Senior al-Qaida leader gives interview (Geo exclusive)

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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By MUNIR AHMAD, Associated Press Writer Tue Jul 22, 4:20 AM ET

                                                ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A senior al-Qaida leader has urged Pakistanis to help Afghans fight U.S.-led coalition forces and condemned President Pervez Musharraf for arresting Arab and Afghan fighters and handing them over to Washington.

In a rare on-camera interview given to Pakistan’s Geo TV and broadcast late Monday, Mustafa Abu al-Yazeed reiterated al-Qaida’s claim of responsibility for the June 2 suicide car bombing on the Danish embassy in Islamabad that killed six people.

Al-Yazeed, an al-Qaida commander in Afghanistan, praised Pakistani tribesmen for helping Afghans fight — a reference to the Taliban-led insurgency in the country — but lashed out at the Pakistan government.

“Pervez Musharraf and his government has committed crimes for which there are no examples in the entire world,” he said.

Al-Yazeed said that secret organizations — an apparent reference to Pakistani spy agencies — had “arrested Arab mujahedeen and handed them over to infidel Americans.”

“This is such an ugly spot on Pakistan’s history which cannot be forgotten until doomsday,” he said. {You yourself are such an ugly history of Islam, actually I shouldn’t say history of Islam as you aren’t Muslim to begin with}

Geo TV said the interview was conducted a few days ago in the eastern Afghan province of Khost. The footage shows al-Yazeed wearing a white turban, black-rimmed glasses and brown jacket. It is filmed against a canvas backdrop with a rifle lying to his right side. He spoke Arabic during the interview, which was dubbed into Urdu for local audiences.

Al-Yazeed has previously made video statements distributed through al-Qaida’s media arm, al-Sahab, but such an interview of an al-Qaida leader with a television network is rare.

Musharraf made Pakistan a key ally of the United States in its war on terror and rounded up hundreds of al-Qaida militants after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The former army strongman has been sidelined since elections earlier this year, but Pakistan remains a Washington ally although it is facing growing criticism for failing to halt the infiltration of militants from its tribal regions into Afghanistan. Concern is also growing that al-Qaida leaders enjoy sanctuary in the tribal regions, including in Waziristan, which lies opposite Khost.

Al-Yazeed said the Islamabad embassy attack was launched in response to the publication of cartoons of Islam’s prophet. The cartoons were originally published in Danish newspapers.

He said the man who carried out the attack was from the “holy land” of Mecca who had come to fight jihad in Afghanistan or Kashmir.

“But when infidels insulted the prophet, peace be upon him, he could not tolerate to live further with humiliation and said death is dearer to me in the way of God,” he said.

Al-Yazeed first claimed al-Qaida’s responsibility for the attack in an Internet posting soon after the bombing.

In the interview, he called for more Pakistanis to fight in Afghanistan — where U.S. and NATO forces back the elected government that succeeded the hard-line Taliban regime ousted in 2001.

“Thanks be to God” that Muslims from Pakistan’s tribal regions are continuing to help Afghans, he said.

“In fact it is obligatory for them to render this help and is a responsibility that is imposed by religion. It is not only obligatory for residents of the tribal regions but all of Pakistan,” he said.

Senior al-Qaida leader gives interview - Yahoo! News
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What a load of crap. Many angles in the article. Media/journalists can find al-Qaida “senior” leadership but armies, intelligence missions can only find “reportable items” on Mars. AlQaida keeps trumpeting same old “Islam, Prophet” mantra, cartoons were published months ago and they carry out attack on Danish embassy now and say it was for that, please fool someone else, agenda is getting clearer only.

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You forgot to add the part where he claims responsibility for 9/11 attacks and the embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya. The majority of gullible Pakistanis continue to beleive 9/11 was done by Jews. We as a nation do love conspiracy theories.

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I don't see it in the article, is it mentioned somewhere or was it part of video interview?

Pakistan Vs Bangladesh Asia Cup 2012 Final 22 March 2012
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I have not seen the video. Here is The News report about the interview.

" Al-Qaeda commander claims responsibility for 9/11 attacks

Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Accuses Pakistan of inflicting more damage on his organisation; Mustafa says al-Qaeda men also attacked Danish embassy in Islamabad
KARACHI: Senior al-Qaeda commander Mustafa Abu al-Yazid has claimed in an exclusive interview with Geo News that Pakistan has damaged the terrorist organisation more than any other country.

