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Soldier4Christ
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« Reply #2 on: September 02, 2006, 04:48:53 PM » |
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Al-Qaida releases new video:
Americans invited to convert
California terror-group member,
Al-Zawahri issue call to Islam
A new 41-minute videotape released by al-Qaida's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri features California Muslim convert Adam Yehiye Gadahn calling on Americans to convert to Islam.
The video was posted on an Islamic militant website a week prior to the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks on New York City and the Pentagon.
This is the second time Gadahn, who disappeared from California seven years ago, and al-Zawahri have appeared in an al-Qaida video.
On July 7, the first anniversary of the London terror bombings, Ghadan, wearing a white robe and black turban, said no Muslim should "shed tears" for those killed by al-Qaida attacks.
On the video, he denounced U.S. soldiers in Iraq and claimed they had murdered and raped Iraqi civilians.
"Who are the real terrorists?" he asked.
He also seemed to advocate the killing of Marines back in his old home state.
"It's hard to imagine that any compassionate person could see pictures ... and not want to go on a shooting spree at the Marines' housing facilities at Camp Pendleton," he said.
In today's video, al-Zawahri began by praising Islam and the prophet Mohammed.
"To the American people and the people of the West in general ... God sent his Prophet Muhammad with guidance and the religion of truth ... and sent him as a herald," he said.
Gadahn's nom de guerre – "Azzam the American" – was shown in Arabic and English as he spoke.
"We invite all Americans and unbelievers to Islam," he said.
Gadahn said he wanted to correct Americans' image of Islam.
"Ignorance ... causes the people of the West to rapturously applaud when Israel perpetrates wholesale slaughter of Muslims in Lebanon and Palestine and leads them to give their consent to the atrocities that governments commit in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere in the Muslim world," he said
Gadahn accused America of showing more concern for the statues of Buddha destroyed by Afghanistan's former Taliban rulers, "than it shows of the people of Afghanistan and Iraq."
The West is "the civilization which enslaved Africa, slaughtered native Americans, fired bombs at ... Tokyo and Fallujah and nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki," he said.
As WND reported, Gadahn is a former California heavy metal music fan whose Islamic conversion testimonial was featured on the official website of the University of Southern California's Muslim Students Association for 11 years before he was revealed as a terror advocate last week.
Gadahn's story of "Becoming Muslim" was removed from the USC website shortly after he appeared in the July 7 al-Qaida video. A cached version is still available through the Internet archiving system called the Wayback Machine.
The MSA pages on the USC site attempt to portray Islam as a misunderstood religion of peace.
"As I began reading English translations of the Quran, I became more and more convinced of the truth and authenticity of Allah's teachings contained in those 114 chapters," he wrote. "Having been around Muslims in my formative years, I knew that they were not bloodthirsty, barbaric terrorists that the news media and the televangelists paint them to be."
He said in November 1995, he went to the Islamic Society of Orange County in Garden Gove and told the librarian he wanted to become a Muslim.
At the society, Gadahn was tutored by Muzammil H. Siddiqi, former president of the Islamic Society of North America.
Gadahn allegedly traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan to train at al-Qaida camps following his conversion while attending the Islamic Society of Orange County. Siddiqi is head of the mosque there.
Besides his appearance in the two recent al-Qaida videos, Gadahn is believed to be a masked figure in two videos delivered to ABC News in Pakistan in 2004 and 2005. In the 2005 tape, the masked speaker threatened terror attacks in Los Angeles and Melbourne, Australia.
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