Al Qaeda tape calls for coup

CAIRO, Egypt -- A tape purportedly recorded by Ayman al-Zawahiri, the No. 2 figure in the al Qaeda terror group, called Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf a "traitor" Thursday and urged people to overthrow his government.\nThe pan-Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera broadcasted a seven-minute excerpt from a tape it received Thursday. Its authenticity could not immediately be verified, but the speaker sounded like al-Zawahiri and made references to the Islamic holy book, the Quran, which is known to be al-Zawahiri's style.\nThe speaker also called for a military uprising in Pakistan.\n"Musharraf seeks to stab the Islamic resistance in Afghanistan in the back," the speaker said.\n"Every Muslim in Pakistan should work hard to get rid of this client government, which will continue to submit to America until it destroys Pakistan."\nPakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Masood Khan said the government has no immediate comment on the purported al-Zawahiri tape.\nIn Washington, D.C., Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said he heard news reports about the tape and said if it was authentic, the speaker "is clearly an individual who is very high-ranking and is capable of and has in the past, killed innocent men, women and children. And so one has to recognize that."\nThe tape comes as Pakistani troops are in the second week of a campaign along the Afghan border in South Waziristan, a long-time hiding place and stronghold of Islamic militants from al Qaeda, Afghanistan's Taliban and their Pakistani supporters.\nAfter Musharraf spoke hopefully of capturing a "high-value target," there was speculation that al-Zawahri might be in the rugged border area where local tribes have more power than the Pakistani federal government.\nPakistan Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayyat said Thursday more than 50 terrorists have been killed in the operation. More than 150 suspects have been captured, said Brig. Mahmood Shah, chief of security in Pakistan's tribal areas.\nIt was not known when the tape was made, but the speaker appeared to be referring to the conflict in South Waziristan when he said, "I call on the Pakistani army -- you, poor army, what a miserable state Musharraf has put you in ... Musharraf ruins your natural fences -- those tribes on the border -- by engaging you in a fight with them. Then he removes your nuclear weapons.\n"Will you stay silent until Pakistan is divided again?"\nThe speaker said such military operations on the borders violated Islamic law by pitting Muslims against each other at America's bidding.\n"Every soldier who finds this act to be legitimate is an infidel, according to Islamic law," the speaker said.\nThe speaker did not mention Israel's Monday morning assassination of Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, which suggests the tape was recorded before then.\nAl-Jazeera spokesman, Jihad Ballout, said the Qatar-based channel received the tape Thursday, but he declined to reveal how. The tape is 17 minutes long.\n"Indications are that it is authentic," Ballout said, "The voice, the nuances."\nThe speaker also urged Islamic clerics to tell the Pakistani people "the truth about Musharraf, the traitor and killer of Muslims."\n"They should incite the nation to expel the crusaders from Pakistan," the speaker said, using the word "crusader" for Americans as Islamic militants often do.\n"The crusade in Afghanistan, Iraq, Chechnya and Palestine is targeting Pakistan primarily, because America does not want Pakistan to be a special power in the center of Asia."\nAl-Zawahiri is believed to have provided much of the ideology driving al Qaeda since his Egyptian Islamic Jihad merged with Osama bin Laden's network in 1998, experts say. The United States has offered a $25 million reward for his capture.