Al-Qaida leader: U.S. is crippled

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Al-Qaida's No. 2 leader issued a video saying that hundreds of suicide bombings in Iraq have "broken the back" of the U.S. military -- the latest in a volley of messages by the terror network's most prominent figures.
Ayman al-Zawahri, an Egyptian militant believed to be hiding in Afghanistan or Pakistan, said that U.S. and British forces had bogged down in Iraq and "have achieved nothing but loss, disaster and misfortune."
Al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi warned in an Internet video earlier this week that U.S. "dreams" in Iraq "will be defeated" and "what is coming is even worse."
The 16-minute video by al-Zawahri, posted today on an Islamic militant Web forum, also came within the same week as an audiotape by al-Qaida's top leader Osama bin Laden.
Al-Zawahri said that al-Qaida in Iraq "alone has carried out 800 martyrdom operations (suicide attacks) in three years."