BEIRUT - Al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahri launched a stinging verbal attack against Hezbollah and the Lebanese government in a video broadcast by Arab broadcaster Al-Jazeera news satellite channel Monday. The senior jihadist commander, who is often described as Osama bin Laden's right-hand man, questioned whether Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was right to hail the 2006 summer war as a "victory."

"Hezbollah has not obtained any victory in Lebanon against Israel," Zawahri said. "The most bizarre and astounding thing is that Hassan Nasrallah celebrates a victory every year. For what? For making them retreat 30 kilometers, for the demilitarization of the region and the acceptance of 15,000 crusader soldiers that separate the mujahedeen from Israel?"

The "crusader soldiers" are a reference to the UN peacekeepers who patrol the area between the Litani River and the "Blue Line" which serves as de facto border with Israel in order to prevent tensions between Israel and Hezbollah from spilling over into conflict. Hezbollah claims it scored a "divine victory" over Israel in the 34-day conflict it fought in the summer of 2006, when fierce guerrilla fighting scuppered Israel's attempts to destroy the group. Nasrallah says Hezbollah is even stronger now and is committed to the defense of Lebanon against Israeli aggression. Speaking Monday, he warned that if Israel "launches a war against Lebanon, Syria, Iran or Gaza, it will have thousands of scores to settle."

Al-Qaeda's broadside against Hezbollah came as part of a wider attack on the relationship between Shiite Islam and the West. Al-Qaeda's militant Sunni leadership is unhappy that Shiite religious leaders have not issued religious edicts declaring jihad against Western troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Zawahri has harshly criticized Iran for maintaining good ties with the mainly Shiite political leadership in Baghdad and Hamid Karzai's pro-Western government in Afghanistan.

"There has been no fatwa from Iran or Iraq calling for jihad in Iraq or Afghanistan," Zawahri said. "Has waging jihad become acceptable in Lebanon and in Palestine but not in Iraq and Afghanistan?"

He also railed against the Lebanese government in the 90-minute recorded message, accusing them of being "agents" of the United States.

The video was released to coincide with the seventh anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks in the US. Unlike earlier Al-Qaeda videos that focused on lambasting the West, more recent tapes reflect increased tensions between Sunnis and Shiites stirred up by the US-led invasion of Iraq.

Despite the group's fiery rhetoric, analysts say its insurgency in Iraq has lost momentum since the US increased the number of troops in Baghdad and co-opted Sunni militias known as "Awakening Councils" to help fight the group.

Zawahri regularly releases videotapes, while Osama Bin Laden appears much more rarely. The two men, with a combined bounty of $75 million on their heads, are thought to see each other rarely to reduce the chances of a surgical strike that would "decapitate" Al-Qaeda by killing its leadership.