister and it is promised that the fight against "infidels" will continue "until Islamic rule is back on earth."
"As for you [Iyad] Allawi ... the democratically elected prime minister ... you don't know that you have already survived traps we made for you. We promise you that we will continue the game with you until the end," the online recording said.
"We will not get bored until we make you drink from the same glass that Izzadine Saleem tasted," the recording said.
Saleem, a former Governing Council president also known as Abdel-Zahraa Othman, was killed May 18 in a car bombing in Baghdad.
"You [Allawi] are the symbol of evil and the infidel nation; you are the source of all traitors," the recording said.
Allawi heads an interim government that is to take over at the end of June.
"We will carry on our jihad against the Western infidel and the Arab apostate until Islamic rule is back on earth," the voice said.
There was no way to authenticate the recording, but the voice sounded like that of al-Zarqawi.
The Jordanian terror suspect is believed to have ties to al-Qaeda, and groups associated with him have claimed responsibility for a number of bombings and attacks in Iraq, most recently Tuesday's beheading of South Korean hostage Kim Sun-il.
After news of the beheading and the discovery of Kim's body, US forces launched an airstrike in Fallujah on what it said was a safehouse used by followers of al-Zarqawi. Three people were killed and nine wounded in the strike, said a doctor at Fallujah hospital
But on the recording, the voice purported to be al-Zarqawi said he was not in Fallujah.
"I am like a tourist in Iraq. I move around the country staying with my family and brothers," he said.
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