LONDON — The man believed to be the ringleader of the July 7 London suicide bombers made a farewell video in which he described himself as a soldier at war and warned of future terror attacks.

The video, which was first broadcast on Al-Jazeera television yesterday and later aired on British television, offers a chilling glimpse into the logic of Mohammed Sidique Khan, 30, the oldest of the four bombers.

"Your democratically elected governments continuously perpetuate atrocities against my people, and your support for them makes you directly responsible, just as I am directly responsible for protecting and avenging my Muslim brothers and sisters," said Khan, who was a teachers' aide in Britain's northern city of Leeds.

"Until we feel security, you will be our target," he said. "Until you stop the bombing, gassing, imprisonment and torture of my people, we will not stop this fight."

The July 7 attacks on three Underground trains and a bus left 56 people dead, including the four bombers. Khan was responsible for the bomb on the Circle Line train that killed six and injured 120.

Khan said he drew inspiration from al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the author of many terror attacks in Iraq.

In a separate video broadcast at the same time, Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaida's second in command, claimed responsibility for the London attacks and promised more of the same.

Although al-Zawahiri praised the attacks in a previous video, this was the first claim of direct responsibility.

It is Khan's words, however, that the British are likely to find most unsettling as they try to understand how a man once entrusted with the care of schoolchildren turned against his fellow citizens.

"I and thousands like me are forsaking everything for what we believe," said Khan, who was married and had a 14-month-old daughter.

"Our driving motivation doesn't come from tangible commodities that this world has to offer. Our religion is Islam, obedience to the one true God, Allah," he said.

"I am going to keep this short and to the point because it's all been said before by far more eloquent people than me. But our words have no impact upon you; therefore I am going to talk to you in a language that you understand. Our words are dead until we give them life with our blood," he said.

Aide gets 45 years

for fund-raising role

NEW YORK — A deputy to a Yemeni cleric who plotted to raise money for al-Qaida was sentenced yesterday to a maximum 45 years in prison, despite his urgent disavowals of terrorism.

"I'm opposed to all sorts of terrorism, I swear to God," Mohammed Mohsen Yahya Zayed said in Arabic through an interpreter before being sentenced.

Defense attorney Jonathan Marks had argued that Zayed, 31, was a naive bit player in the conspiracy involving his boss, Sheik Mohammed Ali Hassan al-Moayad. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kelly Moore agreed that the defendant, though guilty, "played a much smaller role" than al-Moayad.

But U.S. District Judge Sterling Johnson ordered Zayed to serve consecutive 15-year terms for convictions on three conspiracy counts. The judge sentenced al-Moayad to 75 years in prison in July.

Zayed was a loyal aide to al-Moayad in 2003 when the pair was lured by two FBI informants to Germany. In meetings attended by Zayed, the sheik was secretly recorded promising to funnel money to Hamas and al-Qaida.