DUBAI: Powerful Al Qaeda branches in Yemen and North Africa called yesterday for jihadists in Iraq and Syria to unite against the common threat from a US-led coalition.
An unprecedented joint statement from Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb urged their “brothers” in Iraq and Syria to “stop killing each other and unite against the American campaign and its evil coalition that threatens us all.”
AQAP and AQIM also called on the people of 10 Arab countries that have joined the coalition against the Islamic State group to prevent their governments from acting against IS. And it promised “dark days” to the “alliance of infidelity and evil”.
Al Qaeda’s leadership under Ayman Al Zawahiri, the Egypt-born successor to group founder Osama bin Laden, has disavowed IS, which has seized swathes of Iraq and Syria. And it has its own branch, the Al Nusra Front, fighting in Syria.
But the joint statement, released on two jihadist Twitter accounts, called for differences to be set aside in the face of the growing coalition. “Make the unity of the infidel nations against you a reason for your unity against them,” it said, accusing Washington of “leading a Crusader campaign against Islam and all Muslims”. “Stop the infighting between you and stand as one against America’s campaign,” it added.
It also urged Syrian rebels to keep up their fight against President Bashar Al Assad, warning them to “beware of being tricked by America... and thus being diverted from your path” and becoming its “pawns”.
Both Yemen-based AQAP, seen by Washington as the network’s most dangerous branch, and AQIM have rejected IS’s declaration of an Islamic caliphate in June and said they remained loyal to Zawahiri.
AQAP has been linked to a string of attempted attacks on the US in the past. AQIM, which has desert bases in northern Mali, has carried out attacks and abductions of Westerners in the sub-Saharan region of Sahel, as well as claiming attacks in Tunisia.
Afp
