WAR ON TERROR|Developments

The latest developments in Iraq and the war on terrorism:
Seventeen days after a U.S. airstrike in eastern Pakistan targeted but missed Osama bin Laden's second in command, a feisty and angry Ayman al-Zawahri showed up in a videotape with a fresh taunt for President Bush. "Bush, do you know where I am?" al-Zawahri, wearing white robes and a white turban, said in the tape aired Monday on Al-Jazeera TV. "I am among the Muslim masses, enjoying God's blessing of their support, care, generosity and protection." Al-Qaida's No. 2 mocked Bush as a "failure" in the war on terror, called him a "butcher" for killing innocent Pakistanis in the miscarried airstrike, chastised his administration for rejecting bin Laden's offer of a truce and threatened a new attack in the United States.
Battered by rampant violence and political instability, a new threat in Iraq was confirmed Monday -- the first case of the deadly bird flu virus in the Middle East. A 15-year-old Kurdish girl who died this month had the deadly H5N1 strain, Iraq and U.N. health officials said. The discovery prompted a large-scale slaughter of domestic birds in the northern area where the teen died as the World Health Organization formed an emergency team to try to contain the disease's spread.
U.S. journalist Jill Carroll, weeping and veiled, appeared on a new videotape aired Monday by Al-Jazeera, and the Arab television station said she appealed for the release of all Iraqi women prisoners. The video was dated Saturday -- two days after the U.S. military released five Iraqi women from custody.
U.S. troops clashed Monday with insurgents west of Baghdad. Iraqi police launched a new raid in a Sunni Arab-dominated part of the capital, despite Sunni calls to halt such operations during talks to form a new government.
ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt, who were seriously injured in a roadside bombing Sunday, were being treated by a trauma team at a U.S. military hospital in Germany. "They're both very seriously injured, but stable," said Col. Bryan Gamble, commander of the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in western Germany.
Source: Associated Press