‘US attack within reach’
3 Jun 2013 12:25 AM GMT
Al-Qaida’s military chief in Yemen warned Americans in an audio message posted online on Sunday saying the Boston bombings revealed US’s fragile security as he urged Muslims to defend their religion. Qassim al-Rimi, the military chief of Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, said making bombs such as the ones used in the twin blasts in Boston in April, is within ‘everyone’s reach’.
‘The Boston events... and the poisoned letters (sent to the White House), regardless of who is behind them, show that your security is no longer under control, and that attacks on you have taken off and cannot be stopped,’ he said, in the message entitled ‘A letter to the American people’.
‘Every day you will be hit by the unexpected, and your leaders will not be able to defend you,’ warned the man whose organization is considered by Washington as the world’s most dangerous Al-Qaida branch. Rimi said the killing of Al-Qaida’s founder Osama bin Laden in May 2011 and top Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in September 2011, had not ended the struggle. ‘Have you eliminated the jihadist groups that have spread everywhere after they had only been in Afghanistan? Sunday, they are in your land or close to it,’ he warned.
To the Muslims in the United States, he said: ‘We encourage you to carry on with this way, be steadfast in your religion. Carry out your obligations, defend your religion and follow in the footsteps of those who supported their religion and Ummah (Muslim nation) while they are in their enemy’s den,’ he said.
Two brothers, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, are accused of being behind the 15 April attack near the finish line of the Boston Marathon that killed three people and wounded more than 260. Tsarnaev was killed in a shootout while Dzhokhar was captured and taken into custody after an extensive manhunt.
Next Story
