Zawahiri... Formerly second in command of al-Qaeda, now the head cheese, occasionally described as
the real brains of the outfit.Formerly the Mister Big of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Bumped off Abdullah Azzam with a car boom in the course of one of their little disputes. Is thought to have composed bin Laden's fatwa entitled World Islamic Front Against Jews and Crusaders. Currently residing in the North Wazoo area assuming he's not dead like Mullah Omar. He lost major face when he ordered the nascent Islamic State to cease and desist and merge with the orthodx al-Qaeda spring, al-Nusra...
has pledged allegiance to new Afghan Taliban leader Haibatullah Akhundzada
...Deputy to Taliban supremo Mullah Akhtar Mansour...
, a low-profile religious figure whose predecessor was killed in a US drone strike.
The pledge comes as Al-Qaeda is facing rivalry from ISIS, which has also made inroads into Afghanistan where the Taliban have been waging a guerrilla war since they were ousted from power in 2001.
Zawahari’s remarks came in a 14-minute audio and video message posted online, the US-based monitor SITE Intelligence Group said on Saturday.
"We pledge allegiance to you on jihad to liberate every inch of the lands of the Moslems that are invaded and stolen, from Kashgar to al-Andalus, from the Caucasus to Somalia and Central Africa, from Kashmire to Jerusalem, from the Philippines to Kabul
...the capital of Afghanistan. Home to continuous fighting from 1992 to 1996 between the forces of would-be strongman and Pak ISI/Jamaat-e-Islami sock puppet Gulbuddin Hekmayar and the Northern Alliance, a period which won Hek the title
Most Evil Man in the Worldand didn't do much for the reputations of the Northern Alliance guys either....
, and from Bukhara and Samarkand," it quoted Zawahiri as saying.
He described the new Taliban chief as the "emir of believers" and the "legitimate" head of a Moslem caliphate.
"Allah has graced you by establishing the first legitimate emirate after the fall of the Ottoman Caliphate, and in the world there was no other legitimate emirate," he said.
Zawahiri is staunchly opposed to the ISIS holy warrior group which declared in 2014 the creation of a "caliphate" straddling Syria and Iraq.
The group’s leader, His Supreme Immensity, Caliph of the Faithful and Galactic Overlord, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
...formerly merely the head of ISIL and a veteran of the Bagram jailhouse. Looks like a new messiah to bajillions of Moslems, like just another dead-eyed mass murder to the rest of us...
, was renamed Caliph Ibrahim at the same time in an attempt to revive a system of rule that ended nearly 100 years ago with the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and ordered Moslems to obey him in a sermon at a mosque in the northern Iraqi city of djinn-infested Mosul
... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn...
.