Ayman al-Zawahiri, the supposed deceased Al Qaeda commander, has resurfaced in a video broadcast on the 20th anniversary of the heinous 9/11 attack on the United States.
Rumors circulated in November that Osama bin Laden's former No. 2 had died of illness, but senior leadership remained silent. According to the monitoring outfit SITE Intelligence, al-Zawahri makes allusions in the latest video that goes back to at least January.
"Amid rumours of his death, Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri shown in a new 60-minute video, this time offering some evidence that he is not dead – particularly, reference to events after December when rumors of death surfaced," SITE director Rita Katz tweeted.
As Sahab Media, the terror group's propaganda arm, issued the film, which was headlined "Jerusalem shall not be Judaized."
The New York Post said Zawahiri cited an al-Qaeda-aligned Hurras al-Deen operation against a Russian military station in Syria that took place on January 1. The rumors about his death began spreading in November.
Al-Zawahri mentions the U.S. pullout from Afghanistan but not the Taliban takeover, implying this is not a current reference. The U.S. and the Taliban agreed to leave Afghanistan in February 2020 under Donald Trump's presidency.
While Zawahiri spoke about the U.S. pullout from Afghanistan, Katz pointed out that he did not talk about the Taliban regaining power.
"However, Zawahiri doesn't mention Taliban's Afghanistan victory, and his talk of U.S.' making its exit from Afghanistan' could have been said early as Feb 2020 upon Doha Agreement," she said. She was referring to the deal made last year to end the war in Afghanistan. "Thus, he could still be dead, though if so, would have been at some point in or after Jan 2021.".
Al-Zawahri mentions only one date in the video: a January 1 strike on Russian troops near Raqqa in northern Syria.
Al Qaeda, she added, views the anniversary of the greatest terror assault on U.S. territory as a "good" event.
"Tragic as it is to say, this 9/11 anniversary is a uniquely positive one for al-Qaeda. As one AQ supporter wrote, the US leaving Afghanistan is validation of Bin Laden's vision and the 'blessed' 9/11 attacks, and that 'Afghanistan is the beginning,'" she wrote.
After Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011, Zawahiri became the terror group's new commander.
An Axios report mentioned that President Biden and his national security aides minimized the threat presented by al-Qaeda following the United States' exit.
Whille the Taliban freed several top Al Qaeda's operatives when it took over Bagram Air Base last month, the group's influence remains a mystery.
Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Fox News that civil war will "likely" erupt in Afghanistan, perhaps leading to Al Qaeda's resurgence.
Biden now intends to fight terror groups in Afghanistan from "beyond the horizon," warning that the problem has "metastasized" any further than Afghanistan and al-Qaeda.
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