Declaring “kiss our jihad” to “Zionist criminals” including the United States, al-Qaeda’s branch in Lebanon said all Muslims should stand in armed resistance and “not accept compromise” after President Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
In a statement posted today on Telegram, the Abdullah Azzam Brigades called Trump’s “brutal decision” to eventually move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem “not surprising” as the U.S. “is still the first sponsor of a Jewish entity since its inception” and would “demonstrate its support and support for the decisions of successive Israeli governments.”
The al-Qaeda branch stressed that “the question of Palestine, the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Jerusalem is a general Islamic issue, not a local issue for the people of Palestine.”
“It is an occupied Islamic land. It is the duty of every Muslim to liberate it and to fight for it…. The American decision is only one episode of a dangerous series coming to Palestine and the region, and to our sanctities in particular, directed by the White House and with clear consent and consent from the traitorous rulers who sold their land and the wealth of their country to guarantee their riches at the expense of the nation and its sanctities and peoples,” they added.
“The nation of Islam has no choice but to liberate its land from the American-backed Israeli occupation” using “jihad with teeth” and “no iron except iron,” the brigades declared.
In a message “to our people in Palestine,” al-Qaeda said Trump, who said Wednesday that he still wanted the peace process to move forward with a possible two-state solution, showed that a peace agreement is “only an illusion and deception of the Jews.”
“Our people in beloved Palestine, your strength with your weapon and your support for the option of resistance, and your stand as an impenetrable obstacle to any solution that deprives the militant factions of their weapons, and impose a shameful peace on you, in fact surrender to the will of the Zionists and their support America and their allies of the traitorous rulers,” the statement continued, stressing “the question of Palestine is a doctrine that does not accept compromise and can not be forgotten.”
In a statement issued in Arabic and English after Trump’s announced his decision last week, al-Qaeda’s general command vowed that “America and those who live in America shall never even dream of peace until we experience it as a reality in Palestine.”
“Every passing day,” al-Qaeda declared, “increases our conviction in this reality” that America is “leading the war against Islam and Muslims.” They called Trump’s Jerusalem decision “a high-voltage shock” that “may perhaps awaken” the Muslim community “from its slumber.”
“In the name of combating terrorism and extremism, our masses will be completely detached from their religious identity and beliefs,” the statement warned, adding “the Zionist-Crusader alliance would never have mustered the courage to ridicule Muslims so arrogantly had it not secured itself first by ensuring the complete submission of the puppet regimes — specifically the government of the Family of Saud — who are responsible for paving the way to this crime.”
The terror group called on jihadists, particularly young people, to “unite your ranks, coordinate your efforts, forget your disagreements” as they “concentrate… efforts against the head of disbelief” and “intensify your strikes.”
“The surest and shortest way to confront the aggression and arrogance of Pharaoh of the age — America — is jihad in the way of Allah, by targeting its vital interests and the interests of its Zionist and Crusader allies everywhere,” al-Qaeda added.
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