The operational chief of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan also said that the recent attack on the Danish embassy in Islamabad was conducted by his organisation. He also claimed that al-Qaeda was growing in strength in Afghanistan and would soon occupy the entire country.

He strongly debunked the view that al-Qaeda was actually protecting American interests and said it carried out the 9/11 attacks on the US and that 19 of its supporters launched the devastating attacks. He added that many of his comrades were involved in training the hijackers.

These comments were made in an interview with Najeeb Ahmed that was broadcast on Monday on Geo TV’s Aaj Kamran Khan Kay Saath programme. This was the first detailed interview in five years of a senior al-Qaeda leader.

The 53-year-old Mustafa Abu al-Yazid is also known by the name of Sheikh Saeed. He was born on Dec 17, 1955 in Egypt. In 1981, he was incarcerated for three years in connection with the assassination of the then Egyptian president Anwar Saadat. In 1988, he became a member of al-Qaeda and went to Afghanistan. Later, in 1991, he moved to Sudan where he worked for Osama bin Laden as an accountant. By 1996 he returned to Afghanistan and taken over the responsibility of handling al-Qaeda’s finances.

Mustafa Abu al-Yazid had claimed his organisation’s responsibility for Benazir Bhutto’s assassination in Dec 2007. In his interview, Al-Yazid said the morale of fighters in Afghanistan is very high and they are putting up a tough fight against US troops. He said the resistance is gathering momentum and has become unstoppable. Listing the attacks launched by al-Qaeda, he took credit for the attacks on US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. He said the Karzai government would meet the same fate as other ‘traitors’. There is no government that supports al-Qaeda as the rulers have sold their faith and by doing so they have put themselves beyond the pale of Islam.

In his view, the government that has damaged the Mujahideen the most is Pakistan’s. Pervez Musharraf first inflicted suffering on the Mujahideen of the neighbouring country. He claimed that it was because of the sacrifices of the Mujahideen that Russia was unable to enter Pakistan. Musharraf’s men arrested and subjected them to violence and handed them over to the Americans. What is a bigger example of collaboration with the infidels than this? This is a crime that can never be forgotten, he said.

According to him, it was a matter of great honour that his supporters launched an attack on the Danish embassy in Islamabad. He congratulated his comrades for successfully executing this mission. He said they had picked a time to attack when there were no innocent Muslims in the vicinity. In any case, there was strict security around the embassy and it was not possible for ordinary Muslims to come near it.

He said many eminent Islamic scholars have justified the practice of suicide bombing. The official Maulvis parrot those Fatwa that they are told to. He said the aim is to engage in direct combat but in many places it is not possible to reach the enemy. He maintained that it is not legitimate to target mosques in this way. He denied al-Qaeda’s hand in the attack on Aftab Sherpao in a mosque, saying his supporters never target mosques. A statement to this effect was issued to the Pakistani press soon after the attack. He condemned violence near or inside mosques and said defending the sanctity of such places of worship is every Muslim’s duty. He paid tributes to Khalid Sheikh and termed him a fearless person who the Muslim Ummah is proud of. He prayed that God’s curse fall on the government that handed him over to the US.

Reuters adds: The suicide bomber who carried out an attack on the Danish embassy in Islamabad last month came from Makkah, an al-Qaeda leader said in a rare interview with Geo News.

It was unclear, from what Yazid said, whether the embassy bomber was a Saudi, as many non-Saudis have settled in Makkah, or whether he had been recruited while visiting the city. Yazid said the bomber had come to join a Jihad in held Kashmir or Afghanistan, but became enraged by the publication of blasphemous cartoons in Danish newspapers in 2005.

Al-Qaeda commander claims responsibility for 9/11 attacks

BTW, this is not the first time where Al-Qaida has accepted resposibility for 9/11. Last year they claimed the responsibility and even berated Iran for allegedly spreading the story about Jews not going to work in the WTC towers on 9/11. They said that Iran’s motivation was that Al-Qaida does not get “credit” for their work. Still so many people in Pakistan beleive in Jews being responsible for 9/11 and so many deny even the existense of Al-Qaida.

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Re: Senior al-Qaida leader gives interview (Geo exclusive)

really interesting stuff. i wonder where the people are who used to argue that bin laden was innocent of 9/11 attacks.

also he accepts responsibility for BB's death. in this case does this absolve musharraf/zardari/intelligence agencies or are they collaborating with him? He doesnt seem particularly fond of Musharraf or the agencies

hard to know what to make of it.

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That is interesting indeed. Does it mean no more UN investigation needed? Seems like he was "confirming" media reports about almost everything that happened in the past.

