DUBAI - Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri has pledged allegiance to new Afghan Taliban leader Haibatullah Akhundzada, a low-profile religious figure whose predecessor was killed in a US drone strike.
The pledge comes as Al-Qaeda is facing rivalry from the Islamic State group, which has also made inroads into Afghanistan where the Taliban have been waging a guerrilla war since they were ousted from power in 2001.
Zawahari’s remarks came in a 14-minute audio and video message posted online, the US-based monitor SITE Intelligence Group said on Saturday.
“We pledge allegiance to you on jihad to liberate every inch of the lands of the Muslims that are invaded and stolen, from Kashgar to al-Andalus, from the Caucasus to Somalia and Central Africa, from Kashmir to Jerusalem, from the Philippines to Kabul, and from Bukhara and Samarkand,” it quoted Zawahiri as saying.
He described the new Taliban chief as the “emir of believers” and the “legitimate” head of a Muslim caliphate. “Allah has graced you by establishing the first legitimate emirate after the fall of the Ottoman Caliphate, and in the world there was no other legitimate emirate,” he said.
Zawahiri is staunchly opposed to the IS extremist group which declared in 2014 the creation of a “caliphate” straddling Syria and Iraq.
The group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was renamed Caliph Ibrahim at the same time in an attempt to revive a system of rule that ended nearly 100 years ago with the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and ordered Muslims to obey him in a sermon at a mosque in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.
In Syria, Al-Qaeda is represented by Al-Nusra Front which is allied with other Islamist rebel groups and has been locked in fighting with IS for control of territory in the north and around Damascus.
Last August, Zawahiri made a similar pledge to Mullah Mansour, who took charge of the Taliban the previous month at a time when IS was making inroads into Afghanistan.
His latest message included images of Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, who was killed by US special forces in Pakistan in 2011.
IS FIGHTERS KILL SIX AFGHAN POLICE
Islamic State fighters stormed a police base in eastern Afghanistan Saturday, killing at least six officials in a pre-dawn attack, months after the government claimed to have defeated the group.
The attack in Haska Mina district in Nangarhar, bordering Pakistan, comes a day after three worshippers were killed and 70 others wounded in a bombing inside a mosque during Friday prayers in the restive province.
“The district police chief Shah Mahmood was martyred along with five other policemen” in Saturday’s attack, Ataullah Khogyani, spokesman for Nangarhar’s governor told AFP. “Eleven Daesh fighters were also killed and seven others were wounded,” he added, using the Arabic acronym for the group.
IS fighters are making inroads into Afghanistan, winning over sympathisers, recruiting followers and challenging the Taliban on their own turf, primarily in the country’s east. But in March Afghan President Ashraf Ghani announced that the Islamists had been defeated after local security forces claimed victory in a months-long operation against the group.
The group also intermittently airs propaganda through a mobile radio station, which the government claimed to have destroyed in an air strike in February.
Militant strikes have recently increased in Nangarhar. Those killed during Friday prayers in Nangarhar’s Rodat district included the prayer leader and a child, officials said.
“An attack deliberately targeting civilian members of a community praying together in a mosque can never be justified and highlights the perpetrators’ intent to destroy lives, and spread terror among the civilian population,” the UN said in a statement.
The Taliban, which is in a much stronger position than IS in Afghanistan, distanced itself from the attack and no other group has so far claimed responsibility. American officials said Friday President Barack Obama has ordered the US military to tackle the resurgent Taliban more directly - in tandem with Afghan allies, ratcheting up a 15-year conflict he had vowed to end.