New Al Qaeda Tape: Don't Stop Rebelling Until Islamic Regimes Created
March 1, 2011 — -- A new audio message released by a former Guantanamo Bay detainee calls for the uprisings in the Middle East to continue until Islamic states are established.
The 10-minute audio message, newly released on the web but recorded after the Tunisian government fell in January, is the first major communiqué from al Qaeda recorded after the tumult in the Middle East began, and has been seen by some analysts as the terror group's attempt to stay relevant.
The message, purportedly from Saudi national Ibrahim Sulayman al Robaysh, an al Qaeda operative released from Guantanamo in 2006, warns Tunisians that the removal of long-time president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali was laudable, but likely to result in another "tyrant" taking his place if Tunisians don't create a state based on Islamic law, or sharia.
"I am happy, like the others, that this tyrant has fallen," al Robaysh said. "But I don't think that these events will be beneficial to the plight of Muslims. For it could be that they have replaced a horrible situation with a not so bad one. Or replaced one tyrant with another."
The release of the message coincides with the recent resignation of Tunisia's prime minister, who was a holdover from the previous regime.
Al Qaeda's long silence amid revolts in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Jordan, and now Libya has been seen by U.S. government officials as a possible sign of the terror organization's waning influence in Arab world. The revolutions have been largely secular and non-violent .
