Al Qaida commander denounces Daesh beheadings

Istanbul: Nearly a decade ago, Ayman Al Zawahiri — the man who would go on to become the head of Al Qaida — wrote a letter to his deputy in Iraq, scolding him for beheading hostages and posting videos of their execution online. He explained that although he was in favour of killing the enemy and agreed with the principle of sowing terror, the scenes of slaughter risked turning public opinion against their organisation.

His advice was to be more discreet: “Kill the captives by bullet.”

The letter — written in 2005 and recovered by US forces in Iraq — was addressed to Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, the founder of the group that would become Daesh, which split off from the Al Qaida network earlier this year.

On Monday, Al Qaida came out publicly against the practice of beheading in a strongly-worded interview with one of its field commanders, making clear that the organisation founded by Osama Bin Laden was more pragmatic and as a result less extreme than its militant rival in Syria — which has turned the act of decapitation into a signature of its brutality.

In a 43-minute video, Nasser Bin Ali Al Ansi, a military strategist and official of Al Qaida’s branch in Yemen, is asked whether he condones recent beheadings. He says that although some Al Qaida members may have carried out such acts, the organisation does not sanction the practice.

‘Big mistake’

“No doubt, some of our brothers were affected by seeing scenes of beheadings that were spread recently. We do not accept — and we strongly reject them,” Al Ansi says, according to a transcript provided by SITE Intelligence, an organisation that tracks militant propaganda. “Recording such acts and spreading them among the people in the name of religion and jihad, we see as a big mistake. It is not acceptable, no matter the justification.”

He makes clear that the position he is articulating is not just his own, or even that of Al Qaida’s branch in Yemen known as Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, but rather is the guidance of the group’s most senior current leaders — and reflected the wishes of Bin Laden himself.

“Therefore, I assert that whoever does such actions,” he says, “he has violated the command of Shaikh Osama.”

A veteran of Al Qaida, Al Ansi moved to Afghanistan in the 1990s to train in the group’s elite camps. He was dispatched by Bin Laden to the Philippines in 2001 to help guide militants there, including by teaching them the principles of Shariah, as well as military tactics.

He says in Monday’s video that Bin Laden specifically asked him to stress to the cell in the Philippines that recording scenes of brutality was forbidden.

Daesh cemented its place as one of the world’s most brutal terror organisations this August, when it began recording the beheadings of its US hostages, starting with the 40-year-old freelance journalist James Foley.

Last month, in one of its most horrific videos, the group posted a lengthy, cinematic production showing the decapitation of dozens of Syrian soldiers — with the camera panning over each of their faces in the moment before they are killed. As if to draw out the horror, the screen goes to black just before they are executed and the viewer hears the panicked breathing of the victims waiting to have their throats slit.

As if to underscore the centrality of beheading, Daesh also posted photographs showing children decapitating their dolls.

Al Qaida’s prohibition against beheading does not mean it is necessarily less murderous. Over the weekend, Al Qaida fighters in Yemen shot the US hostage Luke Somers, moments before SEAL Team 6 commandos reached the compound where he was being held captive.

And last week, the group’s affiliate in Syria, Al Nusra Front, posted a photograph of a Lebanese hostage being executed. Tellingly, the image shows the man kneeling as a fighter aims a gun at his head.

Though the moment of death is not shown, the clear implication is that he was — in keeping with the advice of senior leaders — killed by bullet.

Source: http://gulfnews.com/news/region/syria/al-qaida-commander-denounces-daesh-beheadings-1.1424278