Zawahiri Urges Lebanon’s Muslims to Help Syrian Rebels
Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri voiced his support for Syria's uprising and urged Muslims in several countries, including Lebanon, to come to the aid of Syrian rebels confronting President Bashar Assad's forces.
"I appeal to every Muslim and every free, honorable one in Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon, to rise to help his brothers in Syria with all that he can," Zawahiri said in a new video message released on jihadist Internet forums, U.S. monitors SITE Intelligence said on Sunday.
A Muslim should help the rebels “with his life, money, opinion, as well as information," he added.
In the video titled "Onwards, Lions of Syria,” he criticized the Syrian regime for crimes against its citizens, and praised those rising up against the government.
Zawahiri, shown in front of a green curtain in the video released Saturday which runs for over eight minutes, urged Syrians not to rely on the West or Arab governments, whom he said would impose a new regime subservient to the West.
"Wounded Syria still bleeds day after day, while the butcher, son of the butcher Bashar bin Hafez, is not deterred to stop,” he said.
Since March last year, Assad's government has carried out a bloody crackdown on an uprising in which more than 6,000 people have been killed.
Source: Agence France Presse, Naharnet
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