Al-Qaida urges Kashmir Muslims to wage jihad on India Senior militants from al-Qaidas central command have released a video calling on Muslims in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir to follow the example of brothers in Syria and Iraq and wage a violent jihad against Indian authorities, the Guardian reported on Saturday. The video, which cites the new Afghanistan being created in Syria as inspiration, is the first to specifically target Kashmir. Entitled War should continue, message to the Muslims of Kashmir, the video was uploaded in recent days to a website where statements by other leaders of al-Qaida and its affiliates have been released in the past. It is unclear when the video was made, although its production apparently preceded the advances made by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis) in Iraq this week. However, the timing of its release will underline the impression that senior al-Qaida leaders based in Pakistan, who have suffered heavy losses in recent years, are increasingly marginal to the global jihadi movement, the report said. Led by Ayman al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian-born veteran militant who took over after the death of Osama bin Laden in May 2011, the group has made increasing efforts in recent years to mobilise the nearly half a billion Muslims who live in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. Zawahiri released a set of strategic guidelines last year that mentioned Kashmir. Last July, a cleric who has been linked to al-Qaida issued a video statement that reprimanded Indian Muslims for their supposed lack of interest in global jihad. The campaign does not appear to have had much success beyond Pakistan, where the serious threat posed by jihadi violence was underlined by a major attack on the international airport in Karachi, the southern port city and commercial capital, last week.
Posted on: Sun, 15 Jun 2014 06:38:01 +0000
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