DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri
urged small-scale attacks inside the United States to "bleed America
economically," adding he hoped eventually to see a more significant
strike, according to the SITE monitoring service.
In an audio speech released online a day after the 12th
anniversary of the 9/11 strikes, Zawahiri said attacks "by one brother
or a few of the brothers" would weaken the U.S.
economy by triggering big spending on security, SITE reported.
Western counter-terrorism chiefs have warned that radicalized "lone
wolves" who might have had no direct contact with al-Qaida posed as
great a risk as those who carried out complex plots like the 9/11
attacks.
"We should bleed America economically by provoking it to continue
in its massive expenditure on its security, for the weak point of
America is its economy, which has already begun to stagger due to the
military and security expenditure," Zawahiri said.
Keeping America in such a state of tension and anticipation only required a few disparate attacks "here and there," he said
"As we defeated it in the gang warfare in Somalia, Yemen, Iraq and
Afghanistan,
so we should follow it with . . .war on its own land. These disparate
strikes can be done by one brother or a few of the brothers," Zawahiri
said.
At the same time, Muslims should seize any opportunity to land "a large
strike" on the United States, even if this took years of patience.\
The Sept. 11 attacks — in which hijacked airliners were flown into
New York's World Trade Center, the Pentagon in Washington, and a
Pennsylvania field — triggered a global fight against al-Qaida
extremists and their affiliates. Almost 3,000 people were killed in the
attacks.
In his audio speech, Zawahiri said Muslims should refuse to buy goods
from America and its allies, as such spending only helped to fund U.S.
military action in Muslim lands.
© 2013 Thomson/Reuters. All rights reserved.
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