Following are excerpts from a video message by Al-Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri, posted on the Internet on September, 11, 2012.

Ayman Al-Zawahiri: It is absolutely out of the question that the US will defeat the spirit of Jihad in the Islamic nation – the same spirit that defeated the US in the battlefield, as well as in the war of ideas. In the battlefield, the US was defeated and withdrew from Iraq, under the pressure of the strikes of the mujahideen, especially those of the Islamic State of Iraq, may Allah support it and grant it success. The US fled and left behind a subservient Safavid government, which now absorbs the blows of the mujahideen, led by the Islamic State of Iraq, may Allah support it. These are the mujahideen upon whom Allah has bestowed the honor of shattering America's plan to take over the Middle East. Their goal was to take over Iraq and divide it up, then to move on and divide the Arabian Peninsula, and finally to occupy and divide "the big prize," as they called it – Egypt. But the heroic mujahideen of Islam in Iraq led by the Islamic State of Iraq confronted this plan, foiling and thwarting it, forcing America to flee. In Afghanistan, the US has begun its withdrawal, leaving its collaborators to the fate of their predecessors in Vietnam and Iran. In the Arab countries, the US-proxy regimes have fallen one after the other, and the US is out of breath, trying to contain the volcano of Arab rage. It is encouraging that these regimes have begun to collapse prior to the American withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq, whereas the Soviet-backed regimes of the Warsaw Pact started to collapse only after the Russian withdrawal from Afghanistan. This indicates that the US is in a state of extreme weakness, which may even exceed that of the USSR in its final days. Hence, the change to come will be even greater, with the help of Allah.

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The strength of Al-Qaeda does not lie in its numbers or in its equipment, which cannot be compared to those of the Western empire of evil. The strength of Al-Qaeda lies in its message to the Islamic nation and to the oppressed in this world. The message is: Rise against the global order of injustice, against international arrogance, and against worldwide theft. Rise against the polytheist regime which worships materialism, power, interests, and pleasure. Rise against the international Satanic legitimacy, which supports the oppressor rather than the oppressed, the slayer rather than the slain, and the thief rather than his victim.

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They are dragging us to democracy and secularism so that we will not rule by Islam and they will be able to rule us. Whenever the Islamists win [elections], there are 1,000 ploys to prevent them from assuming power. In Algeria, the military solved France's problem by means of tanks, and in Egypt, the military solved America's problem by means of the corrupt secular courts that rely on tanks as well.

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It was not elections or commitment to law and constitution that deposed Mubarak. Rather, it was the honorable revolution of the Egyptian people that overpowered Mubarak, along with his laws and his constitution.

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