Syria al-Qaida wing warns Russia
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Al-QaIda’s Syrian affiliate called for jihadists to attack Russia over its air strikes in Syria, as rockets hit Moscow’s Damascus embassy yesterday where demonstrators had gathered to back the intervention.
Abu Mohamed al-Jolani, head of Syria’s al-Qaida affiliate al-Nusra Front, urged jihadists in the Caucasus to target Russians because of Moscow’s air campaign. “If the Russian army kills the people of Syria, then kill their people. And if they kill our soldiers, then kill their soldiers. An eye for an eye,” Jolani said in an audio recording released late on Monday.
He pledged that Moscow’s air war, which began on September 30, would have dire consequences. “The war in Syria will make the Russians forget the horrors that they found in Afghanistan,” Jolani said, adding: “They will be shattered, God willing, on Syria’s doorstep.”
Russia has said its raids are targeting al-Nusra’s jihadist rival Islamic State and other terrorist groups.
Jolani also called on armed groups to “hurl hundreds of rockets” daily at villages inhabited by the Alawite minority, the sect from which President Bashar al-Assad hails.
“When they will stop attacking our village and cities, we will stop attacking theirs.”
Jolani said he would pay “3 million euros (US$3.4 million) for anyone who can kill Bashar al-Assad and end his story”.
“How long must Muslims delay their rights and shed their blood for a man who loves his power?”
He said he would pay the bounty even if a member of Assad’s own family killed him.
Jolani also offered “2 million euros for whoever kills Hassan Nasrallah”, leader of Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah movement whose men have been fighting alongside Assad’s forces.
Yesterday morning’s rocket attack on Moscow’s diplomatic compound in Damascus sparked panic among some 300 demonstrators expressing support for Moscow’s air war.
Two rockets slammed into the complex as the demonstrators were waving Russian flags and pictures of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Two rockets hit embassy territory at 10:15am. No one was killed or wounded,” Russian news agency Interfax quoted embassy official Eldar Kurbanov as saying.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the rockets were fired from the eastern edges of the capital, where Islamist rebels are entrenched.
The Britain-based monitoring group said Russian warplanes yesterday carried out air strikes in Hama, Idlib, Latakia and Aleppo provinces.
It also said supplies and thousands of Iranian fighters had reached Hmeimim airport in Latakia province, which is now used for military operations only.
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