Al-Qaeda’s deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, issued the terror network’s first message since the upheaval began in Egypt, saying the country’s rule has long “deviated from Islam” and warning that democracy “can only be non-religious.”
The wave of popular protests that ousted former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak appeared to have caught al-Qaeda off guard. The terror group had long called for the destruction of Mubarak’s regime — and al--Zawahri, an Egyptian doctor, was part of a militant uprising against Mubarak in the 1990s that was crushed.
However, the demonstrations were led by secular, liberal activists calling for greater democracy — in stark contrast to the Islamic state that al-Zawahri and al--Qaeda call for. In past videos and messages, al-Zawahri has frequently denounced democracy because it replaces God’s laws with man’s.
In the 34-minute videotape issued on Friday, al-Zawahri makes no mention of the protests or Mubarak’s fall. The video is dated to the Islamic lunar month of Safar, which corresponds with the dates Jan. 5 to Feb. 3. It gives no more specific date for its creation.
The only hints that it may have been made since the upheaval that began on Jan. 25 were its title, “A Message of Hope and Glad Tidings to Our People in Egypt,” and a vague reference by al-Zawahri to “what happened and happens in Egypt.”
The video said it was the first of two parts, aimed at answering the question “what is the reality through which Egypt is living?”
“The reality of Egypt is the reality of deviation from Islam,” al-Zawahri said.
He called the Egyptian regime and apparently Mubarak’s rule “a regime that rules the people through the use of torture, rigged elections, corrupt media and an unjust justice system.”
He dismissed the claims by Mubarak’s regime of democracy, and then dismissed democracy in general.
Democracy, he said, “means that sovereignty is to the desires of the majority, without committing to any quality, value or creed. A democratic state can only be secular, meaning non-religious.”
The video did not say when the second part was to be released, but it appeared al-Zawahri was to answer a second question: “How do we change this reality to what Islam wanted us to have.”
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