Preparation against jihad threats

 

He was commenting on threats made in a September 3 video by Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri who said the terrorist group had formed a unit to target India, Myanmar and Bangladesh. 

The leader announced the formation of a new wing dedicated to waging jihad in the Indian subcontinent. 

In the 55-minute videotape, al-Zawaheri promises that al-Qaeda will now expand its operations throughout the region: “Our brothers in Burma, Kashmir, Islamabad, Bangladesh”, he says, “we did not forget you in AQ and will liberate you form injustice and oppression”. The new branch, he says is in particular “a message that we did not forget you, our Muslim brothers in India”. He said al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, or AQIS, “break all borders created by Britain in India”, and called on all Muslims in the region to “unite under the credo of the one god”. 

Al-Qaeda’s remaining leaders are believed to be hiding in remote areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Most have been killed or captured by the United States military since it attained global prominence with its attacks on the World Trade Centre’s twin towers in New York City on September 9, 2011. The terrorist attack triggered an invasion of Afghanistan and the subsequent decimation of al-Qaeda. 

Zawahiri’s call for radical Muslims to exploit unrest Kashmir and Myanmar has widely been regarded by terrorism experts as an attempt to revive al-Qaeda, which has been eclipsed recently by terrorist groups attempting to create a medieval Islamic state in Syria and Iraq. 

He urged all Islamic states unite to attack their perceived enemies, who he also described as “infidels”. He called for an Islamic state that would cover the entire Indian subcontinent. Zawahiri said the new unit is under the leadership of the Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar and Pakistani militant Asim Umar. 

"This entity was not established today but is the fruit of a blessed effort of more than two years to gather the mujahideen in the Indian subcontinent into a single entity," he said in the video, according to a translation that has been reported widely.

Al-Qaeda was founded by Osama bin Laden during the former Soviet Union’s occupation of Afghanistan. Its aim was to drive the Russians from the country and turn it into a medieval Islamic state, where Sharia law could be rigidly enforced. Bin Laden later turned his attention to the United States and began bombing its embassies in Africa before the attack on September 11. He was killed in Pakistan almost a decade later, in May 2011. Other top leaders have either been captured or killed by the US military. 

The official at the President’s Office said Myanmar was cooperating closely with India and other neigbours to monitor the activities of terrorist groups and that this cooperation extended to counter-terrorism groups around the globe. He said global cooperation was necessary to minimise the threat posed by terrorist groups.