Bin Laden urges Somalis to overthrow leader

We’ve now had not one but TWO audio messages from Osama Bin Laden in the past week, urging Somalis to rise up against their new president, Sheikh Sharif, and wage jihad. Even though the sheikh has been quoted as saying he wants to introduce sharia law, Osama is not a happy man.
 
The latest Osama missive is called “Fight on, champions of Somalia” and goes like this: 
 
“My Muslim brothers in Somalia: you must beware of the initiatives which wear the dress of Islam and the religious institutions, even as they contradict the rules of Islamic sharia, like the initiative attributed to some of the clerics of Somalia which gives Sheikh Sharif six months to implement Islamic sharia.”
 
Then Osama’s warning. Don’t be fooled…
 
“The obligation is to fight the apostate government, not stop fighting it.”
 
In other words – don’t fall for the Islamist rhetoric, al-Qaida is the real deal, and Somalia is still our battleground.
 
As the terrorism expert Dr Peter Neumann told us during our investigation into Somali terror, such messages from Osama point to his belief that Somalia is the latest land of opportunity for al-Qaida – and that maybe things aren’t going so well elsewhere.

For all we hear about impending chaos in Pakistan, are those recent US missile strikes along the Pakistan-Afghan border forcing AQ to think a bit more about other, potentially more attractive fronts?

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