A communiqué issued by the previously unknown "Islamic Bayan Movement" warns Muslims that they should leave Washington DC, New York, and Los Angeles.
The warning initially appeared on the website of Global Islamic Media, at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/globalislamicmedia/message/173. The same website has, in recent months, published many communiqués by Jihad groups around the world, as well as Islamic ideological material. The communiqué has since appeared on the Al-Qa'ida affiliated website Al-Faroq. [1]
The communiqué was signed on the fifth of Ramadan, but was published on November 3, 2003, under the title "A Warning to the Muslims in America."
It opened with a Koranic verse: "All that is in the heavens and all that is in the earth glorifies Allah. He is the Mighty, the Wise. It is He who turned out the disbelievers from among the People of the Book from their homes at the time of the first banishment. You did not think that they would go forth and they thought that their fortresses would protect them against Allah. But Allah came upon them whence they did not expect and cast terror into their hearts, so that they destroyed their homes with their own hands and the hands of the believers. So take warning, O ye who posses understanding."
The following are excerpts from the communiqué: "The sufferings of your Muslim brothers and of the Mujahideen around the world is no secret to you, our brothers. [They suffer] oppression, tyranny, imprisonment, murder, and banishment by the masters of oppressions and lies in the world, the American rulers, who think [of] themselves as good-doers. Allah is the witness that they write the end of America by their own hands…
"Afghanistan and Iraq are not far away. Their sons there [i.e. U.S. soldiers] are frustrated and defeated and they ask 'why are we here?' Yes, they are the only ones who know the bitter truth. How would they not when they see every day dozens of casualties from among their friends, the soldiers who die and nobody, even not their stupid rulers, is sorry for them. Then they hear the lies and distortion their rulers [tell] their people and the peoples of the world regarding the number of their dead and heavy losses…
"Our Muslim brothers in America, we ask you to immediately leave the following cities: Washington, DC, New York, and Los Angeles. We are serious in our warning. The next few days will prove to you the truth of this warning. To the oppressive rulers of America we say: expect our terms following the first strike of Allah's believing soldiers"
The communiqué ends with another Koranic verse: "Fight them: Allah will punish them at your hands, and will humiliate them, and will help you to overcome them, and will relieve the minds of the believers."[Koran, Chapter 9, Verse 14]
[Signed]
The Islamic Bayan Movement
5th of Ramadan, 1424
The Al-Qa'ida affiliated website also posted a photograph of a Chinook helicopter along with the following caption: "We shall bring down and destroy the values of the Hubal [2] of this generation"
Logo from Al-Faroq
[1] http://www.pcpages.com/faroq/
[2] Hubal was an ancient Meccan idol from the pre-Islamic era, and is used by Islamists to symbolize the U.S.
