Al-Qaeda has released a video showing a young man asking for forgiveness from family, friends and teachers before he purportedly carries out a suicide car bombing against foreign troops in Afghanistan.
The video also carries comments from Ayman al-Zawahri, al-Qaeda's No. 2 leader, as a train of armed men are shown walking through mountains and while an explosion hits a military vehicle on a turn in a road.
In the video, the man, who does not identify himself, asks his parents to pray for their patience when they get word that he has been "martyred."
"I tell my parents that when they hear of my martyrdom, that I have given a sacrifice for the religion, they should offer prayers and ask God to grant them patience because people have given great sacrifices for the religion," the man said in Pashto, the language spoken by Pashtuns, Afghanistan's largest ethnic-group from which the Taliban militia draws its main support.
A US military campaign ousted the Taliban from power in late 2001 for harboring al-Qaeda.
IntelCenter, a US group that tracks extremist messages, said on Sunday that the video was released on the Internet over the weekend and was the latest in a stepped-up media campaign promoting jihad by al-Qaeda.
Afghanistan saw a surge in suicide attacks last year as militants adopted a tactic common in Iraq but rare in Afghanistan until 2005.
In the video, the young man is seen sitting in front of a bare wall. An AK-47 rifle is propped against the wall on one side and another weapon, apparently a grenade launcher, on the other.
He apparently reads from the Quran, which is not visible in the video. He is wearing a woolen pakool hat and shalwar kameez, the traditional dress of long shirt and baggy pants common in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Another shot shows him cutting wires in what appears to be a bomb-making process. The video also shows munition boxes and a large steel trunk loaded in the back of a white car.
Then the man drives the car out of a walled compound and, after a man that IntelCenter identifies as senior Taliban leader Mullah Dadullah hails suicide attacks against "infidels" in Afghanistan, what appear to be military vehicles are seen traveling on a dirt road. The shaky video then shows what could be an explosion.
It was not known when or where in Afghanistan the purported attack was carried out.
The al-Zawahri comments were the same as those on a video posted Friday showing another purported attack on US and Afghan forces in Afghanistan.
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