Qaeda warns of attacks on West
2008-09-05 20:59
Katarina Kratovac
Cairo - Al-Qaeda's top commander in Afghanistan warned of more attacks against the West in a video posted on the web that paid tribute to a suicide bomber said to have carried out the June bombing of the Danish embassy in Pakistan.
The blast killed six, including one Danish citizen, and caused widespread destruction in the Islamabad neighbourhood. Al-Qaeda quickly claimed responsibility soon after the attack, saying it was carrying out Osama bin Laden's promise to exact revenge over the publishing of a cartoon of Islam's Prophet Muhammad in Danish papers.
It was the deadliest strike against Denmark since the reprinting of the cartoon earlier this year.
In the new, 55-minute video posted late Thursday, al-Qaeda's commander in Afghanistan commander Mustafa Abu al-Yazeed warned "once more the Crusader states that insult, mock and defame our Prophet ... that we will exact revenge at the appropriate time and place".
Abu al-Yazeed, who is Egyptian and who is also known as Abu Saeed al-Masri, said the embassy attack in Islamabad was "but the beginning" and called on Muslim youth in the West to "retaliate" against the "enemies of Islam and Muslims in whose midst they live".
The video's authenticity could not be independently verified. It was posted on an Islamic militant web forum commonly used by al-Qaeda to issue videos and bore the logo of the terror group's al-Sahab media arm.
Reconstructing attack
The video also showed the last testament of the Saudi bomber purportedly behind the embassy attack, known by his nomme de guerre Abu Ghareeb al-Makki. His real name was given as Kamal Saleem Atiyyah al-Fudli al-Hathli.
Al-Makki is shown wearing an explosives vest and head scarf as he recounts his plan. He then gets into a car, followed by a computer-animated segment that reconstructs the attack.
The unusually elaborate and lengthy video was made as a documentary and included segments from statements by Danish, Dutch and US officials, as well as Saudi and Jordanian royals, incorporated with remarks by various al-Qaeda figures.
"As for my final message to the worshippers of the cross in Denmark, I tell them, Allah permitting, this isn't the first nor the last retaliation," al-Makki says. "We will wipe you from the face of the earth."
In August, Pakistani officials said they were trying to confirm whether a suspected militant killed in fighting in the tribal Bajur area was Abu al-Yazeed, but there has been no confirmation since. Thursday's video did not indicated when the footage of Abu al-Yazeed was filmed.
Jakob Scharf, chief of Danish intelligence service PET, said the agency believes Thursday's recording is "an authentic al-Qaeda video" and that the bomber featured in it was identical with the man they believe "very likely" executed the attack.
During a joint investigation in June, Danes shared a video from the embassy's closed-circuit camera with Pakistani investigators showing the car arriving outside the embassy and exploding.
'Valid' assessment
The Danish agency warned last month that the country faces the worst terror threat in many years with a possible attack happening at any time. It said the 2006 publication of 12 drawings of Prophet Muhammad that sparked riots across the Muslim world and Denmark's military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan have helped focus extremists' attention on the small Nordic country.
"That assessment is still valid," Scharf said.
The cartoons angered Muslims because they depicted Muhammad as violent and licentious. Also, Islamic law bans any depiction of the prophet, even favorable, for fear it could lead to idolatry.
- AP