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Intelcenter / AFP - Getty Images file
Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri speaks in a video released by al-Qaida's media arm as-Sahab on March 16.
Editor's note: A correction had been made to this article. Click here to view it:
Fugitive al-Qaida leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri has released a new audio message about Yemen at a time of escalating fighting in the country that one Yemeni official on Tuesday described as "all-out war."
The release of the audio comes just two days after White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan visited the Yemeni capital of Sanaa to meet with its new president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, to discuss ramping up the battle against al-Qaida affiliated militants who now control large swaths of the country's southern region.
While there is still no public translation of the new Zawahiri audio message, a U.S. government official familiar with the contents tells NBC News it was clearly recorded before the news broke last week about a foiled plot to blow up a U.S. airliner with more-sophisticated underwear bomb.
The message discusses the transition from exiled former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh to Hadi, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Watch world news videos on msnbc.com
NBC News terror analyst Evan Kohlmann notes that there is typically a two- to three-week lapse between the events described in Zawahiri’s messages and their public release. (Kohlmann's Flashpoint Intel service is working to translate the message, but he gives the title as, "Yemen: Between a Fugitive Puppet and a Collaborating Stooge," apparent references to Saleh and Hadi.)
Read more reporting by Michael Isikoff in the 'Isikoff Files'
Over the past week and a half, Yemeni forces -- backed by U.S. military trainers and drone strikes -- have dramatically escalated their attacks on al-Qaida militants in the south.
A Yemen government official estimated as many as 20,000 troops were now involved in the battle, supported by approximately 50 to 60 U.S. trainers.
"We have begun to reintroduce small numbers of trainers into Yemen," a Pentagon spokesman, a Navy Capt. John Kirby, told reporters this week.
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Leave a Comment:
Hit them hard, kill them all. Do not stop until they are all deader than hell. Smoke those turkeys like its Thankgiving morning, that is what they want and that is what they will get. Fish food or fertilizer, it is our choice not theirs!
I can't wait for the day when this P.O.S. joins his pal Osama in hell.
You'll never get to the end, the line-up is endless. Sorry guys.
I figure it's probably never occurred to you that we may be creating more enemies then we kill?
No Alias Adam
You may be right but we'll never know unless we try, will we. If we don't hunt these animals down and kill them, I guarantee they will continue to do everything they can to kill us.
Fugitive al-Qaida leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri has released a new audio message about Yemen at a time of escalating fighting in the north African country that one Yemeni official on Tuesday described as "all-out war."
Um, MSNBC - since when is Yemen in "North Africa"? It's the southernmost country on the Arabian Peninsula!
Keep on yapping Ayman. It just makes it easier for use to drone you out. Look up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! Oh sh!t! BOOM!!!!!!
Ayman should have been executed for the assassination of Sadat. Mubarak gave him a get out of jail card.
Now he is just an impotent doctor living in a cave issuing fatwas about underwear bombers and kidnapping 70 year old relief workers (Weinstein)
Ayman, you are useless and already dead.
Zawahiri wants to perform harakiri on himself - that's the message.
Mmmm..
zawahiri
harakiri
then BBQ
It almost seems like Zawahiri is trying to assert his authority. Al Qaida is on shaky ground. If they end up getting trounced in Yemen, which sounds like a distinct possibility, they are getting close to the end.
No doubt when Zawahiri is dead, there will be some Ahmed John Doe who steps in to take his place, but it will be meaningless. Zawahiri is the last of their symbolic leaders. You may get some crazies to blow themselves up and claim Al Qaida as responsible, but it will just be a rag tag group of disconnected, loosely associated malcontents with no following, using the Al Qaida brand name. They are all but defeated and when the handful of players left in Yemen get decimated, they are done. Al Qaida has lost any credibility it has with the Muslim people. They kill far more of their brethren than they do Westerners. There message is falling on deaf ears for the most part. You can be sure that one of the reasons for such great success with drone attacks is from these guys getting ratted out.
Why Obama was so enthused about this "arab spring". Look at the results. What did he want to happen?
Fountainheads of these Sunni Islamic militants like al-Qaida, Taliban and other name plate organizations like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are hit hard, there will no changes.
More will come on the scene!
Jonathan,
You are correct in that countries like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan breed a lot of these militant terrorist types, but it is coming from the masses rather than from their governments. In fact, these organizations are serious threats to their governments too. Don't forget that Al Qaida's roots were in an uprising against the Saudi Royals. Pakistan gets a bit more complicated because early on, the Pakistani government backed some of its militants in regard to their roles against India's interests and the long disputed Kashmir region. (don't forget too that at one time Bin Laden was working for the CIA)
We can critcize their governments for not cracking down hard enough against these militants, but then you have to put yourself in their shoes. Do we really expect them to hunt down, round up and kill significant portions of their populations? It isn't so easy to make value judgements about how they try to manage a very difficult situation. Look at Syria, the Syrian government is doing exactly that. Hunting down, rounding up and killing those who they see as a threat to their government. And they are getting a lot of international heat for it. It isn't always so easy to determine who the bad guys are. We criticize Syria for killing its own people, but that's what we are asking Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to do.
