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.
Thousands gathered across New Zealand yesterday to celebrate the signing of the country’s founding document and some called for an end to government policies that critics say erode the rights promised to the indigenous Maori population. As the sun rose on the dawn service at Waitangi where the Treaty of Waitangi was first signed between the British Crown and Maori chiefs in 1840, some community leaders called on the government to honor promises made 185 years ago. The call was repeated at peaceful rallies that drew several hundred people later in the day. “This government is attacking tangata whenua [indigenous people] on all
RIGHTS FEARS: A protester said Beijing would use the embassy to catch and send Hong Kongers to China, while a lawmaker said Chinese agents had threatened Britons Hundreds of demonstrators on Saturday protested at a site earmarked for Beijing’s controversial new embassy in London over human rights and security concerns. The new embassy — if approved by the British government — would be the “biggest Chinese embassy in Europe,” one lawmaker said earlier. Protester Iona Boswell, a 40-year-old social worker, said there was “no need for a mega embassy here” and that she believed it would be used to facilitate the “harassment of dissidents.” China has for several years been trying to relocate its embassy, currently in the British capital’s upmarket Marylebone district, to the sprawling historic site in the
‘IMPOSSIBLE’: The authors of the study, which was published in an environment journal, said that the findings appeared grim, but that honesty is necessary for change Holding long-term global warming to 2°C — the fallback target of the Paris climate accord — is now “impossible,” according to a new analysis published by leading scientists. Led by renowned climatologist James Hansen, the paper appears in the journal Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development and concludes that Earth’s climate is more sensitive to rising greenhouse gas emissions than previously thought. Compounding the crisis, Hansen and colleagues argued, is a recent decline in sunlight-blocking aerosol pollution from the shipping industry, which had been mitigating some of the warming. An ambitious climate change scenario outlined by the UN’s climate
BACK TO BATTLE: North Korean soldiers have returned to the front lines in Russia’s Kursk region after earlier reports that Moscow had withdrawn them following heavy losses Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday pored over a once-classified map of vast deposits of rare earths and other critical minerals as part of a push to appeal to US President Donald Trump’s penchant for a deal. The US president, whose administration is pressing for a rapid end to Ukraine’s war with Russia, on Monday said he wanted Ukraine to supply the US with rare earths and other minerals in return for financially supporting its war effort. “If we are talking about a deal, then let’s do a deal, we are only for it,” Zelenskiy said, emphasizing Ukraine’s need for security guarantees