Saturday, March 31, 2018

Al-Qaeda top dog: “Jihad” is the “effective way” to defeat US, goal is to restore caliphate

MAR 29, 2018 7:23 AM BY ROBERT SPENCER22 COMMENTS

Doubtless Hamas-linked CAIR’s Nihad Awad and Ibrahim Hooper are on their way now to visit Zawahiri and explain to him that jihad just means dropping off the kids at school and getting to the gym regularly.

“He goes on to identify the primary goal of al-Qaeda’s jihad as restoring the ‘rightly guided Caliphate’ and all of the lands once held by Muslims, extending from Jerusalem to Spain, noting that the territory is still ‘ours.’” Find out what the “rightly guided Caliphate” was really like, and why this is a genuine threat, in my forthcoming book The History of Jihad From Muhammad to ISIS. Preorder your copy here.

“Al-Qaeda Video: ‘Jihad’ Is ‘Effective Way’ to Defeat ‘America and Its Cheating Crusader Leader,’ Donald Trump,” by Edwin Mora, Breitbart, March 28, 2018:

Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri, in a newly disseminated video, urges the group’s jihadi followers to “unite in confronting” the top enemy of all Muslims across the world, the United States and its “blatant crusader,” President Donald Trump.

He goes on to identify the primary goal of al-Qaeda’s jihad as restoring the “rightly guided Caliphate” and all of the lands once held by Muslims, extending from Jerusalem to Spain, noting that the territory is still “ours.”

Zawahiri’s declaration echoes Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s announcement when he established the now-dismantled worldwide caliphate in June 2014.

The U.S.-led coalition and its allies have diminished the Islamic State (ISIS) “caliphate” by 98 percent, but dangerous pockets remain.

The near single-eyed focus of that coalition in defeating ISIS has allowed al-Qaeda to grow stronger, particular in Syria, which reportedly houses the most active wing of the Osama bin Laden legacy group.

The Long War Journal acknowledges:

Zawahiri says “the goal of our jihad is the restoration of the rightly guided Caliphate” and all of the territory once controlled by Muslims from Jerusalem to Spain is still “ours.”

Of course, this doesn’t mean al Qaeda thinks Abu Bakr al Baghdadi’s Islamic State (ISIS) is the answer. Al Qaeda rejects Baghdadi’s caliphate project as illegitimate, and the two jihadist organizations have rivaled each other for power since 2014.

Zawahiri encourages extremists to rally up and try to mirror the attacks of 9/11 against the American homeland, saying:

The Mujahidin will defeat America – Allah permitting – for the sake of Allah, and the scholars working and the sincere makers of [worship] and the united Ummah [Muslim community] under the banner of Tawhid [monotheism]. Here is our Muslim Ummah so let us fight America everywhere as they transgress against us everywhere, let us unite in confronting it, and do not divide, and come together and not split up, and unite and not divide….

“The policies of America and its cheating crusader leader – without a doubt – clarified that the effective way in confronting its aggression is via the way of da’wah [proselytization] and jihad,” notes the al-Qaeda leader.

Citing late al-Qaeda leader bin Laden, the new jihadi chief stresses that the Muslim community’s (ummah) “first enemy is America,” which is “the head of the snake.”

Zawahiri went on to note that “religious hostility” is at the root of the animosity between the United States and jihadists across the world.

Many liberals, particularly under the administration of former President Barack Obama, sought to extinguish any religious references to the ongoing U.S. military conflicts against Islamic extremists, refusing to use radical Islamic extremism or any variation of the phrase.

Now, the top al-Qaeda leader himself acknowledges the conflict between jihadists and the United States is of a religious nature….