9/11: check
Musharraf captured most AlQaidites: check
Danish embassy: check
Benazir murder: check
Aftab Sherpao: unheck

He forgot to add attacks on Mushy though.

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Re: Senior al-Qaida leader gives interview (Geo exclusive)

so is he lying? i dont understand what you mean to suggest the agenda is ehtasab, even though you say its becoming clearer, i havent the foggiest.

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A journalist can go (using whatever connections or may be he was "approached") and make a video of the interview while the hawks, intelligence agencies, the satellites, spies are roaming all over the wrong places to find al-qaida leadership. Strange, isn't it?

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Re: Senior al-Qaida leader gives interview (Geo exclusive)

so if i understand you correctly, AQ is basically CIA or some other american intelligence device?

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Could it be same as how part of ISI is supporting Taliban (underhandedly, atleast thats what many including me and some media reports are accusing ISI/army of, the double game) while the chief is supporting operation against Taliban?

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Re: Senior al-Qaida leader gives interview (Geo exclusive)

merely because ISI is inept at finding them? so is american intelligence, and the dude is based in Afghanistan where CIA would presumably have easier access than ISI.

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This guy is no made up figure for this interview. He has a long history with Al Qaida as described in the following MSNBC report. You are seeing a conspiracy and refusing to believe the words you are hearing.

In a rare move, one of al-Qaida’s highest-ranking leaders has conducted an on-camera interview with a journalist and, in the process, called for the destruction of Pakistan’s government.
It was the first time since 2002 that any top al-Qaida official has taken the security risk of sitting down for an interview with a bonafide journalist.
Abu Mustafa al-Yazid, an Egyptian whom U.S. intelligence officials have identified as the al-Qaeda’s third highest-ranking official, sat for an interview with Najeeb Ahmad, a reporter for Geo TV. Geo TV is a private Pakistani television channel.
In the interview, Yazid, also known as Sheikh Saeed, called for the destruction of Pakistan’s government which he said had “betrayed” the jihadis. Yazid swore that al-Qaida would recapture Afghanistan. And he reiterated al-Qaida’s position that “all Americans, not just the American government” are the enemies of Islam.

http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/TVNews/IMG_0876.standard.jpg

