On eve of 9/11 anniversary, Al Qaeda threatens more attacks

Days before the 15th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, terror group Al Qaeda has released a video referring to the day as a “slap” to the U.S. and calling on jihadis to carry out more attacks on U.S. soil. Al Qaeda’s media wing Al Sahab released the video online featuring the group’s current leader Ayman Al Zawahiri in a 20-minute address to Al Qaeda loyalists along with archived footage of the group’s former leader Osama Bin Laden. "As long as your crimes continue, the events of 9/11 will be repeated thousands of times, by the will of Allah. And we will follow you – if you don't cease your aggression [against us] – until the Day of Judgment..., " he says. Referring to the events of 9/11 as the “blessed raids,” Zawahiri boasts at both the economic and human toll the attacks had on the U.S. which are still felt by Americans today. The fourth hijacked plane, United Flight 93, he reminds viewers, was headed towards "the biggest criminals in the White House or the Congress." The video also includes an appeal to African American non-Muslims, inviting them to convert to Islam to seek salvation with footage from a sermon from late African-American leader Malcolm X. Addressing recent racial tensions involving black Americans, Zawahiri urges them to levy blame for their struggle on the U.S., telling them “the law is in the hands of the white majority, [who] control it as they wish,” according to a video translation issued by the Middle East Media Research Institute. "We inform every weakened [person] in the world: America is the source of calamity and the head of evil in this world, and it is the thief of nations' ailment, and it is the one who humiliate the Africans [i.e. African Americans] until this day, and no matter how much they try to reform and obtain their rights according to the law and the [U.S.] constitution, they will not attain it, for the law is in the hands of the white majority, [who] control it as they wish. And they [i.e. African Americans] will not be saved but by Islam," Zawahiri says. He urges Muslims around the world to rebel against their leaders and to strengthen their attacks on the U.S., arguing that with the fall of the U.S. many of her allies will fall too. Referencing other radical Islamic groups that have arisen in the aftermath of the much-to-be-desired Arab Spring, Zawahiri urges allegiance to the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (Taliban), while mocking rival groups as agents of the U.S., calling them “sheep,” while urging true followers of Al Qaeda to act like lions. In what appears to be a reference to ISIS’ more heavy-handed tactics, Zawahiri attempts to present Al Qaeda as the softer approach to an Islamic Caliphate.