Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has urged Egyptians to restart their revolution to press for Islamic law and called on Muslims to kidnap Westerners, the SITE Intelligence Group said Friday.
In a video released on jihadi forums and translated by the US monitoring service, Zawahiri also lashed out at US President Barack Obama, calling him a liar and demanding he admit defeat in Iraq, Afghanistan and North Africa.
Criticizing the new Egyptian government –– led by a president drawn from the Muslim Brotherhood –– as corrupt, he said a battle is being waged in Egypt between a secular minority and Muslims seeking implementation of Shariah law.
The Egyptian doctor, the former deputy to slain Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, said these Egyptians want to see their government liberated from US influence and Palestinian victory over Israel, SITE reported.
"The battle isn't over, but it has started," Zawahiri said, urging "every sincere person in Egypt" to "wage a popular campaign to incite and preach in order to complete the revolution, which was aborted.
"The revolution in Egypt must continue and the Muslim Umma must offer sacrifices until it achieves what it wants and until it snatches from the corrupt forces … the dignity and honor of Egypt."
Massive protests erupted on 25 January 2011 and toppled former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak after more than 30 years of iron-fisted rule. He was replaced by President Mohamed Morsy after elections earlier this year.
Zawahiri said liberating Omar Abdel Rahman, an Egyptian cleric jailed in the United States for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center attack, and inmates at the US prison at Guantanamo Bay was an "obligatory duty for every Muslim."
"I call upon Muslims to capture citizens of the countries that wage wars against Muslims," he said.
"Our captives or Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman will not be liberated except through force, for it is the only language that they understand."
In that vein, he referenced Warren Weinstein, a relief worker with USAID who was captured in Lahore, Pakistan, in August 2011.
Zawahiri also called Obama a "professional liar."
"Obama must admit he and his allies are standing in the defeated line, and that Osama bin Laden, may God have mercy on him, and the rest of the Mujahideen and the Muslim Umma are standing in the victorious line, whether anyone likes it or not."
