Al-Qaeda leader Ayman Ayman al-Zawahiri has urged ISIS to commit 9/11 style attacks against the U.S. and the West.
In a 16-minute message, titled ‘We Shall Unite To Liberate Jerusalem‘, al-Zawahiri calls for attacks against the West, and emphasises the importance on attacking the U.S. and Israel, saying: “Those who support Israel should pay in their blood and economy the price for supporting the crimes of Israel against Islam and Muslims”.
Vocativ.com reports:
He also called on fighters to follow in the path of those who carried out the September 11, 2001 attacks, “and the attacks in Madrid, Bali, London and Paris.”
Al-Zawahiri urged Muslims to unite, saying they must establish a Caliphate and an Islamic state in Egypt and the Levant, and that they must “liberate Palestine.” Muslims today face “American-European-Russian-Shiite-Alawite aggression,” he said, before calling on jihadist organizations worldwide to stop infighting and “stand in one line, from East Turkestan to Morocco, against the satanic alliance that attacks Islam, its nation and its house.”
Al-Zawahiri has released a string of audio statements in recent months following a long silence. In August, he pledged allegiance to the new Taliban leader, Mullah Akhtar, and later continued with a series of audio recordings blaming ISIS leader Abu Baker al-Baghdadi for creating civil war in Islam.
Sunday’s statement was the first time al-Zawahiri referenced a recent wave of rising Israeli-Palestinian violence, which has centered in part around access to the site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.
Sean Adl-Tabatabai