Al-Zawahri says Osama tapes are "Done"

PAKISTAN (Rooters) — After months of speculation, it appears that what many fans feared would happen has indeed come to pass: Osama Bin Laden’s series of videotaped threats against America and her allies is finished.

Al-Qaeda second-in-command and Bin Laden associate Ayman Al-Zawahri revealed in an interview with Al-Jazeera that the world’s most-wanted criminal is not coming back.

"Osama’s tapes are over, man. Done," Al-Zawahri told reporters from the Arabic-language news network. "It took me a long time to be able to say those words, but I can say it pretty easy now because it's the truth."

While Islamic terrorists and their sympathizers around the world still hold out hope that more tapes will be made — and Al-Zawahri said that half of a new threat has already been recorded — many of those who swelled with pride upon hearing each new rambling harangue from Osama are facing up to the possibility that they will have to make do with the several tapes he has already released.

The next videotaped threat from the reclusive terrorist leader has been on ice since Bin Laden halted production suddenly and went back into hiding somewhere, it is thought, in the forbidding, mountainous terrain along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

"I'm disappointed it ended the way it did, but I'm not angry with anybody — except, of course, the Americans and the Jews," Al-Zawahri said. "Osama’s tapes were like a suicide bomber who gloriously martyrs himself. They came out, they got everybody's attention, but they blew up into itty bitty pieces, and they blew up quick."

In another sign that the tapes may be on permanent hiatus, Bin Laden's longtime writing partner and reclusive former Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar is "no longer involved" in their production, according to an Al-Qaeda spokesperson.

Bin Laden allegedly met with Omar several years ago, but the pair have not spoken since — although Omar’s once-powerful gang of fundamentalist Islamic thugs has left the door open for Osama’s return, the spokesperson said.

According to Al-Zawahri, Bin Laden denies that the constant pressure of hiding from US and Pakistani forces led him to stop making new tapes, saying he is only living in dank, squalid caves in order to clear his head.

"I'm not crazy; I'm not smoking hashish," Bin Laden allegedly told Al-Zawahri. "I'm definitely stressed out. There were things that overwhelmed me, but not in the way that people are saying."