Al Jazeera News :
Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has called on the armed Syrian opposition to wage guerrilla warfare against the government of Bashar al-Assad and its allies.
In an audio tape titled “Syria will only bow to God”, released on the internet on Sunday, Zawahiri urged Syrian rebels to “have patience and prepare themselves for a long war against the Crusaders and their Shia allies”.
He urged them to adopt a “guerilla warfare” strategy because it would “weaken and drain the enemy”.
The rebels’ enemies “are targeting them because they are trying to establish an Islamic rule in Syria, as the West and its allies were doing everything they can to stop it”.
Al-Nusra Front, a rebel group, announced in July 2016 that it was ending its formal ties with al-Qaeda and changed its name to Jabhat Fath al-Sham, or the Conquest of Syria Front.
On January 28 of this year, it merged with four other groups to form a new organisation called Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or the Assembly for the Liberation of Syria.
Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst, Marwan Bishara, said that Zawahiri was attempting to throw al-Qaeda into the spotlight.
“Certainly with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) being the star, if you will, in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere, al-Qaeda is trying to be relevant at a time when it is no longer relevant,” he said.
Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has called on the armed Syrian opposition to wage guerrilla warfare against the government of Bashar al-Assad and its allies.
In an audio tape titled “Syria will only bow to God”, released on the internet on Sunday, Zawahiri urged Syrian rebels to “have patience and prepare themselves for a long war against the Crusaders and their Shia allies”.
He urged them to adopt a “guerilla warfare” strategy because it would “weaken and drain the enemy”.
The rebels’ enemies “are targeting them because they are trying to establish an Islamic rule in Syria, as the West and its allies were doing everything they can to stop it”.
Al-Nusra Front, a rebel group, announced in July 2016 that it was ending its formal ties with al-Qaeda and changed its name to Jabhat Fath al-Sham, or the Conquest of Syria Front.
On January 28 of this year, it merged with four other groups to form a new organisation called Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or the Assembly for the Liberation of Syria.
Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst, Marwan Bishara, said that Zawahiri was attempting to throw al-Qaeda into the spotlight.
“Certainly with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) being the star, if you will, in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere, al-Qaeda is trying to be relevant at a time when it is no longer relevant,” he said.
