Attacks on Zionist, Western interests legitimate: American Qaeda member

DUBAI (AFP) - An American member of Al-Qaeda urged mujahideen to attack Zionist and Western interests worldwide, in a new videotape posted online on Saturday. The Zio-Crusader interests everywhere are legitimate targets for us, said Adam Gadahn, who is also known as Azzam the American, in a tape provided by the US-based SITE Intelligence Group. By striking them, we aggravate the enemys wounds, bleed its crumbling economy, and reduce the load on our brothers the mujahideen (holy warriors), said Gadahn who spoke in Arabic for the first time, in the message titled Lets Continue Our Jihad and Sacrifice and addressed to the Palestinians. To describe the targeting of these interests outside Palestine as illegitimate is a mistake that cannot be accepted by a reasonable Muslim, said bearded Gadahn, who is listed among the most wanted by the United States, with a reward of up to one million dollars for information leading to his capture. In October 2006, he became the first person to be charged in the US with treason since the World War II era. The charge carries a minimum of five years in prison on conviction and a maximum penalty of death. Gadahn has appeared in several videotapes for Al-Qaeda since 2004, praising the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington and threatening new onslaughts. He was born in 1978 in southern California, the son of a 1960s Jewish rock musician who later converted to Christianity and became a rural goat farmer. His conversion to Islam came after he attended the Islamic Centre of Orange County, California, where he is believed to have come under the influence of two foreign-born mujahideen. Gadahn is believed to have left California for Karachi in 1998 and gradually lost contact with relatives in the US.

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