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| This image taken from a video issued by as-Sahab, al-Qaida's media branch, on April 5, 2022, shows Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri speaking. (as-Sahab via AP) |
ISLAMABAD - An unusual video has actually appeared of al-Qaida's primary commending an Indian Muslim female who in February resisted a ban on wearing the conventional headscarf, or hijab. The video is the initial evidence in months that the man that was when Osama container Laden's No. 2 is still to life.
Rumors of the fatality of Ayman al-Zawahri have actually persistently flowed, yet in a video clip released Tuesday and also equated by the website Knowledge Group, the reclusive al-Qaida principal commends Muskan Khan who defied a ban on the wearing of the hijab in colleges in India's southwestern state of Karnataka.
Two months ago, Khan garnered attention when she openly shouted "God Is Great" as Hindu radical trainees jeered at her over the Islamic headscarf. In March, the court in India's Karnataka state upheld the ban, outraging civil protestors and Muslim groups in India and also elsewhere.
A previous video of al-Zawahri, which circulated on the anniversary last year of 9/11, did not reference the Taliban requisition of Afghanistan in mid-August. It did discuss the Jan. 1, 2021 assault that targeted Russian troops on the edge of the northern Syrian city of Raqqa.
" He could still be dead, though if so, it would have been at some point in or after Jan 2021," SITE supervisor Rita Katz tweeted following al-Zawahri's 9/11 anniversary video clip.
There was no clear sign from Tuesday's video clip of the area of al-Zawahri. He is displayed in a standard white headscarf beside a poster praising "the noble lady of India."
Nonetheless, it increases the specter of al-Qaida having an existence in Afghanistan, and also highlights concerns over the dedication of the judgment Taliban to eliminate horror teams and reject them room in Afghanistan.
Al-Zawahri took control of as al-Qaida leader after the 2011 killing of container Laden by united state Navy SEALs during a bold nighttime raid deep inside Pakistan where he was hiding. Bin Laden, who masterminded the 9/11 strikes in the United States, was discovered in the Pakistani fort community of Abbottabad, hardly 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the capital of Islamabad.
Al-Zawahri has actually been reported to be in Afghanistan's northwestern Kunar as well as Badakhshan provinces on the border with Pakistan. The boundary region in between Pakistan and Afghanistan is lined with inhospitable range of mountains that have worked as redoubts for a variety of militant groups.
Amir Rana, executive director of the Pakistan Institute for Tranquility Studies brain trust stated that al-Zawahri was additionally reported to be in Pakistan's southern port city of Karachi, where many Taliban leaders long kept homes during Afghanistan's 20-year war.
"He was even rumored to have died in Karachi," claimed Rana, including that regardless of his location, al-Zawahri's video clip is specific to cause headaches for Afghanistan's judgment Taliban with the international neighborhood.
The Taliban were ousted by a U.S.-led coalition in 2001 for harboring container Laden. They captured power again in mid-August, during the disorderly last weeks of the U.S. and NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The Taliban claim they are adhering to an arrangement they authorized with the USA in 2020-- prior to taking power-- in which they assured to fight terrorists. And because their requisition, they have repetitively said Afghanistan would certainly not be utilized as a launching pad for strikes versus other nations.