This is an image of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi that was posted Tuesday on the Internet. In the video, he accused the West and the United States of waging a "crusader" war against Islam and warned more terror attacks will come.

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraqis today condemned terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as a foreigner determined to destroy their country, saying his new video promising more attacks may have surfaced in response to the breakthrough in the formation of a unity government.

Al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born head of al-Qaida in Iraq, made a dramatic and unprecedented appearance on a video Tuesday, dismissing the new Iraqi government as an American "stooge" and a "poisoned dagger" in the heart of the Muslim world. He also warned of more attacks to come.

Sheik Khalid al-Attiyah, the Iraqi parliament's newly appointed first deputy speaker, said the video shows that al-Zarqawi remains determined "to inflame a civil war" in Iraq. But al-Attiyah said it also indicates the insurgent leader, an outsider to many Iraqis, fears the country's new government will unify Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds.

The video — the first released by al-Zarqawi showing his face — was posted on the Internet only days after a breakthrough in Iraq's political process allowing its Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish leaders to start assembling a government.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who made an unannounced trip to Iraq today along with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, also mentioned the ability of the new government to battle the insurgency.

"The answer to the Zarqawi video is not anything that the United States can say, it's what the Iraqis are saying in having formed a government of national unity despite all the threats and all of the violence," she said on the plane en route to Baghdad.

Prime minister-designate Jawad al-Maliki on Sunday began the tough task of assembling a Cabinet out of Iraq's Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish parties. He has 30 days to do it, but the parties are under enormous pressure — from Americans and even Shiite religious leaders — to move quickly to rein in both the Sunni-led insurgency and the Shiite-Sunni killings that escalated during months without a stable government.

Jamal Salman, 40, a minority Sunni Arab who lives in eastern Baghdad, said he believes al-Zarqawi is "very serious" about his threats of more violence.

"He was speaking at a time of serious terrorist attacks, not only in Iraq but in other Arab countries such as Egypt," the Oil Ministry employee said, referring to a suspected terrorist attack Monday in the Egyptian resort town of Dahab that killed 24 people.