We tend to value someone elses movement based upon how it affects us and that is logical, but it isn't alway completely accurate either. No doubt Al Qaida are some brutal killers who kill more of their own people than us. I'm personally fine with our approach toward Al Qaida, but you have to consider how this plays in the region. Yemen can use the excuse that these are "foreign troublemakers" on their soil. But when you get into the details, how many are foreign and how many are local citizens supporting the movement? How do you deal with "traitors" in your midst? It isn't so easy. Seems like the best approach is to crush the organized movement without necessarily resorting to wholesale slaughter of people that don't agree with you. If you take out the leadership, eventually these movements die away or become an ineffective nuisance. That may be the best we can hope for.
Drones rock !!! finally a means to accurately and forcefully strike the enemy without endangering our troops !
Yeah, go drones.....no "boots on the ground".
Wait a minute.....is this "war" going to be the responsibility of Mr. Obama since U.S. "trainers boots" are on the "ground" and U.S. drones are being used for strikes ? NAH, someone else will be blamed.
60 trainers vs. 260,000 on the ground. I'll take 60. Or would you rather wait until they grow in force requiring hundreds of thousands?
It's a good thing you guys are well versed in this drone warfare. I'd worry that innocent people were being mistakenly incinerated. I would worry that the rules of engagement for the use of drones is becoming very, very lax and will only result in further destruction of innocent people. But you guys love them so you must be sure of their precision, right?
Adam, what would you suggest? The targets for these drones are members of an organized terrorist group responsible for violence and death in numerous countries. Accidental deaths are bound to occur. It's sad.
The Obama administration has worked to soften the rules for when drone strikes can be used. They no longer need to confirm the persons identity and if they suspect a person of "suspicious behaviour" a drone can be used. I would say those are pretty lax rules and it creates a dangerous environment where innocent people can be targeted, without due process and in some cases the punishment (death by reaper) outweighs the crime. Say a family member is associated with AQ in Yemen and they stay at their relatives place. That relative is now a target for death. Doesn't that seem to be a bit of an overreach?
Nope
So when AQ targets our financial infrastructure and kills innocent people who work there. That's fine, that's not over-reach, right Gerald?
It's barely worth trying, Adam. Many of the monsters who comment on these stories don't believe that such a thing as an innocent Muslim exists. If they so much as acknowledge a concern for killing innocent people, it is immediately followed with "IT'S WAR! TOO BAD!" They are completely incapable of grasping the notion that "terrorists" are not a static group that we can kill one by one; because they believe that Muslims are subhuman animals, they find it impossible to get their head around the idea that a peaceful person or a militant who was focused on completely domestic issues could ever become a terrorist when we kill innocent members of their family.
It seems like we are only presented with two options. Either we:
A. Try to kill the bad guys and maybe (probably) hurt some innocent civilians.
of
B. Sit back and wait for them to kill some innocent civilians over here.
If nobody can offer a better option, I'm inclined to choose option A. I feel bad that ANY innocent person has to die but, as heartless as it sounds, I'd rather it be them than us.
It is clash of religions (Muslims vs non-Muslims).
Drones could not rock much in Iraq and they are not rocking no where in Afghanistan.
Eliminate the roots!
The world is now a free-fire zone. So what happens when the enemy gets drones? Not if; when...
Adam
People die in war. Innocent people die in war. Compared to other wars this one is pretty clean. To bad al-Qaida isn't a country with uniformed soldiers. It's just a club with a lot of club houses. Don't want women and children killed, keep them out of the club house.
Adam - WHen you walk into a rooom do you immmediately try to act like the dopiest person in the room?If not, then how does equating U.S. policies with Al Qaeda make sense?
I have no idea what you're accusing me of. Saying that killing innocent people while trying to reach an objective is offensive no matter which side is doing the killing? That if we're going to be using drones we need to have the most stringent rules of engagement? I don't know why you think that's dopey. Please elaborate.
@ RC, did you not get what I was inferring in 2.7? We had innocent people who worked at the financial heart of America and they were not sparred. It was horrendous. They were collateral damage to our enemy and it was unjustifiable. Yet, here we are, you are justifying collateral damage. Albeit, this collateral damage is not heaped upon our side...so somehow now collateral damage is fine by you? Hypocrite.
Adam,
Those people weren't collateral damage to our enemies. They were our enemies targets, that's the difference.
