Cairo: Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri called on Muslims to attack US, European, Israeli and Russian targets in a speech on the 18th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks on Wednesday.
SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks online activity of jihadist groups, reported that in a video released by the militant group, the 68-year-old al-Zawahri also criticises “backtrackers” from jihad, referring to former jihadis who changed their views in prison and called the 9/11 attacks unacceptable because innocent civilians were harmed.
“If you want Jihad to be focused solely on military targets, the American military has presence all over the world, from the East to the West,” he said.
“Your countries are littered with American bases, with all the infidels therein and the corruption they spread.”
The coordinated al-Qaida hijackings on September 11, 2001 killed nearly 3,000 people, when airliners slammed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and another crashed in rural Pennsylvania.
Al-Zawahri’s speech was recorded in a 33-minute, 28-second video produced by the group’s as-Sahab Media Foundation.
As an indicator of when the speech may have been recorded, al-Zawahri references President Donald Trump’s recognition of the Golan Heights as Israeli territory, which was announced on March 25.
He calls on Palestinians to seek “martyrdom” by attacking Israelis with a suicide vest in response.
Al-Zawahri, an Egyptian, became leader of al-Qaida following the 2011 killing of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan by US Navy SEALs. He is believed to be hiding somewhere in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border regions.
A July report by the UN cited reports that he is “in poor health” but provided no details. (PTI)
