Al-Qaeda invites anti-West ‘brothers’ to Afghanistan

Al-Qaeda has urged its supporters to go to Afghanistan and train for “special operations” against Israel and the West.

Saif al-Adl, the leader of al-Qaeda, who is believed to be based in Iran, urged “brothers wherever they are” to strike Israelis “for their crimes in Palestine”.

The terror group behind the September 11 attacks in New York in 2001 has long advocated an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine by violent means.

In a 10-page pamphlet seen by The Telegraph, al-Adl said: “The loyal people of the Ummah [worldwide Muslims] interested in change must go to Afghanistan.

”[They must] strike all Zionist interests both Western and Jewish in all Islamic lands” with “painful” attacks.

The Taliban offered Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda sanctuary in Afghanistan for their operations in the mid-1990s.

Since the Taliban was overthrown by the US in the invasion that shortly followed 9/11 and returned to power three years ago, it has attempted to distance itself from al-Qaeda, saying there is no evidence its members are in the country.

However, al-Adr suggested his group would be welcome in the country, as he urged supporters to “migrate to Islamic lands, particularly Afghanistan”.

The appropriate “reaction to our enemies’ crimes is with action, not with words”, he said in his address.

Al-Adr, who became al-Qaeda’s third leader after Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed in a US drone strike in 2022, also praised and encouraged “sleeper cells” in Western countries, saying “they act as a deterrent force against further Western crimes”.

Al-Adr’s message represents al-Qaeda’s most overt attempt to rebuild a substantial presence in Afghanistan since the Taliban retook power.

A local official in western Herat city said the Taliban would welcome their “brothers”.

“We welcome our brothers wherever they are to come to Afghanistan, we will train them to strike Israelis for their crimes in Palestine,” he told The Telegraph by phone.

“Our leaders are just condemning the Israelis with words, Palestinians need military support, I will go there if God gives me this chance,” he added.

However, a Taliban spokesman in Kabul said that authorities “are not allowed to talk about al-Qaeda to the media” and Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban’s government official spokesman, refused to answer questions on the presence of al-Qaeda supporters in Afghanistan.