al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula calls for more attacks on U.S. embassies
Al-Qaeda’s most active branch in the Middle East called for more attacks on U.S. embassies Saturday to “set the fires blazing,” seeking to co-opt outrage over an anti-Muslim film even as the wave of protests that swept 20 countries this week eased.
Senior Muslim religious authorities issued their strongest pleas yet against resorting to violence, trying to defuse Muslim anger over the film a day after new attacks on U.S. and Western embassies that left at least eight protesters dead.
The top cleric in U.S. ally Saudi Arabia denounced the film but said it can’t really hurt Islam, a contrast to protesters’ frequently heard cries that the movie amounts to a humiliating attack that requires retaliation. He urged Muslims not to be “dragged by anger” into violence. The head of the Sunni Muslim world’s pre-eminent religious institution, Egypt’s Al-Azhar, backed peaceful protests but said Muslims should counter the movie by reviving Islam’s moderate ideas.
The Yemen-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, considered the most dangerous of the terror network’s branches to the U.S., called the killing of Stevens “the best example” for those attacking embassies to follow.
“What has happened is a great event, and these efforts should come together in one goal, which is to expel the embassies of America from the lands of the Muslims,” the group said. It called on protests to continue in Muslim nations “to set the fires blazing at these embassies.”
It also called on “our Muslim brothers in Western nations to fulfill their duties in supporting God’s prophet because they are the most capable of reaching them and vexing them.”