Periodical Review: Summary from the Jihadi Forums – The First Half of June 2013
This report summarizes notable events discussed on jihadist Web forums during the First Half of June 2013. Following are the main points covered in the report:
• In a new audio statement, Sheikh Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of Al-Qaeda, calls on Muslims, and especially Palestinians, to liberate Palestine from the Zionist-Israeli regime that has controlled it for 65 years.
• The Qatari satellite television station Al-Jazeera publishes a letter allegedly written by Sheikh Ayman al-Zawahiri in an attempt to mediate between the Al-Nusra Front in Syria and the Islamic State of Iraq – feuding Al-Qaeda affiliates – following the declaration by the leader of the latter that the two were uniting. Although al-Zawahiri confirms that the two groups are still separate, the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq continues to aver that the unification is valid.
• A senior member of Al-Qaeda exhorts the Muslims in India to join global jihad against the US and its allies.
• In a recent audio statement, a Saudi Arabian deputy consul who is a captive of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) accuses the Saudi regime of collaborating with the US against the mujahideen – as evidenced, he claims, by its allowing a US air base on Saudi soil, from which drones are sent to attack Muslims in Yemen.
• The Al-Nusra Front in Syria warns the Druze in As-Suwayda not to collaborate with Hezbollah and the Shi’ites, unless they wish to feel the wrath of the mujahideen.
• The second issue appears of the Pakistan-Taliban’s English-language jihadist magazine, AZAN.
• The Shura Council of the jihadist Web forum Snam Al-Islam mourns the death from a degenerative muscular disease of the administrator of the Global Jihad Web forum.