Late this afternoon, Al-Qaida's official As-Sahab Media Wing released a new Q&A-style video interview with Al-Qaida Deputy Commander Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri titled "Al-Azhar: The Lion's Den." There does not appear to be any reference to Mumbai, India, or even the Kashmiri conflict in the video. Al-Zawahiri gives no indication of foreknowledge or having played a role in the Mumbai attacks.
During his interview, al-Zawahiri addresses several different subjects. He calls upon Muslims in the Palestinian territories and Egypt to stop sitting around, and to take up arms against "apostate" regimes which are oppressing them. He also identifies a number of Muslim scholars who he deeply respects, including a lengthy diatribe on the blind Shaykh Omar Abdel Rahman, who is currently being held in a U.S. prison cell. Dr. al-Zawahiri also cautions Al-Qaida operatives to avoid deliberately causing harm to innocent Muslims, either through their own action or by inviting public retaliations by secular governments in the Muslim world.
One other small note of interest -- Al-Qaida seems to have done a rather sloppy job of marketing this video. Bin Laden's propagandists went through the trouble of creating custom, animated, English-language advertisements for al-Zawahiri's interview -- but very prominently misspelled the word "Lion." For an organization like Al-Qaida, which typically prides itself on its professionalism and a fastidious attention to detail, this was a pretty glaring error. |