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A new video released by Al-Sahab, the media arm of Al-Qaeda, reiterates that the kidnapping of Dr. Warren Weinstein, a Jewish American aid worker, from Lahore is part of steps to get Dr. Aafia Siddiqui released from the U.S. jail. Siddiqui has been jailed for 86 years for trying to kill U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.
In the video, in which Ustad Ahmad Farooq of Al-Qaeda urges rebellion in the Pakistani Army, four Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militant are shown recording their statements before their suicide attack in May 2011 on the PN Mehran base, the headquarters of the Pakistani Navy in Karachi, as revenge for the killing of Osama bin Laden.
The video is produced by Al-Sahab, the media arm of Al-Qaeda, and was released in two parts on a jihadist internet forum. The first part of the video traces the role of the Pakistani Army against Muslims in the Pakistani tribal region and Bangladesh, and before the independence from British rule, in Iraq, Delhi, and Palestine.
The second part of the video is titled "The Revenge for Sheikh Osama," and opens with a statement by a Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militant (pictured above) who was part of the team that carried out the suicide attack on PNS Mehran base on May 22, 2011, a few weeks after Osama bin Laden was killed in Abbottabad. He says: "Everyone knows that the Pakistani Army was alongside the American army in the operation in which Sheikh Osama was martyred."
Another video clip of a TTP militant, who was also part of the four-member suicide attack team, is shown. In the video, the militant, who appears to be a teenager, reads a written statement in Urdu, justifying the attack on the Pakistani Navy, saying that Osama bin Laden's blood was spilled by the Pakistani military for the sake of U.S. dollars.
The militant says: "The rulers and generals of this country, who sell their beliefs and faith just for the sake of dollars, remember that you will get tired of fighting us but we will not tire of fighting you, Allah willing." He declares that the Mehran base attack is the revenge for the shedding of the "pious blood" of Osama bin Laden.
Some footage of the PNS Mehran base attack, taken from Pakistani television networks, is shown as part of the video. A narrator explains the extent of the financial and technological damage caused by the TTP bombers in the PN Mehran base attack. The video also shows footage of attacks on NATO supplies in Pakistan and the Taliban fighting against the Pakistani Army in various districts of the Pakistani tribal region and its adjacent areas.
The four team members who attacked the PNS Mehran base
The video also claims responsibility for attacks on the Charsadda military camp; an attack on the cars belonging to the U.S. Consulate in Peshawar; attacks with missiles named Osama on targets in South Waziristan; revenge attacks for Pakistan's arrest of Al-Qaeda militant Younus Al-Mauritani; etc.
The video shows Pakistan Army spokesman Major General Athar Abbas claiming that the arrest of Al-Mauritani was possible with the help of U.S. intelligence. To avenge his arrest, an attack was launched on the Frontier Corps in Quetta, the narrator claims.
The video also claims revenge attacks for the Pakistani military operations in Swat district and the killing of innocent Swati youth in Pakistani custody. Images of victims of U.S. drone attacks in the Pakistani tribal region are also shown.
Dr. Warren Weinstein
The video also claims that Dr. Warren Weinstein was kidnapped from Lahore in order to ensure the release of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui from the U.S. jail.
The narrator says: "When the mujahideen realized that the rulers and generals thrust upon the Ummah, despite heading large armed forces and being armed with modern weapons and possessing the nuclear power, could not free one daughter of the Ummah from infidels nor made serious effort to do so, they decided to make every effort to ensure her release and take revenge for Dr. Aafia Siddiqui – the honor of the Islamic Ummah. One such effort is the successful operation to kidnap a Jewish American citizen from Lahore."
The video shows militants training in a mountainous region and claiming that their preparation is revenge for Dr. Aafia Siddiqui. A clip of Al-Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri in this regard is reproduced. In that clip, released earlier, Al-Zawahiri had confirmed that Al-Qaeda kidnapped Dr. Warren Weinstein. Al-Zawahiri had demanded the release of all women held in U.S. custody over their connection to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, including Aafia Siddiqui and Hasna, the wife of an Al-Qaeda militant.
The video shows numerous clips of Islamic clerics and people's views calling for jihad against the U.S. in the wake of the release of CIA agent Raymond Davis from Lahore, while the narrator claims that the movement for the enforcement of Islamic Shari'a in Pakistan is getting stronger by the day.
Towards the end of the video, Ustad Ahmad Farooq, the Head of Al-Qaeda's Department for Dawa and Media in Pakistan, urges the Pakistani soldiers to rise: "Isn't there a self-respecting soldier in this army of 600,000 who considers the orders of the Prophet [Muhammad] as dearer to him than the orders of his officers?..."
He adds: "If the army units of Libya could rebel against [Mu'ammar] Al-Qadhafi and the Sunni soldiers of the Syrian Army against Bashar Al-Assad, then why can't the lower-ranking soldiers of the Pakistain Army rebel against their generals in order to free the 180 million people [of Pakistan] from this slavery, and for enforcement of Islamic Shari'a?..."
Source: Al-Fida', March 13, 2012