Oh so semantics changes the whole thing does it? The WTC was targeted not because there were Americans inside. If AQ wanted to simply kill Americans a sporting event would have provided a higher body count. The WTC was the target because of it's placement both geographically and economically (it was called the World Trade Centre). Pretty good representation of their grievances against the Wests' economic subjugation and exploitation of the world. They were targeted because they were the tallest buildings in the New York's skyline (pretty dramatic). There were innocent people there. People who had nothing to do with army bases on Arabic soil, people who had never supported autocratic rulers across the Middle East, but still they were killed. It is the same damn thing
They chose a non-combat related target. If they had crashed the plane into a military base, I might agree with you. But they chose an office building, and I doubt a sports arena would have resulted in a higher bodycount.
We target people we believe are targeting us. Our information and aim aren't always perfect but that doesn't mean we should stop.
If you have a better suggestion for protecting ourselves from people who want to harm us, I'm all ears.
These guys are just outlaws, but the world does not need them captured alive - blown to smithereens or reduced to crispy-critters is entirely appropriate. Even better, put 'em through a cement kiln and use THAT cement for the top-most concrete pours on the new World Trade Center.
Ayman Al-Zawahiri The question is which moonless night does he die on?
Al-Zawahiri is more than a few weeks out of date. He's more than a few centuries out of date. He's more than a thousand years out of date. Look at his picture. Doesn't he bear a close resemblance to every old crackpot you see proselytizing the end of the world, no matter what denomination, Christian, Jew, or Muslim, Eastern, Middle Eastern, or Western? Makes you wonder if someone is raiding the senior citizen's center for "a face" to promote crackpot theologies, and only one or two old guys are showing up for the paycheck. Doesn't say much for the younger people who consider this guy a leader, now does it?
Warning Americans! My underwear will frighten you and punish you unjustly.
TFNJ.......
I hope you don't use an airlines to go on your next vacation trip. This is a REAL threat, and not only to Americans, if you haven't noticed.
Yes, your underwear frightens us, but only because of the Dark Matter you skid on it...
Why, do you wear a speedo?
"I hope you don't use an airlines to go on your next vacation trip. This is a REAL threat, and not only to Americans, if you haven't noticed."
Odds of dying from...
Accidental poisoning: 1 in 193
hospital infections: 1 in 37
a stroke: 1 in 23
cancer: 1 in 7
heart disease: 1 in 5
a terrorist attack on an airliner: 1 in 25,000,000
No, speedos do not hold enough dark material required for total mayhem. Beware the dark rolls of terror
Now it is too much to listen to this fabrications of American Al-Qaida Drama! Is there any WTC remained to be blown up in order to bring the sunking economy of USA and The West from its crises?...! The more sanction is put on Iran the more destruction to Terrorist USA and The West will fall in prey. Stop this rumours and come to the fact table of TRUTH. Zionism is already drown down to the bottom and so will be the Allies. Bye bye liars pants on fire......lolllz
haskes......
You may want to take a short trip to Iran or Pakistan. They are waiting for your return.
I'm shaking..... The Iranian people will get fed up and remove all those idiots. They want to live a normal life as much as anyone.
Haskes - I am so impressed with your prose and command of the language, your message makes no sense whatsoever, please return to Puke-istan immediately
Wow, over 30 years after the Iranian Revolution, and punks are still predicting the fall of the United States? That is, if they get some down time from bullying girls who let their hijab slip back to reveal their hairline? How's living without any dating pretty girls working for ya, Haskes? Have fun playing your music really low so that the mullahs don't arrest you while you wait for that nonevent.
Fugitive al-Qaida leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri has released a new audio message about Yemen at a time of escalating fighting in the north African country that one Yemeni official on Tuesday described as "all-out war."
North Africa?????? Are we talking about Yemen? On the Arabian Peninsula? How can we get the foreign policy correct when we can't even locate the geography. We are a continent away from the correct answer here.
So - where in Pakistan is Ayman Al-Zawahiri? I wonder if the Pakistani Intelligence has stopped helping him yet. Yup - that ally is soooooo good. We do know that Iran is not helping the terrorists, since they had captured and tortured one of the Iranian embassador in Pakistan (the one sent to negotiate with them). How stupid are they - that they kidnap the person sent to negotiate with them and give them aid.
Fugitive al-Qaida leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri, were comming after you.
We can't spell "we're" or "coming," but we're gonna get you!
This writer should buy himself an ATLAS... Yemen is not in North Africa. Yemen is part of the Middle East but, is on a different continent than Africa. What a stupid mistake.
This idiot again.......
In what way is Yemen in North Africa?
"has released a new audio message about Yemen at a time of escalating fighting in the north African country"
Uh...Yemen isn't in North Africa. Amazing that an MSNBC writer doesn't know that and that none of the other idiots commenting on this post didn't mention it.
Drones? Why do we send drones to kill US citizens in Yemen without a trial? I guess you all trust the government with the power of life and death, but the founding fathers didn't and me and my 2nd Amendment rights don't either.
That was the first thing that I noticed as well. Yemen is not a part of Africa, it is a part of Asia!
Because Al Qaida declared war on us and attacked us repeatedly, and we've responded. War does tend to involve death and destruction, and rarely allows time for a trial. As for that "US citizen", he was a traitor, fighting against us in a time of war and responsible for attacks on our people, and the punishment for war treason is death. Sure, it would have been better to have a formal trial, but we don't always get what we want, and at least we got to carry out the proper punishment.
Actually, our founding fathers DID trust the Government with the power of life and death, that's why the Constitution and 2nd amendment provides for the establishment and maintenance of armies and armed militia. In case you didn't realize it, well-regulated militia are part of the Government, too.
Sorry, but you can't out-gun the Government, as no matter how many guns you buy, the Government still has a much bigger and more powerful arsenal and a much bigger police force and army. That's a GOOD thing. Imagine, if you could out-gun the Government, then so could almost any criminal gang, which would lead to rule by said criminal gang - not a good thing.
Oh woopdie-do!! Another video from this coward- who gives a @!$%# what he says. Send in the SEALs and take these bastards out once and for all!
Since when is Yemen a north African country?
Maybe we will send our regards of his new position scribbled on the nose cone of a cruise missle.
Just a matter of time before this rat gets to hold hands with Bin Laden once again.
wouldnt you love to be hanging around al-Zawahiri's house? Everytime you slam a drawer, blow up a balloon and pop it - the guy has to be TOTALLY jumpy with the drone situation the US and A has going these days.
Ayman al-Zawahiri is now talking about North Africa on audio to Yemen? I’ve heard that Yemen is in a problem with al-Qaida before with them gaining control on areas, mainly a city. I’m glad to hear that we are there and it seems to be for training people to help fight the al-Qaida. I thought we were fighting them there personally but I guess not. It does seem to be that Yemen is in jeopardy of losing its self. I’d like to hear what Ayman al-Zawahiri has to say and see him, not all of his video and audio has been released to the public. This looks to be a change in the way we fight al-Qaida, if they are now able to say they are a defined area or country then that’s in our favor to a point. These areas will most likely not contain a real leader though at this point. We should ruin these groupings of al-Qaida takeover’s rate away because it will spread and make it to difficult. If parts of the Middle East and around want to be more untied or together then that is ok but most of the world does not like al-Qaida and we all should fight these types of takeovers rate away before they spread. I think of Israel and how they play into what Zawahiri said, they are a target at the moment and have poor relations with there neighboring countries.
Yemen - North African country??? Does anyone edit these articles for accuracy?
Ayman al-Zawahiri thanks for your current position. The seals are on their way........
Hey , Just ask our friends the Saudis where he is at, I am sure they know, Just like they knew exactly where Bin Ladin was , But we do not want to hurt their feelings, After all they are our friends, Hell we should invade Saudis before we invaded Iraq , Bush had his eyes somewhere else, Now the SAUDIS and ALQAEDA wants us to attack Syria , Because that is the only country that protect Christians and they do not bow to these thugs , the rich oil countries, And what so bad is , We are helping them to defeat Assad , Assad only fault , He does not care too much for Israel , Our loved friend, the that does not do no wrong , Well people , you better wake up and stop these crooked politicians we have , they are helping ALQAEDA in Syria , and trust me , If they win , Israel not going to be any safer , our Intel. already admitted that Assad even though he has chemical weapons , He never used them or threatened to, But if these rebel thugs win in Syria , its going to be hell to pay , they are bunch of murderers , they murder Christians and kicked out of their cities, and what the Europeans and us do , well hell ya, More sanctions against the Syrian gov, Would somebody explain to me , We need to know how much our politicians getting paid for this , and do we need to remind them of 9/11, or they just forgot, or they are going after the wrong countries.
I guess MSNBC still doesn't believe in proofreaders.
It's not proofreaders that concerns me - he probably relied on spellcheck and that only recognizes mispelling and grammar. However, that does not include an Atlas Map Check or he could have even Googled it!
As a failsafe method, the Editor (at least any editor worthy of that title) is supposed to verify accuracy in any story prior to publication. Also, geography seems to be a lost art to many people now, according to some "unscientific" polls.
I wish his message came with a return address...
Just want to echo how the opening sentence stating Yemen is in Africa destroys credibility. Journalist students should be required to take a course in geography before being set loose in the media.