DUBAI: Al Qaeda’s deadly Yemen-based franchise yesterday urged Muslims worldwide to support Islamic State jihadists in Syria and Iraq in the face of attacks by a US-led military coalition.
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, classified by the United States as the network’s deadliest franchise, “prohibits taking part in the fight against” IS, which controls swathes of both Iraq and Syria, AQAP said in a statement posted on jihadist forums.
“We urge all mujahedeen (Muslim fighters) to set aside their differences and inter-factional fighting and move instead against the crusade targeting all” jihadists, it added.
“We also urge all Muslims to back their brethren, with their souls, money and tongues, against the crusaders.”
AQAP urged “whoever can weaken the Americans to weaken them militarily, economically, and media-wise.”
“This is a campaign against Islam” that has brought together “crusaders (Christians), majus (a pejorative term for Iranians), and traitor apostate leaders,” it said.
Warplanes from four Arab states of the Gulf — Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — have since last month taken part in US-led air strikes on IS targets in Syria. The coalition now includes, on paper, about 60 countries.
President Barack Obama told military chiefs from more than 20 allies this week that they are facing a “long-term campaign” to defeat IS. Despite its own break with IS, Al Qaeda’s Syrian franchise, Al Nusra Front, has said the air strikes constitute a “war against Islam” and threatened to attack the worldwide interests of participating nations.
Washington on Tuesday slapped $45m in rewards on the heads of AQAP leaders. Meanwhile, the US commander overseeing the air war in Syria said yesterday that confronting the Islamic State group in Iraq is the “main” priority for the US-led fight, while strikes in Syria are designed to disrupt the group’s supply lines,
Even with the world’s attention fixed on the fate of the northern Syrian town of Kobane, General Lloyd Austin said Iraq was the primary battleground for the air campaign.
“Iraq is our main effort, and it has to be,” Austin told reporters.
“And the things that we’re doing right now in Syria are being done primarily to shape the conditions in Iraq,” he said.
US-led air raids in Syria are serving as a way to undercut the group’s ability to reinforce and resupply its fighters in Iraq, he said.
In his first press conference since the air campaign was launched in Iraq on August 8, Austin said it would take time before Iraqi government forces were truly effective and declined to say when the army would be ready to stage major offensives to recapture lost territory in Mosul or elsewhere. “It’s difficult to ...designate a specific point in time when they’ll be able to do this.”
Iraqi army troops have suffered a string of setbacks in western Anbar province, raising fears that Baghdad could come under pressure and the airport endangered.
But Austin said the airport was not at risk of falling to the IS group. “I feel fairly confident that the airfield is secure and will be secure for the foreseeable future,” he said.Agencies
TRIPOLI, Lebanon: A Lebanese soldier was killed yesterday as a military bus came under fire in the country’s north, in the fourth such deadly attack in less than a month, the army said.
It named the soldier as Jamal Jean Hashem, a teenager on the bus which was transporting soldiers back to their post in the Akkar region of northern Lebanon.
On September 23, gunmen shot dead a soldier in the nearby port city of Tripoli, the frequent scene of clashes between the army and Sunni extremists.
And a homemade bomb exploded in the city on October 7 killing another soldier, while a colleague died in an attack in the Akkar region two days later by gunmen on a motorbike.
AFP
