Al-Qaeda announces formation of new branch in India

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org
Authorities in India have issued a security alert following an official announcement by al-Qaeda that it had formed a new branch in India. The militant organization made its announcement in a video message by its current leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Al-Zawahiri, 63, is an Egyptian former eye surgeon who succeeded Osama bin Laden in the leadership of al-Qaeda in May of 2011, after the Saudi militant was killed by American forces in Pakistan. He is said to be hiding in the mountainous borderlands between Afghanistan and Pakistan. In the hour-long video, al-Zawahiri says the new branch of the militant organization is named “Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent” and will be led by a local operational commander who goes by the pseudonym “Asim Umar”, but he does not provide his real name. The formation of the group signals the sixth regional branch of al-Qaeda; the group already maintains close operational links with Al-Shabaab in East Africa, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Peninsula, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Al-Qaeda in Iraq, and the Caucasus Emirate in Central Asia. Al-Zawahiri said in his video message that Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent would “raise the flag of holy war” across the entirety of South Asia, including western India, Bangladesh, as well as Myanmar, also known as Burma. He added that al-Qaeda’s goal would be to Islamize a region that was once “part of the land of the Muslims, until the infidel adversary colonized it and fragmented it and split it” in more recent times. There are no known links between al-Qaeda and Muslim militant groups operating in India, in states such as Assam, Gujarat, or Jammu and Kashmir. Such groups are primarily connected to separatist organizations funded and controlled by the government of Pakistan. In addition to announcing the formation of al-Qaeda’s Indian branch, al-Zawahiri used his message to express his support for Mullah Omar, the mysterious leader of the Afghan Taliban, who sheltered Osama bin Laden for several years in the 1990s and 2000s. Some observers suggested that al-Zawahiri’s latest message was intended to reestablish al-Qaeda’s dominance over its regional contender, the Islamic State, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), which now controls large swaths of land in Syria and Iraq. It is worth noting that the Egyptian leader of al-Qaeda did not refer to the Islamic State at all in his address, choosing instead to speak generally about the importance of unity among Islamist warriors.