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Al-Qaeda slams UAE, Bahrain for normalization with Israel; calls for attacks

The terrorist group’s central command said U.S. and Israeli embassies, companies and combatant nationals “shall be legitimate targets.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, U.S. President Donald Trump, Bahrain Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Al-Zayani and UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyani sign the Abraham Accords on the South Lawn of the White House in Wasington, D.C., Sept. 15, 2020. Credit: Tia Dufour/White House.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, U.S. President Donald Trump, Bahrain Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Al-Zayani and UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyani sign the Abraham Accords on the South Lawn of the White House in Wasington, D.C., Sept. 15, 2020. Credit: Tia Dufour/White House.

Al-Qaeda’s main media wing, Al-Sahab Media Foundation, released a statement on Tuesday condemning the normalization deal between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. It also urged Muslim scholars to mobilize Muslims to overthrow what it called “the toadies of the West” and “despotic regimes,” reveals a report shared exclusively with JNS by the Middle East Media Research Institute’s Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor.

According to the MEMRI JTTM report, the terrorist group’s central command also stated that American and Israeli interests, embassies, companies and combatant nationals “shall be legitimate targets.”

In the two-page statement titled “Statement on the Normalization of Ties With Israel by Arab Zionists,” released in Arabic and English, Al-Qaeda began by condemning the deal, saying: “The complete sell-out of the Palestinian cause by the rulers of the Gulf statelets and the normalization of political, economic and diplomatic relations with the Zionist state that occupies Jerusalem and the Masjid Al-Aqsa, the destination of the night journey of the Prophet (peace be upon him), should hardly surprise anyone.”

The group further said: “This is what was precisely expected from the rulers of the Gulf statelets who are spearheading the Crusade in the Arabian Peninsula. Nor should it surprise anyone that their Crusader master, [U.S. President Donald] Trump, exposed their treachery.”

Separately, according to another JTTM report, in a video marking the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attack, Al-Qaeda’s leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri denounced in a video what he called “The Deal of the Century or the Crusade of the Century,” sponsored by Trump.

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