Al Jazeera TV channel disseminated on December 20, 2006, extracts from a video recorded message of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the No. 2 to Osama bin Laden in Al Qaeda. The message is titled "The Realities of the Conflict Between Islam and Unbelief." The message is purported to have been produced by As-Sahab, the media unit of Al Qaeda. The previous message of Zawahiri, who has been more communicative than bin Laden, was disseminated on September29, 2006.
Though the unedited (by Al Jazeera) message does not say so, it reads like a year-end review of the state of global jihad by Zawahiri. Its special focus is on the situation in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon, but it also touches upon other areas such as Somalia, Sudan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Algeria etc. It touches upon a number of recent events such as the raid on a madrasa in the Bajaur agency of Pakistan on October30, 2006, the US Congressional elections of November 5, 2006, and the recent talk of a fresh election in the Palestinian territory. It would seem that the message must have been recorded sometime inDecember, 2006.
From the point of view of India, a significant aspect is the absence of any critical reference to the Hindus and Hinduism and to India's relations with the US. Past comments in Al Qaeda propaganda that the global jihad is directed against the joint anti-Islam conspiracy of Christianity, Judaism and Hinduism do not find repetition. When it talks of the on-going global jihad against what it describes as the Crusaders and the Jewish people, it refers to onlyPalestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Chechnya and Somalia. It does not seem to project the on-going jihadi militancy in India, Southern Philippines, Indonesia and Southern Thailand as part of the global jihad against the Crusaders and the Jewish people. It seems to look upon them as purely local jihadi phenomena unconnected with what it projects as the global crusade against Islam and theUmmah.
It cautions against any tendency on the part of the Muslims to regard what has been going on in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Chechnya and Somalia as separate conflicts unconnected with each other. It projects them as intrinsic parts of the global Crusade against Islam and, therefore, stresses the need for the Muslims all over the world to join hands to defeat this Crusade. It stresses the importance of the armed as well as the unarmed components of the jihad against the so-called Crusaders and Zionists. While talking of the unarmed components of the jihad, it says: