As I was twiddling my thumbs this morning on the forums patiently waiting for AQ proper to weigh in on the most covered news story in the Middle East, I saw a sticky thread about Shaykh Abu Hamza al-Masri offering his thoughts now on the issue by way of Hani al-Sibai’s Al-Maqrizi Center.
Here it is:
Quoted in a New York Times article by John Leland entitled, “Upheaval Puts Militants in the Lurch.”
My quote:
At Muslm.net, a Web site associated with Al Qaeda in Egypt, the call was for foreign youths to come to Egypt to join the jihad.
“Hey, brothers, the fall of Egypt’s tyrant is a fall of the earth’s tyrants,” it urged. “This is the time to slaughter the cow.”
That, one expert said, was about the most they could make of the crisis.
“Like always, Al Qaeda’s online movement is viewing this through consummately opportunist lenses,” said Jarret Brachman, a counterterrorism consultant and author of the book “Global Jihadism,” who monitors jihadi Web sites.
Elsewhere, Web postings urged jihadis in Egypt to attack the Arish-Ashkelon gas pipeline, which goes to Israel. “This is a chance to stop the supply to the Israelites,” urged a writer on the Shumukh al-Islam forum, according to a translation by the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist Web sites.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/03/world/middleeast/03jihad.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
