The New Nation - Internet Edition

Reuters, Dubai

Al Qaeda's second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri said in an audio message to mark five years since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq that Washington's war had met with nothing but failure and defeat.

Zawahri mocked George W. Bush's decision to suspend troop withdrawals from Iraq this summer, saying the U.S. president was scared of admitting defeat and was trying to pass the "problem" on to his successor instead.

"What the American invasion of Iraq has reached, today, after five years, is t failure and defeat," Zawahri said in the tape posted on a website used by Islamist groups.