This is because the cartoons are the worst thing. The U.S. may have killed Awlaki and bin Laden, and conducted what Ibrahim al-Rubaish probably thinks of as “wars against Islam” in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the U.S. has indeed been weakened in recent years. Weakened to the extent that France is a more formidable military power? No, weakened in the sense that the U.S. mainstream media is already largely submitting to Islamic blasphemy laws (not publishing the Muhammad cartoons — and remember also that the President said, “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam”), while in France they’re still publishing them. For al-Qaeda in Yemen, cartoons of Muhammad are the worst thing. The freedom of speech is the worst thing.
“Qaeda in Yemen says France top enemy,” AFP, January 30, 2015:
Dubai (AFP) – The ideological leader of Yemen-based Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) said Friday that France had surpassed the United States as the top enemy of Islam.
With the “weakening” of the United States in recent years, France has replaced America in the “war on Islam,” Ibrahim al-Rubaish said in an audio message published by AQAP’s media arm on YouTube.
US intelligence agencies consider AQAP to be the most dangerous branch of the jihadist network.
One of the group’s ideologues, Nasser bin Ali al-Ansi, has claimed in a video that AQAP was behind the January 7 attack on French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo that left 12 people dead.
Cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed published by the magazine have angered many Muslims.
Western governments say it remains unclear if AQAP directly orchestrated the attack on the weekly, although they do believe one or both of the attackers, brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi, spent time with jihadists in Yemen.
AQAP was formed in 2009 after a merger between militants in Yemen and Saudi Arabia.
Rubaish on Friday urged attacks on the West, singling out France.
He also called on Muslims to target, “without consulting anyone”, those who mock the Muslim prophet….