A Video of Ayman al-Zawahiri’s life test, Osama bin Laden’s deputy, who took over Al Qaeda after the United States killed the terrorist leader in 2011, shows that the jihadist was alive at least in early 2021, showing the group’s resistance as the Taliban. take control of Afghanistan and apparently refute rumors that he died last year.
The return of the Taliban to power two decades after their longtime allies carried out the 9/11 attacks could provide the terrorist group with a safer launching pad to carry out other terrorist acts.
The ties between the Taliban and al-Qaeda are deep. Five years ago, Zawahiri swore allegiance to the Taliban’s top spiritual leader, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, referring to him as the “emir of believers.” Bin Laden had long pledged his allegiance to the founder in the eyes of the Taliban, Mullah Mohammed Omar, who probably died in 2013.
In a video posted by Al Qaeda on the 20th anniversary of September 11, the Long War Journal reported that Zawahiri was referring specifically to the attack on Tanzim Hurras ad-Din (Organization of the Guardians of Religion) affiliated with Al-Qaeda. Qaeda against a Russian military base in Syria. early January 2021, proving that at least Zawahiri appeared to be alive earlier this year.
The new video is called “Jerusalem Will Not Be Judaized” and explodes various conspiracy theories. Al Qaeda’s media arm, As Sahab, claimed “May Allah protect him” whenever Zawahiri was mentioned, and just before 9/11, Al Qaeda published an 852-page book allegedly written by Zawahiri. , with an introduction attributed to the terrorist leader dated April. , showing Al Qaeda that the world thinks it is still alive.
The United Nations said this summer that Zawahiri “is believed to be somewhere in the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan” and that “previous reports of his death from illness have not been confirmed.”
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In the previously recorded video, Zawahiri posted on 9/11 and said briefly, “Let’s not forget that 19 mujahideen, the warriors of Islam, stabbed America in the heart … an injury similar to the one the The United States is leaving Afghanistan, broken, defeated, after twenty years of war. “
Zawahiri praised numerous “martyrs” who had died in late 2019 and throughout 2020, including Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, a second lieutenant in the Royal Saudi Air Force who shot and killed three U.S. Navy sailors in Naval Air. Station Pensacola in December 2019 and who was himself murdered in response to offers. Attorney General William Barr said last year that information about the shooter’s iPhone “definitely establishes Alshamrani’s connections to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.”
Zawahiri also praised Qasim al Raymi, one of his deputies who had been the leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and who was assassinated by the US in February last year, and Abu Musab Abdel Wadoud, the former -head of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb who died in a French military operation in June 2020.
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“Ayman al-Zawahiri survived 20 years of the American War and countless evils. In the recently released video, he praises Hurras al-Din’s attack on January 1, 2021 against a Russian base in Raqqa, Syria. So this is his ghost or, you know, he didn’t die last year, ”said Thomas Joscelyn, editor-in-chief of the Long War Journal he tweeted this weekend. “Keep in mind that Zawahiri is older, he is a doctor and we live in the time of COVID. He is not a fool. This has influenced their protocols. He also knows that the United States orchestrated a campaign to get as many QA leaders as possible in 2019 and 2020, more intense than normal … Now that he is not dead, everyone can show again that he is not relevant anyways “.
Dr. Amin al Haq, who had been bin Laden’s security chief, returned to Afghanistan with large bubbles in August after the fall of Kabul, with a video showing him guarded by a large convoy of fighters armed Taliban. Zawahiri is unlikely to make this public appearance.
Zawahiri’s terrorist resume has been around for decades. He joined the Muslim Brotherhood as a teenager and founded the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, a group that sought to overthrow the Egyptian secular government. Zawahiri was later arrested in a plot to assassinate Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. After the merger of his jihadist group with al-Qaeda in the 1990s, he became bin Laden’s deputy and helped with the deadly 1998 al-Qaeda bombing of U.S. embassies in Africa and the attack on the USS Cole in 2000, which killed 17 American sailors.
A June UN report concluded that “a significant portion of al-Qaeda’s leadership resides in the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan.” parts of Afghanistan “with” a number of first-rate characters killed, often alongside Taliban associates while co-locating with them. “
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Zawahiri’s tenure in Al Qaeda is considered a mixed success: it has kept the group together despite significant U.S. counterterrorism pressures, but the break-up of the Islamic State of Al Qaeda occurred in 2014 under his surveillance, with the rivalry that continues to this day.
ISIS-K, an Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan, is believed to be responsible for the suicide bombing at Kabul airport, which killed 13 members of the U.S. service and dozens more. The Taliban, the Haqqani Network and Al Qaeda are deeply intertwined in Afghanistan and the Taliban have integrated leaders and fighters from the Haqqani Network with links to Al Qaeda in its command structure.
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Tags: News, Ayman al Zawahiri, 9/11, Al Qaeda, Taliban
Original author: Jerry Dunleavy
Original location: Zawahiri’s video shows Al Qaeda alive and in the presence of the Taliban