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Tag: Ayman Al Zawahiri

  • Al-Qaeda Chief Denounces Islamic State Liars

    Al-Qaeda Chief Denounces Islamic State Liars

    WASHINGTON — Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has denounced what he said was a dishonest propaganda campaign by rival jihadist group the Islamic State against his organisation, in an audio message released Thursday (Jan 5).

    In the message found and translated by US-based watchdog the SITE Intelligence Group, the Egyptian extremist accuses IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi of slandering his group.

    Al-Qaeda, founded by the late Osama Bin Laden, is locked in a battle with the so-called Islamic State — which sprang from its Iraqi faction — for the leadership of a global jihad.

    In his message, the 65-year-old Zawahiri complained that Al-Baghdadi had alleged that Al-Qaeda opposes sectarian attacks on Shiites and was prepared to work with Christian leaders.

    “The liars insist upon their falsehood, to the extent that they claimed we do not denounce Shiites,” Zawahiri said, according to the translation of the message, which was released by Al-Qaeda’s media arm.

    Zawahiri denied he had said that Christians could be partners in the governance of a future Islamic caliphate, having only said that they could go about their affairs within it.

    “What I have said is that they are partners in the land, such as agriculture, trade, and money, and we keep their privacy in it, in accordance with the laws of our Sharia,” he said.

    And he insisted he had not called for Shiite Muslims to be spared, but had suggested focusing attacks on Shiite-led Iraqi forces and not on random atrocities against civilians.

    “I had told them several times to stop explosions in markets, husseiniyats and mosques, and to concentrate on military, security and police forces and Shiite militiamen,” he said.

    A husseiniyat is a Shiite place of worship and the Iraqi security forces, in their battle against the Islamic State group, are backed by Shiite religious militias.

    The Islamic State group and Al-Qaeda have both carried out hundreds of attacks on civilian targets, but some Al-Qaeda propaganda has called for less indiscriminate tactics.

    Zawahiri also denied Al-Baghdadi’s charge that Al-Qaeda had supported ousted former Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi, an Islamist who attempted to rule through the ballot box.

    The Al-Qaeda leader, who took charge after Bin Laden was killed by US commandos in 2011, is thought to be somewhere in Pakistan’s unruly border region hiding from a global manhunt.

    He communicates with the group’s remaining supporters through semi-regular video lectures, reiterating — as in his latest message — the need to target the United States.

    But Thursday’s message did not include any footage of Zawahiri speaking.

    The audio message restated the urgency of this goal — “Tell America, to other than Allah we do not kneel” — but also argued for a dialogue on tactics with other jihadists.

    “We are not infallible, but we are human beings and we hit and we miss. We must listen to advice,” he admitted, while rejecting Al-Baghdadi’s criticism.

    “What we want is to manage a conversation between those who are working for Islam — and the people of jihad at their forefront — around the best method and wisest techniques to bring victory to the religion,” he said, according to SITE. AFP

     

    Source: www.todayonline.com

  • AQAP Claims Responsibility For Charlie Hebdo Attacks

    AQAP Claims Responsibility For Charlie Hebdo Attacks

    DUBAI – Al Qaeda in Yemen has claimed responsibility for the attack on the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, saying it was ordered by the Islamist militant group’s leadership for insults to the Prophet Mohammad, according to a video posted on YouTube.

    Gunmen killed 17 people in three days of violence that began when they shot staff in Charlie Hebdo’s offices last week in revenge for the publication of satirical images of the Prophet.

    One Western source said no hard evidence of a direct operational link to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) had yet been found.

    But it was the first time that a group had officially claimed responsibility for the attack, which was led by Cherif and Said Kouachi, two French-born brothers of Algerian extraction who had visited Yemen in 2011.

    In Washington, a State Department spokeswoman said the United States believed the video was authentic but officials were still determining if the claim of responsibility is true.

    “As for the blessed Battle of Paris, we…claim responsibility for this operation as vengeance for the Messenger of God,” Nasser bin Ali al-Ansi, an AQAP ideologue, said in the recording.

    Ansi said the “one who chose the target, laid the plan and financed the operation is the leadership of the organization”, without naming an individual.

    “ZAWAHRI’S ORDERS”

    He added that the strike had been carried out in “implementation” of the order of overall al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri, who has urged Muslims to attack the West using any means they can find.

    Ansi also gave credit for the operation to slain AQAP propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki, a preacher cited by one of the gunmen in remarks to French media as a financier of the attack.

    It was not clear how Awlaki, killed by a U.S. drone in 2011, had a direct link to the Paris assault, but he inspired several militants in the United States and Britain to acts of violence.

    The purported claim of responsibility put a new spotlight on a group often cited by Western officials as al Qaeda’s most dangerous branch. AQAP has recently focused on fighting government forces and Shi’ite rebels in Yemen, but says it still aims to carry out attacks abroad.

    AQAP mocked a huge rally of solidarity for the victims held in Paris on Sunday, saying the shock on display showed the feebleness of the Western leaders who attended.

    “Look at how they gathered, rallied and supported each other, strengthening their weakness and dressing their wounds,” it said.

    Al Qaeda offshoot Islamic State released a video that it said showed interviews with three French fighters in Syria praising the attacks, the SITE monitoring service reported.

    One said: “I say to the French people who think that the Islamic State will not reach Europe: With permission from Allah the Almighty, we will reach Europe – all of Europe.”

    “JOY AT TORMENT”

    SITE also said Nigeria’s Boko Haram group had released a video showing its leader welcoming the attacks. “We have felt joy for what befell the people of France in terms of torment, as their blood was spilled inside their country. Allah is Great!” Abubakar Shekau said in the recording, according to SITE.

    One Western source described Ansi as an Al Qaeda hawk reputed to have advocated a merger with the even more hardline Islamic State.

    Two senior Yemeni sources said Cherif and Said Kouachi had met Awlaki in Yemen and undergone weapons training in the eastern province of Marib. However, a Marib tribal leader denied that they had trained there in 2011 or that Awlaki had been based there.

    AQAP’s Yemeni leader, Nasser al-Wuhayshi, was once a close associate of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, whose father was born in Yemen, a neighbor of Saudi Arabia.

    Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi complained on Wednesday that Yemen had been subjected to a politicized media campaign over the alleged 2011 visit.

    “The person reported to have traveled to Yemen to learn in three days how to fire a pistol had been detained and under investigation for two years in France,” Hadi said, according to the state news agency Saba. Hadi asked why such suspicious elements had been allowed to travel to Yemen and return home without being questioned.

     

    Source: www.todayonline.com