AQAP Explosives Expert Ibrahim Al-Asiri Calls On Al-Qaeda Affiliates To Attack U.S.

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On July 31, 2015, AQAP explosives expert Ibrahim Al-Asiri published an article[1] in which he called on groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda to carry out attacks against the U.S., and criticized an investigative report aired by Al-Jazeera in which a self-described former member of the group who turned informant claimed that the group's current leader, Qasem Al-Rimi, worked as an agent for ousted Yemeni president Ali Abdulla Saleh.  

Addressing the mujahideen in the Islamic Maghreb, Somalia, and the Indian subcontinent, Al-Asiri, designated a terrorist by the U.S. State Department[2] for his role in a number of attacks, wrote: "We bring to you the good news that our situation will please you and please our friends. We incite you to attack America in hearts of its land and outside. America doesn't carry many cards as it [has played] most of them, and only has a few options left." He added, "By continuing attacking it, we will reduce the options with which it tries to protect itself."

After stating that declaring war on the U.S. was a decision the group has made despite knowing the hardship that the mujahideen will endure because of it, he said, "With Allah's grace, by fighting America, we have grown stronger, contrary to what some [people] believe.. Even if America has killed some of us, our group has been growing stronger day after day, by Allah's grace."

Al-Asiri dedicated most of the article to refuting an investigative report aired on Al-Jazeera in June 2015, in which the channel spoke with a man who claimed to be a former AQAP member who had turned government informer. Mujahid, as he is referred to in the report, mentioned Al-Asiri in the interview multiple times, and said that the group is run by the regime of ousted Yemeni president Ali Abdulla Saleh. Mujahid reached this conclusion, he said, after he warned the Yemeni intelligence agency of two terrorist attacks planned by AQAP to target Spanish tourists and the U.S Embassy, yet the agency did not thwart them.

Al-Asiri questioned Mujahid's credibility, and denied that he had met with him as claimed in the report. "Regarding his claim that he had met with me in Ma'rib and that he entered my laboratory, [I ask you all], by Allah's name, how would I reveal my place for a man who would go back to the city and could be arrested? By Allah's name, I have never seen this spy nor have I met with him."

The Al-Jazeera report, in Al-Asiri's view, is part of a campaign to weaken the global jihad movement, and Al-Qaeda in particular, by discrediting and distorting the image of the symbols of jihad who are the scholars and the clerics who support the group.    

Addressing Al-Jazeera, Al-Asiri wrote: "We say to the neutral journalists and the anchors who are working in it as well as to those of integrity and work ethics to condemn all those who wish to involve the channel in 'Obama’s Dirty War' and bear its consequences."

Before concluding his article, Al-Asiri praised the "truthful scholars" who are imprisoned inside and outside Muslim countries, commended the mujahideen in Syria, and greeted Al-Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri.