London: In a videotape broadcast on Saturday, Osama bin Laden's number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, condemned published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that have sparked violent protests throughout the Muslim world.
The al-Qaeda deputy blamed freedom of speech for "the insult against the Prophet Mohammed."
Muslims consider it sacrilegious to produce a likeness of Mohammad.
The video shows a man who appears to be al-Zawahiri wearing a black turban standing in front of a panel of white lace curtains.
The cartoons, al-Zawahiri said, are a continuation of the "crusaders' war" against Islam.
The cartoons initially were published September 30 by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. They were reprinted earlier this year in several newspapers whose editors argued publication of the cartoons is a matter of free speech.
Several Arab nations began boycotting Danish goods.
The Egyptian doctor has released numerous taped messages in recent months.
The al-Zawahiri tape was released by the Arabic-language satellite television channel Al-Jazeera, and CNN could not immediately authenticate the recording or when it was made.
Al-Zawahiri also congratulated Hamas for its January victory in parliamentary Palestinian elections, toppling the Fatah Party, which had dominated Palestinian politics for decades.
"I would like to tell my brothers in Hamas to fight on and not to accept agreements between the Palestinian Authority and Israel," al-Zawahiri said, according to a CNN translation.
"Reaching power is not a goal by itself and no Palestinian has the right to give away a grain of the soil. The seculars in the Palestinian Authority have sold out Palestine for crumbs. Giving them legitimacy is against Islam," he said. He urged the Palestinians to "get back what is yours."
"No one has the right, whether Palestinian or not, to abandon a grain of soil from Palestine, which was a Muslim land, which was occupied by infidels. It is the duty of every Muslim to work in getting it back."
Al-Zawahiri spoke insistently, waving his right hand for emphasis.
He also referred to recently discovered photos of abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.
"And here are the pictures of Abu Ghraib coming out again to show the American lies and criminal acts," he says in the tape.
"All this in the West is allowed so they can steal and occupy our land, and stealing our wealth and insulting us and our religion and Quran, and our prophet.
And after that they gave us lessons on freedom and human rights," al-Zawahiri said.
CIA airstrike
Al-Zawahiri was the target of an unsuccessful January 13 CIA airstrike on a home in Damadola, Pakistan, where al-Qaeda members were thought to be attending a dinner.
US officials have said that between four and eight al-Qaeda members were killed in the CIA attack in Damadola, near the Afghanistan border.
Pakistani officials said 18 people were killed in the airstrike, including five women and five children, which prompted large protests across the country.
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