Now On Twitter: Online Jihadis Disseminate Segment They Claim Was Deleted By U.S. From Latest AQAP Video; Segment Announces Rewards For Assassination Of 'The Jewish' U.S. Ambassador To Yemen, U.S. Soldiers In Yemen

December 27, 2012

No. 5111

On Twitter, jihad supporters are currently disseminating what they are calling a segment deleted by the U.S. from the most recent video released by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

The segment that is being disseminated, an audio file, includes AQAP's announcement of a reward of 3,000 grams of gold to anyone who assassinates "the Jewish" U.S. Ambassador to Yemen Gerald M. Feierstein, as well as a reward of five million Yemeni riyals (about $23,000) to anyone who kills a U.S. soldier in Yemen.

The announcement follows a statement in the video by AQAP deputy emir Saeed Al-Shihri, in which he praises a fatwa issued in January 2010 by a number of Yemeni scholars that makes jihad mandatory if Yemen is invaded by foreign forces; this fatwa was led by radical Yemeni cleric Sheikh Abd Al-Majid Al-Zindani. Al-Shihri called on Muslims to implement this fatwa.

Links to the audio first appeared around 2:50 pm Eastern Time in the U.S., in a tweet by "Abdallah Bin Mohammad" who uses the handle @ABDLLH_Bn_M7mmd. The tweet reads: "Exclusive: an audio segment of Al-Qaeda's announcement which was removed by the Americans."

The link spread quickly via Twitter among jihad supporters, using the hashtag "Jai'zat Al-Qaeda," meaning "Al-Qaeda's reward."

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