Dubai, 5 October (AKI) - United States president Barack Obama is deceiving Muslims and committing crimes that violate human rights, just like his predecessor George W. Bush, Al-Qaeda's second-in-command said in a new video message on Monday.

"Barack Obama is tricking us. He is responsible for crimes against human rights, just like Bush," Ayman al-Zawahiri said in a ten-minute video posted to Muslim extremist websites.

The video is dedicated to Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi, a Libyan Al-Qaeda militant believed to have died recently in prison in his native Libya. He was handed over Libyan authorities by the US, who bought him from Pakistani tribesmen after he escaped from Tora Bora in eastern Afghanistan in 2001.

"Obama, you say you're against the violation of human rights. So I won't ask you what is happening in Bagham prison and what the CIA agents are doing with their renditions (of terror suspects)," al-Zawahiri stated.

"Nor will I ask you about the ban on publishing photographs of torture in Iraq."

"But I do ask you why your government connived with the Libyan regime in the killing of Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi."

"He was killed during your presidency," al-Zawahiri said.

"All he did was to resist the US occupation of Afghanistan," al-Zawahiri added, urging Obama to apologise and to compensate al-Sheikh al-Libi's family.

Before being tortured to death in a Libyan prison, al-Sheikh al-Libi was tortured in jail in Egypt into falsely confessing links beween al-Qaeda and late Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein, al-Zawahiri alleged.

"This confession was used by (secretary of state during the Bush administration) Colin Powell, to justify the US's war in Iraq," Zawahiri said.

Monday's video was the third message from al-Zawahiri in less than two weeks and the latest of many criticising Obama since his victory in last November's US presidential election.

Last month, al-Zawahiri warned "hypocritical" Obama he would meet his end at the hands of Muslims and called for a new Jihad.

"After Bush, thanks to Allah, after all these years that America failed, it has presented a new, hypocritical face. Smiling at us, but stabbing us with the same dagger that Bush used," said al-Zawahiri.

"God willing, your end will be at the hands of the Muslim nation, so that the world and history will be free of your crimes and lies."

Several days later, an audio tape purportedly by al-Zawahiri eulogised late Pakistani leader Baitullah Mehsud, who is believed to have died in a US drone strike in South Waziristan on 6 August.

The audio message also called Obama a "liar" for feigning sympathy with the Palestinian cause while allegedly "looking on" during Israel's deadly military offensive in Gaza in late December last year and in January.

The message also reiterated calls made days earlier in an audio message purportedly from Osama Bin Laden, ordering European nations to end their alliance with the United States and withdraw their troops from war-wracked Afghanistan.

The audio message warned Al-Qaeda would retaliate "from the oppressor on behalf of the oppressed."

Last November, after Obama won the US presidential election, al-Zawahiri said he was no black American hero but rather a "negro house servant of the white man."