Al-Zawahiri rejects in principle the steady, slow, step-by-step stealth jihad that the Muslim Brotherhood largely opts for, both in Egypt and in the U.S.
“Al-Qaida leader says Egypt’s Morsi abandoned jihad,” from the Associated Press, August 3:
CAIRO (AP) “” Al-Qaida’s leader is condemning the overthrow of President Mohammed Morsi, but also blaming the ousted Egyptian leader for trying to “satisfy America” by abandoning jihad.
Ayman al-Zawahri spoke in a 15-minute Internet audio message posted late Friday, his second this week.
He says Morsi, toppled in a July 3 coup after millions took to the streets demanding his overthrow, was targeted by a conspiracy of secularists, Coptic Christians, and Egypt’s “Americanized” army for being Islamist.
But he also condemned Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood for having “tried its best to satisfy America and the secularists” by relinquishing “jihad,” usually invoked by al-Qaida to mean armed struggle. Morsi was Egypt’s first freely elected president….