Throughout the year 2005, when Osama bin Laden maintained a strange silence,giving rise to strong rumours of incapacity or death, Ayman al-Zawahiri, hisNo.2 in Al Qaeda, and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, reportedly the head of AlQaeda in Iraq, emerged as the main voices of Al Qaeda in its psychologicalwarfare directed at the Ummah and the rest of the world. al-Zawahiri hadthe benefit of the services of the Al Jazeera TV channel for disseminating someof his messages. Some other messages of his were made available through websites associated with Al Qaeda. The messages of Zarqawi were mostlyaccessible through the pro-Al Qaeda web sites.
bin Laden broke his long silence on January 19, 2006, with an audio messageaddressed to the American people in which he offered them a truce if theAmerican troops were withdrawn from Iraq and Afghanistan and warned of anotherterrorist strike in the US homeland if his truce offer was rejected. He hassubsequently come out with another audio message on April 23,2006, addressed tothe Ummah. It calls for a jihad in the Darfur region of the Sudan and talks forthe first time of a Crusader-Jewish-Hinduconspiracy against the Muslims and criticises Gen.Pervez Musharraf for allegedlyreducing support to the jihadis in India's Jammu and Kashmir. Both the messageswere disseminated by Al Jazeera.