On December 12, 2009, Al-Qaeda released a 17-minute 40-second video from American Al-Qaeda operative Adam Gadahn, titled "The Mujahideen Don't Target Muslims." In the video, Gadahn says that the mujahideen [i.e. Al-Qaeda and its allies] are not behind recent bombings perpetrated against innocent Muslims. He alleges that the C.I.A., Blackwater, Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence, or India's Research and Development Wing carried out these attacks in an attempt to frame the jihadist groups and drive a wedge between them and the Muslim population.
This has been a prevalent theme in recent Al-Qaeda and Pakistani Taliban propaganda. On November 12, 2009, Al-Sahab released a similarly-themed audio recording from senior Al-Qaeda commander Mustafa Abu Al-Yazid, titled "Blackwater and the Peshawar Bombings." This was closely followed by an Urdu-language Al-Sahab release on the same topic from Azam Tariq, spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban.
In the new video, Adam Gadahn argues that attacks against innocent Muslims are contrary to the mujahideen's beliefs and contrary to Islam; he also makes a cui bono argument, saying that the mujahideen cannot benefit from such attacks, whereas the intelligence agencies clearly benefit from the attacks in that they sully the reputation of the mujahideen. Gadahn is not referring to Muslims who are killed as collateral damage (e.g. civilians killed in attacks on the Pakistani army); he acknowledges that such deaths may occur in attacks carried out by the mujahideen. The attacks for which he denies responsibility are those that deliberately target non-combatant Muslims.
Following is a transcript (the video is available upon request to JTTM subscribers):
