The leader of the Al-Qaeda terrorist group, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has
urged rebels to fight to establish an Islamic state in Syria, AFP
reported.
The message came in an online audio message Sunday, in
which the Al-Qaeda chief also warned France against its military
intervention in Mali.
"Let your fight be in the name of Allah and
with the aim of establishing Allah's sharia (law) as the ruling
system," he said, in his first message posted on the Internet since last
November.
"Do all that you can so that your holy war yields a
jihadist Islamic state," said Zawahiri, adding that such a state would
help to re-establish the Islamic "caliphate" system of rule.
"The enemy has begun to reel and collapse," he said, referring to forces loyal to President Bashar Al-Assad.
Islamist
rebel groups such as the Al-Nusra Front, which has links to Al-Qaeda,
have eschewed the main opposition National Coalition.
Al-Nusra is
one of 13 factions in the radical Islamist rebel council that announced
its secession from the main opposition force and declared its own
Islamic state in Aleppo.
Zawahiri's message will not sit easily
with Western powers, who have expressed fears of extremist Islamism
playing a growing role in the Syrian conflict and are reluctant to arm
the rebels on the ground.
Assad's regime has long dismissed the
rebels as "terror" groups backed by Western powers and driven by
Al-Qaeda-style ideologies.
The United Nations says more than
70,000 people have been killed in Syria's two-year conflict, which broke
out after the army unleashed a brutal crackdown against dissent,
turning the uprising into a bloody insurgency.
Zawahiri in his
message also warned France over its military involvement against
Islamists in Mali, AFP reported, saying it will be defeated in the same
way, according to him, the Americans were defeated in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
"I call upon our Muslim nation in Mali to hold and
be patient, and hopefully, effect a new defeat to the global crusade,"
said Zawahiri.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/166870#.Udd1XUqbU2J
Monday 8 April 2013
Al-Qaeda Chief Wants Islamic State in Syria
Posted @ 18:44
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment