Al-Qaida's No. 2 blasts Annapolis summit as betrayal of Palestinians

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Al-Qaida's No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri denounced last month's Mideast peace conference in the United States as a "betrayal" of Palestinians in a new audiotape posted Friday on an Islamic militant Web site, "The Annapolis meeting was held to turn Palestine into a Jewish state," the voice, purported to be that of al-Zawahri, said the 20-minute posting that carried a still photo of the white-turbaned militant against a backdrop of a photograph from the conference in Maryland. "The czar of Washington invited 16 Arab countries ... to sit in one room, at one table with the Israelis," al-Zawahri said, adding that the conference "witnessed the betrayal deals to sell Palestine."