Video from Al-Zawahiri marking 9/11 calls for kidnappings in countries that “fight Muslims”

MEMRI said Ayman al-Zawahiri has called for kidnappings in countries that "fight Muslims." (Photo: FBI Most Wanted Terrorists List)Ayman Al-Zawahiri has released a video commemorating the 9/11 hijackers and calling on Arabs to "take advantage of the U.S.'s weakness to purge the Muslim lands of corrupt rulers."

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) said Al-Zawahiri’s video was put on the Internet on September 13.

In the video, the man who founded the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, later merging with al Qaeda according to the FBI, also called for kidnappings in countries that “fight Muslims”:

MEMRI said:

Also in the video, Al-Zawahiri presented newly released clips of two of the 9/11 hijackers reading their wills, and emphasized, "We urge Muslims to capture citizens of countries that fight the Muslims."

The FBI has Al-Zawahiri, who was trained as a physician, on the Most Wanted Terrorists list.

There is a $25 million reward available for information “leading directly to the apprehension or conviction” of Al-Zawahiri.

The FBI also said Al-Zawahiri has been indicted for his “alleged role in the August 7, 1998, bombings of the United States Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya.”

On Friday, President Barack Obama’s press secretary Jay Carney maintained the talking point that took root as messaging emerged from Obama’s embassy staff in Cairo as the protests started up—the protests are about a film that insults Islam. Carney alleged:

“It is in response to a video, a film that we have judged to be reprehensible and disgusting. That in no way justifies any violent reaction to it, but this is not a case of protests directed at the United States writ large or at U.S. policy, this is in response to a video that is offensive to Muslims.”

Security at American embassies was obviously lacking. Considering the latest 9/11 anniversary followed much attention to the death of Osama bin Laden, with a film pending and various pronouncements by the Obama administration as well as the video shown at the Democrats' national convention,  and drone strikes have angered locals in some areas, Carney’s official position raises more questions.

This is important because of ongoing efforts at the UN and among Islamists to curtail freedom of speech in the U.S.

GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney was the only leader in the U.S. to pick up on the actual implications of Obama’s messaging. There is of course no way to legally control freedom of speech because of limitations on government in the First Amendment.

Major media and some Leftist academics have largely followed the Obama administration’s talking points, refusing to ask hard questions and instead, focusing on the Romney campaign.

A writer at the popular milblog Black Five put claims about the obscure video in the proper perspective:

Frankly, I think that's the media doing some CYA for the incumbent.

(Commentary by Kay B. Day/Sept. 14, 2012)

Please help share our stories; search engines skew towards traditional major news organizations.

Related Links

Obama and Clinton’s foreign policy spells clampdown on rights at home, abroad

Déjà vu for Democrats in the Egyptian civil unrest

Media terrified after Jacksonville presser with Romney on embassy attacks

Is Islamist unrest really about free speech with drone strikes as trigger?

CBS thinks Romney is already the president?

NBC News article claims Muhammad won over enemies “through compassion”

Al Qaeda’s new hit list, ‘Lone Wolf’ and the southern border