Assist us to fight US, in Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda asks Pakistanis

In a rare on-camera interview to Pakistan’s Geo TV, he said the Danish embassy bombing was carried out by a man from the “holy land” of Mecca who had originally come to fight in Kashmir or Afghanistan.

Al-Yazid spoke to the private Pakistani channel at Khost in eastern Afghanistan and Terrorism experts said this was the first time since 2002 that any top al-Qaeda leader has given an interview.

Al-Yazid, in the interview, sought for the destruction of Pakistan’s government, which he said had “betrayed” the ‘jihadis’.

He accused President Pervez Musharraf and his government of committing crimes by arresting foreign fighters.

Pakistani agencies had arrested “Arab mujahideen and handed them over to American infidels” and Pakistan, out of all the Islamic states, has done the “most harm” to Islam, he said.

Al-Yazid praised the people of Pakistan’s northwestern tribal areas, a stronghold of the Taliban, for helping in the fighting in Afghanistan.

He called for more Pakistanis to join the fighting in Afghanistan, saying it was a responsibility imposed by Islam and “obligatory for them to render this help”.

Al-Yazid vowed to recapture Afghanistan and stated al-Qaeda’s stand that “all Americans and not just the American government” were its enemies.

Referring to the June 2 suicide car bombing of the Danish embassy that also damaged the nearby Indian High Commissioner’s residence, Al-Yazid said the attack was carried out by a man who had come from Mecca in retaliation for the publication of blasphemous cartoons of Prophet Mohammed in Danish newspapers.

Al-Qaeda had earlier also claimed responsibility for the attack on the Danish embassy.

Unlike most Taliban leaders who grant interviews to the Pakistani media, Al-Yazid made no effort to hide his face from the camera. The bearded terrorist leader appeared in the interview wearing a white turban and a brown jacket.

The Geo News reporter, who arranged the interview through a Palestinian intermediary, travelled to Afghanistan via the North West Frontier Province capital of Peshawar to meet Al-Yazid.

Al-Yazid, who is al-Qaeda commander of operations in Afghanistan, was once imprisoned for three years for involvement in the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1982. He later fought against the Soviet forces that invaded Afghanistan in the late 1980s and played a role in establishing al-Qaeda.

US officials have said Al-Yazid rose to his current position within the past year. Before that, he was al-Qaeda’s “chief financial manager” and reportedly played a role in financing the terrorists who carried out the 9/11 attacks.