Al-Qaeda Second-in-Command Ayman Al-Zawahiri: The Only Hope for Palestine is to Depose the 'Arab Zionists'

In a new 1-hour 3-minute audio recording, Al-Qaeda second-in-command Ayman Al-Zawahiri reaffirms Al-Qaeda's basic strategy regarding Palestine and promised imminent victory in Afghanistan, and addresses words of praise and encouragement to the jihadist groups in North Africa, Somalia, the Arabian Peninsula, Iraq, the Caucasus, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. The video, dated Rajab 1431 (June-July 2010), was produced by Al-Qaeda's media wing, Al-Sahab, and posted on jihadist websites on July 19, 2010. Despite the date shown on the release, it is likely that Al-Zawahiri's audio was recorded earlier, since there is no mention of the Gaza flotilla incident, which took place in late May.

Al-Zawahiri opens with the "good tidings" that victory is near in Afghanistan. He ridicules the U.S. for its early confidence in the Marjah operation and for its hopes that the arrest of senior commander Mullah Baradar would adversely affect the Taliban, saying that these hopes were crushed by the Taliban's stiff resistance in Marjah and subsequent martyrdom operations in Kandahar and Kabul. He also accuses the Arab and Western media of underreporting the Taliban's achievements – contrasting it with the wide coverage given to Hizbullah if it so much as fires a missile – and likewise blasts Turkey and a number of Arab states for their support for the coalition in Afghanistan, as well as 'ulema who have ruled that such support is permissible.