Al Qaeda's second-in-command said in an Internet video the U.S. financial crisis was caused by Washington's military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan and taxpayers were paying the price.

"This crisis is one of ... the series of American economic haemorrhages after the strikes of September 11... And these ... will continue as long as the foolish American policy of wading in Muslim blood continues," Ayman al-Zawahri said on the video, posted on Islamist websites on Friday.

"The ones shouldering the burden are taxpayers, whose money was spent to rescue senior capitalists and to protect the fraudulent interest-based system from collapse," Zawahri said.

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Zawahri said U.S. military action against militant tribal forces in Pakistan, who are allied with al Qaeda, would fail despite more troops being sent by President George W. Bush to neighbouring Afghanistan.

"I challenge you (Bush), if you are really a man, to send the entire American army to Pakistan and the tribal regions for it to end up in hell," Zawahri said on the video, which carried English subtitles.

Calls for talks to end the war in Afghanistan showed the failure of U.S.-led forces in defeating the Taliban, he said.

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