Al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri has called for attacks on Indian Army and the Government while asking the “Mujahideen in Kashmir” to inflict “unrelenting blows” to the nation’s economy, in a video message released by the terror outfit’s media wing, as per the Foundation for Defence of Democracies’ (FDD) Long War Journal.
The outfit’s media wing, As Sahab. has titled his latest message as “Don’t Forget Kashmir”.
According to the journal, Zawahiri says that the mujahideen must “liberate the Kashmiri jihad from the clutches of Pakistan’s intelligence agencies” after which “the Mujahideen must plan their jihad by taking free and independent decisions that are guided by the principles of sharia.”
He further said that he is “of the view that the Mujahideen in Kashmir should single-mindedly focus on inflicting unrelenting blows on the Indian Army and government, so as to bleed the Indian economy and make India suffer sustained losses in manpower and equipment.”
Thomas Joscelyn, in his article for the journal, wrote that Al Qaeda has been grooming an upstart group to wage jihad against the Indian forces in Kashmir.
The al Qaeda chief, meanwhile, has accused Pakistan of betraying the jihadists in Afghanistan and Kashmir.
According to him, the Pakistani government and Army are “toadies of America” who prevented the “Arab Mujahideen” from “heading to Kashmir after expelling the Russians from Afghanistan.”
Although Zawahiri does not mention about Zakir Musa, the terrorist killed in May by security forces in Kashmir, his photo is seen in the background as the terrorist group chief speaks.
Pakistan’s “conflict with India is essentially a secular rivalry over borders managed by the American intelligence,” said the Qaeda chief.
Zawahiri also claimed that the “fight in Kashmir” is not a separate conflict but instead is part of the worldwide Muslim community’s “jihad against a vast array of forces”. He called on “unnamed” scholars to spread this point.
He further asked the terrorists not to target “mosques, markets, and gathering places of Muslims” in Kashmir.