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| Boko Haram emir Abubakar Shekau, from a propaganda tape. |
Abubakar Shekau, the leader of Boko Haram, lauds and supports al Qaeda and its affiliates in a videotape that was released yesterday on jihadist forums. Shekau's speech, which was obtained and translated by the SITE Intelligence Group, was issued in Arabic, which is an indication that he is seeking to appeal to both the wider jihadist community and al Qaeda's leaders. The 39-minute-long videotape includes numerous clips of Boko Haram fighters in training, as well as video of weapons seized by the group during raids.
Shekau repeatedly refers to the fighters in the jihadist theaters as his "brothers." He directly addresses "the soldiers of the Islamic State in Mali ... our brothers and sheikhs in beloved Somalia ... our brothers and sheikhs in Libya ... our brothers and sheikhs in oppressed Afghanistan ... our brothers and sheikhs in wounded Iraq ... our brothers and sheikhs in Pakistan ... our brothers and sheikhs in blessed Yemen ... our brothers and sheikhs in usurped Palestine, and other places where our brothers are doing jihad in the Cause of Allah."
Shekau warns "Britain, America, Israel, and Nigeria" that the killing of jihadist leaders and imams will not defeat the groups. He also refers to some of al Qaeda's top leaders who were killed over the past two decades, and notes that "jihad" did not end with their deaths.
"Don't think that jihad stops with the death of imams, because imams are individuals," Shekau says.
"Don't you see and think how many sheikhs and men were martyred, like Sheikh Abdullah Azzam [the co-founder of al Qaeda], Abu Musab al Zarqawi [the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq], Abu Omar al Baghdadi [the emir of al Qaeda's Islamic State of Iraq], Osama bin Laden, Abu Yahya al Libi [a top al Qaeda leader], Abu Yusuf Muhammad bin Yusuf al Nigiri [the former emir of Boko Haram], and others ...."
Shekau says that Boko Haram is "with our mujahideen brothers" in the major theaters of jihad in their fight against "the Jews and the Crusader Christians."
"We are with our mujahideen brothers in the Cause of Allah everywhere, in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Pakistan, Kashmir, Iraq, the Peninsula of Muhammad [Saudi Arabia], Allah's peace and prayer be upon him, Yemen, Somalia, Algeria, and other places that I didn't mention," Shakau says.
Shekau's videotape is very similar to tapes issued by Shabaab in 2008, when the Somali terror group was making overtures to openly join al Qaeda. Shabaab officially joined al Qaeda in February 2012, but the two groups had already worked closely for years, and al Qaeda leaders served in Shabaab's top leadership circles prior to the merger.
Read more: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2012/11/boko_haram_emir_prai.php#ixzz2DnsAUDWo
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