New al Qaeda leader releases a new message to mark 9/11
Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has seemingly released a new video message to correspond with the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, in which he admires the Arab Spring as a “devastating blow” to the United States.
The hour-long video, posted Monday on websites run by followers of the terror network, contains an audio broadcast allegedly from al-Zawahiri and a video message from Osama bin Laden, recorded before his death in May.
Al-Zawahiri’s speech praises the Arab Spring as having “liberated thousands of the members of the Islamic movement’s prisoners, who were imprisoned by direct orders from America.”
The rebellion in a number of Arab nations, including Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, has also “liberated the Arab people from handcuffs of fear and terror,” the message tells.
The bin Laden video is actually the same footage that was released by the U.S. government after bin Laden was killed in a raid by U.S. forces in Pakistan, but this one contains the audio of the former al Qaeda leader speaking.
The version issued by the Pentagon, after it was found in bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound, was without voice.
The SITE Intelligence Group quotes bin Laden’s message as warning Americans against “falling as slaves” to the control of major corporations and “Jewish money capital.”
In his message, bin Laden also advises that Americans read the book “Obama’s Wars” by Bob Woodward, saying that they should understand that Obama’s government has not lived up to his campaign slogan, “Yes we can.”
At the time of its release, U.S. officials said they considered the video, which was entitled “A Message to the American People” and had not been broadcast by al Qaeda, was prepared in October or November last year.
