Al-Qaida prison escapee urges militants to unite

He escaped from a prison in Afghanistan in 2005.
CAIRO, EGYPT (AP) -- In a new video posted Thursday on the Internet, an al-Qaida militant who escaped from a U.S. prison in Afghanistan urged Sunni militants in Iraq to join the terror group and claimed the U.S. military's security plan for Baghdad has failed.
Abu Yahia al-Libi, who broke out of the U.S. prison at Bagram Air Base north of Kabul in 2005, said it was the sacred duty of all mujahedeen, or holy warriors, to "stand steadfast together."
He called on militant groups known as Ansar al-Sunnah, the Islamic Army in Iraq and the Army of the Mujahedeen to "hurry up and respond to the call of the Quran to become one and ... join the Islamic State in Iraq," an al-Qaida affiliate in the country.
"This is the legitimate duty and urgent need imposed by the circumstances of this stage of the jihad in Iraq," the black-turbaned al-Libi said, referring to militants' holy war.
The 28-minute video, posted on a Web site commonly used by Islamist militants, shows al-Libi, whose nom de guerre means "the Libyan" in Arabic, with a beard and wearing a camouflage uniform seated next to a Kalashnikov rifle.
The videotape's authenticity could not be independently verified. It carried the logo of al-Qaida's media production wing, al-Sahab. The video was also released by IntelCenter, a U.S. government contractor that monitors al-Qaida messaging.
IntelCenter said the earliest the video could have been made is Feb. 20, based on comments al-Libi makes on the decision by British Prime Minister Tony Blair to withdraw a portion of Britain's troops from Iraq. Blair's decision was first reported Feb. 20.
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