The interview took place in Khost in eastern Afghanistan. Ahmad, the Geo reporter, is the president of the Karachi Press Club and said he used a Palestinian intermediary to arrange the interview. It took three months to arrange and took place a few days ago, Geo said. Ahmad traveled to Peshawar, near the Afghan border, where he was given dark glasses and driven to the interview site, according to Geo who called the interview “a worldwide exclusive”.
Veteran Operative:
Yazid is a veteran al-Qaida operative. He was involved in the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1982, and befriended al-Qaida’s No. 2, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, while in Egypt. Yazid joined the Afghan jihad in 1998, after first linking up with Osama Bin Laden in Sudan.
U.S. officials have said that Yazid rose to his current position within the past year. Prior to that, he had been “chief financial officer and leader of al Qaeda’s finance committee,” said the officials. Some U.S. investigators believe he was the ultimate source of the money wired to Mohammed Atta, ringleader of the 9-11 hijackers, before the September 11th attacks.
Indeed, in the 9-11 Commission report, the authors described Yazid (referred to as Sheikh Saeed) as a “chief financial manager” who opposed the plan to attack the U.S. on 9-11.
“Mullah Omar is reported to have opposed this course of action for ideological reasons rather than out of fear of U.S. retaliation. He is said to have preferred for al Qaeda to attack Jews, not necessarily the United States. KSM [Khalid Sheik Mohammed] contends that Omar faced pressure from the Pakistani government to keep al Qaeda from engaging in operations outside Afghanistan. Al Qaeda’s chief financial manager, Sheikh Saeed, argued that al Qaeda should defer to the Taliban’s wishes. Another source says that Sheikh Saeed opposed the operation, both out of deference to Omar and because he feared the U.S. response to an attack,” according to the 9-11 Commission report.
Yazid succeeded Abu Ubaida al-Masri, who died of hepatitis in Pakistan, about a year ago.
Ben Venzke, an expert on al-Qaida propaganda, says that Yazid is “the most senior person who is publicly visible” in al-Qaida today.
In the recent television interview, Yazid says the government of Pakistan has done the most harm to Islam of any Islamic state. The mujahadeen protected Pakistan from the Soviet Army and then Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf “betrayed us,” he said. Musharraf, he told Geo, had allied himself with “the modern day pharaoh and violated our trust.” He added, as Bin Laden has stated since 1998, that “all Americans are our enemy now not just the American government.”
Yazid swore that al-Qaida will retake Afghanistan, and he and claimed in an interesting bit of bureaucratic rivalry that al-Qaida is not a creation of Bin Laden but has its roots in Egypt. al-Qaida and Egyptian Islamic Jihad merged in June 2001.
Yazid confirmed that al-Qaida was responsible for the June suicide bombing at the Danish Embassy in Islamabad. A Saudi terrorist came from Mecca to “avenge the Prophet” for Danish cartoonists’ “blasphemy,” Yazid said. “We insured there was no collateral damage,” he claimed.
**Rare Interview:
**This is the first interview of an al-Qaida leader since May 2002, when two key figures in the 9-11 attacks, Khalid Sheik Mohammed and Ramzi bin al-Shibh, were questioned by a reporter for the al Jazeera television network. That interview aired months later, on the first anniversary of the 9-11 attacks. (Pakistani forces in Karachi arrested bin al-Shibh in Karachi a day before the interview was broadcast.)
The U.S. has long targeted al-Qaida’s third-highest-ranking officials, because they believe the men who occupy that position are the chief operational officers of the terrorist group. Former CIA Director George Tenet wrote in his book that the No. 3 is al-Qaida’s director of international operations. “In particular, our focus was on the individuals in charge of planning operations against the United States,” Tenet wrote.
**Unlucky Number 3:
**Since 2001, the U.S. has killed or captured five of the terror group’s Number 3s:
–In November 2001, U.S. fighter jets bombed the hideout of Mohammed Atef in Kabul, killing him.
–In February 2002, CIA and Pakistani intelligence officials captured Abu Zubaydah in the Pakistani city of Faisalabad, following a gunfight in which Zubaydah was severely wounded.
–In March 2003, CIA and Pakistani intelligence officers captured Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a house in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
–In May 2005, Pakistan intelligence officers captured Abu Faraj al-Libi as he rode a motorbike through a cemetery in the Pakistani city of Mardan. (Haithem al-Yemeni, a potential successor to al-Libi, was killed by a Predator in Pakistan near the Afghanistan border a week later).
–In December 2005, Hamza Rabia, Abu Faraj’s successor, was killed in a Predator attack in the village of Asorai, in western Pakistan near the town of Mirali.
Today, U.S. officials say that the current No. 3, Yazid, is a target of the U.S. as well.

Al-Qaida senior leader grants rare TV interview - Deep Background - msnbc.com

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Inept for 7 years?

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so CIA and ISI are working together then? is this government level cooperation or intelligence agency level?

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In war against terror, aren't they supposed to be working together (even officially)?

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Re: Senior al-Qaida leader gives interview (Geo exclusive)

the official line as far as i know isnt that we wont capture bin laden!

the problem is, if this is official/government level collusion, then you give far too much credit to the competance/loyalty of US and Pak govt employees. These are inefficient, leaky behemoths, that I find it hard to believe would be able to pull off deception of this magnitude, for this long, involving so many players, so many agencies, involving so many deaths of government employed personnel (on pakistani and US side) for SOME credible evidence coming from a government source being leaked and broadcasted. The likelihood of this grand collusion persisting flawlessly for 7 years is much more remote, IMO.

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Re: Senior al-Qaida leader gives interview (Geo exclusive)

^ just like ISI (atleast allegedly) has been able to pull off the double game of fighting Taliban and supporting them for this long why can't CIA do that?

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Re: Senior al-Qaida leader gives interview (Geo exclusive)

which is why i asked if this was something the governments were in on or just the agencies of half a dozen countries. it is plausible that an intelligence agency wouldnt leak something of this magnitude, but I dont see how the mechanics of what you are suggesting go from vague abstract conspiracy concepts to actualization.

The visit cafe more, post here before anywhere else thread
The visit cafe more, post here before anywhere else thread
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Re: Senior al-Qaida leader gives interview (Geo exclusive)

^ so it would be wrong to blame ISI of double game then?

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Re: Senior al-Qaida leader gives interview (Geo exclusive)

they are either inept, or complicit, and the ineptness of the whole can be because of complicity of individuals. It can be a complicated explanation or a simple one, but it is far from being clear to me like you say it is

however ISI is a shadowy intelligence agency, which like I said, are better at keeping things secret. not so much government/multiple governments/large beuareucratic organizations though.