Seventeen years after Al Qaeda carried out the deadliest terror attack in history, the group is urging for more attacks on the U.S.
Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri appeared in a video on the anniversary of 9/11 on Tuesday to urge Muslim followers across the globe to wage more terror attacks against the United States, Newsweek reported Tuesday.
“Seventeen years have passed since Bush launched his Crusader war against Muslims, a war linked with the historical enmity directed towards Islam from its dawn to this very day,” the terror leader said.
1) On anniversary of #September11th, #alQaeda releases speech by leader Ayman al-Zawahiri entitled, “How to Confront America,” taking a big-picture focus of the global jihadist movement, stressing the “duty of jihad,” & identifying America as “the number one enemy of Muslims.” pic.twitter.com/mYgqwvfcab
— Rita Katz (@Rita_Katz) September 11, 2018
Al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian doctor, took over leadership of Al Qaeda after the 2011 death of Osama bin Laden.
In the 30-minute video, titled “How Do We Face America?” al-Zawahiri referred to the U.S. as a religious enemy of Islam, citing President Trump’s Dec. 2017 decision to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, and the close U.S.-Israel relationship as proof. He also criticized the U.S. for fighting against Islam throughout the Middle East, and some parts of Asia and Africa.
“Behind all the conflicts involving Muslims, one finds either the direct hand of the secular crusader West in the leadership of America, or its silent approval, connivance, collusion, or intrigues. It is basically a religious enmity, even if other shades of hostility overlap with it, whether economic greed, the desire to establish hegemony over geographic locations, and so on,” he said.
“America [is] the number one enemy of Muslims … despite of its professed secularism,” al-Zawahiri said, according to Times of Israel.
.@BrookeBCNN: “It’s been 17 years since 9/11 where is Bin Laden’s no. 2 man?” @peterbergencnn: “He’s almost certainly in Pakistan… Ayman al-Zawahiri is the leader of a group that doesn’t have much capacity to do anything outside Pakistan” https://t.co/qkvXP2ENyU pic.twitter.com/pChb9cPSjs
— CNN Newsroom (@CNNnewsroom) September 11, 2018
He then analyzed U.S. war strategy to “understand how America fights.”
“Firstly: America assembles an alliance before initiating any hostilities, so that it may sustain the financial and human costs of war with the support of its tools and allies,” al-Zawahiri said.
“Secondly: America strives to weaken its enemy—before and during the battle—using several means, which include the following: Fragmentation and dispersal of its enemy using the accumulated expertise of the Crusader inheritance vis-à-vis Islam and Muslims,” he continued.
Then, he said, “America finally moves in to crush these movements with ruthless use of airpower.”
“If we understand America’s war strategy against Muslims and understand how the American system works, it becomes easy for us to know how we can inflict damage on this system,” al-Zawahiri said. “For in the end, Americans are weak, humble beings like the rest of mankind.”
The U.S. has been fighting Al Qaeda, their Taliban allies, or their spinoff group ISIS for the past 17 years. While ISIS has been losing ground over U.S. victories in recent years, Al Qaeda is said to be staging a comeback in some areas, including Yemen and Syria.
