An Arabic-speaking guerrilla, his face wrapped in a black turban, said the al-Qaeda terror network was behind suicide bombings in Saudi Arabia and Morocco and warned of more attacks in a new videotape. If authentic, the video would be the first al-Qaeda claim of responsibility for the bombings of foreign housing compounds in Riyadh, and the attacks in Casablanca.
The videotape was obtained by The Associated Press from a senior intelligence official for Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an Afghan rebel leader allied with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terror network and the Taliban. The man on the scratchy videocassette, who identified himself as Abu Haris Abdul Hakim, said he was speaking on behalf of al-Qaeda, the Taleban and Hekmatyar's Hezb-e-Islami organization. But he did not say either his nationality or his affiliation.
| We can probably guess. To both, in fact. |
"The recent attacks in Riyadh and Morocco were planned and they were part of our martyrdom operations. You will see such more attacks in the future," he said. The intelligence official confirmed that the speaker on the tape was speaking for Hekmatyar's party, which the official said was working with al-Qaeda and the Taleban. During the Taleban rule, Hakim was known to speak in the name of al-Qaeda in interviews with the official news agency Bakhtar. In the video, the speaker is seen seated on a strawmatted floor in a brick mud hut with a Kalashnikov assault rifle by his side as he read from several sheets of paper.
"Those people who say our jihad is wrong and that we are not active are fooling themselves. Osama is alive and in Afghanistan. Jihad is compulsory for all Muslims in this present situation," he said.
| "So y'all grab your guns and turbans and come join us, hear?" |
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