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WASHINGTON: al Qaeda has released a two-part 100-minute video apparently produced after the death of Osama bin Laden that calls for individual acts of jihad on “enemy soil,” a US-based monitoring service said Friday.
Among the several speakers are Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda's long-time number two to bin Laden, and American-born Adam Gadahn, who says that Muslims living in the West are “perfectly placed to play an important and decisive part in the jihad against the Zionists and Crusaders.” Muslims living in the United States can easily buy automatic assault weapons at a gun show without any identification or submitting to a background check, Gadahn says, speaking in English, according to a transcript of the first video released by the SITE Monitoring Service.
“It's important that we weaken our cowardly enemies' will to fight by targeting influential public figures in Crusader and Zionist government, industry and media,” Gadahn says. The video was produced by al Qaeda's media arm, as-Sahab and is titled, “You are only responsible for yourself.” It was posted on Web forums on Thursday, and opens with old footage of bin Laden sitting next to al-Zawahiri giving a speech that criticizes the Western occupation of Muslim lands.
The al Qaeda leader was killed on May 2 by US commandos who raided his safe house in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
SITE said the video appears to have been made after bin Laden's death because references to him add the phrase: “May Allah have mercy on him” after his name. Other top al Qaeda officials who appear on the video include Abu Laith Al-Libi and Attiya Allah.
The narrator of the first video also lists several Muslims who carried out individual acts of jihad, portraying them as paragons to be admired and copied.
Gadahn is one of al Qaeda's top propagandists. Born Adam Pearlman, he began studying Islam in 1995 when he was 17. He converted later that year and reportedly moved to Pakistan in 1998. He has appeared in many al Qaeda videos.
