Al-Qaeda’s number two also tries to portray himself as an “altruistic” defender of Pakistan and its people (and their “charming” language). Still, that Zawahiri is bent on inciting Pakistanis against Musharraf implies that the latter is doing something right? Or is this some sort of grand taqiyya of “reverse psychology” proportions? One never knows. “Qaeda’s Zawahiri slams Musharraf as ‘enemy of Islam’,” from AFP, August 16:
DUBAI (AFP) “” Al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri slammed Pakistan’s embattled President Pervez Musharraf as an enemy of Islam, in a first audio message in English posted online on Saturday.
In the message, excerpts of which were aired by Pakistan’s ARY One television last week, Zawahiri also dismissed the Pakistani army as a “band of mercenaries” controlled by the US administration.
“Pervez (Musharraf) has proven himself to be one of the biggest enemies of Islam, if the not the biggest,” Zawahiri said in the purported message, which was posted on a website usually used by Islamist militant groups.
He chided Musharraf for offering “all support to topple the Muslim emirate in Afghanistan,” referring to the US-led war which defeated the Taliban regime in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
“Is the Pakistan Army an army defending Muslims, or merely a security service agency or a band of mercenaries which kills Muslims … to please its masters, the neo-crusaders in the White House,” he said, in an apparent attempt to incite Muslim Pakistanis against the army.
“It is evident that during the past years, the Pakistan army’s primary duty has been to take part in the killing of Muslims from Kabul to Islamabad,” he charged.
He said that the army “assault” on the Red Mosque in Islamabad, in July 2007, “exposed the ugly anti-Islamic face of the military leadership of Pakistan.”
Egyptian-born Zawahiri said he chose to speak in English against his wish in order to address the people of Pakistan in a language they can understand, saying he would have spoken in Urdu had he mastered the “charming” language.
Ah, finally dawned on the doc that English is an extremely infidel tongue.
Zawahiri, a physician, also said that he went to Pakistan first in 1980, to help treat the Mujahedeen (holy warriors) wounded in the war in Afghanistan against the Russians.
He was forced to leave in the early 1990s due to American pressure, Zawahiri said.
“I stayed no more than six years in Pakistan, mostly in Peshawar,” he said.
“All of us have enjoyed the warm welcome and the caring attention of most Pakistanis, which has been most evident during the past crusade being carried out by Pervez and his hunting dogs, in compliance with orders of their master in Washington,” he said.
Musharraf, a staunch ally of the United States in its “war on terror”, is facing immense pressure to step down as the government prepares to file impeachment charges against him next week.
The fugitive Zawahiri was briefly rumoured to have died in a July 28 missile strike in Pakistan, but US intelligence and Pakistan’s Taliban movement subsequently denied the reports.