To the People of Pakistan

Dr. Ayman al- Zawahiri

Rabi" al-Awwal 1427 AH /April 2006 CE

As-Sahab Media

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In the name of Allah, and all praise is due to Allah, and may peace and prayers be upon the Messenger of Allah, and upon his family, companions, and allies.

Muslim brothers everywhere: peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah and His blessings.

The first thing that I want to talk to you about is the third anniversary of the American invasion of Iraq. We praise Allah that three years after the Crusader invasion of Iraq, America, Britain and their allies have achieved nothing but losses, disasters and misfortunes. They have become embroiled in Iraq in an unenviable way, despite Bush and Blair"s continuous lying. And these losses and misfortunes only happened with the sacrifices of the Mujahideen and their enthusiasm for death in Allah"s path. The group Qaida al-Jihad in the Land of the Two Rivers alone has carried out 800 martyrdom operations in 3 years, besides the sacrifices of the other Mujahideen, and this is what has broken the back of America in Iraq.

The sacrifices of the heroic Mujahideen have also exposed the total inconsistency of Western doctrine, and perhaps this moral and material defeat of the Western Crusade will motivate the West to review its ideological system in its entirety, if it desires the facts or hopes for salvation.

And just as the heroic Mujahideen"s sacrifices have defeated the Crusader alliance morally and materially, they have also exposed the faction of traitors falsely associated with the Muslims, these traitors who made pacts with the Crusaders before, during and after the invasion, and prevented the Jihad against the occupation, and helped to establish it in Iraq, and promised it that they will be loyal guards of its interests after it leaves; they are traitors, even if they dress like the Muslims or have the same names; they are traitors, even if their beards are long and turbans great; they are traitors, even if they claim noble descent or a connection with the unseen or any other kind of charlatanism and superstition; they are traitors, and Allah, and His Messenger, and his righteous Companions, and pure People of his House, and the Islamic Ummah are innocent of them one and all.How can they claim affiliation to Islam when the Lord of Glory has given a verdict about them in His Book, saying,

"O ye who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends and protectors: they are but friends and protectors to each other. And he amongst you that turns to them (for friendship) is of them. Verily, Allah guideth not a people unjust." Al-Maidah 5:51

Those who are in Iraq, and those affiliated to the clan of Hashim in Jordan, and their peers on the Arabian Peninsula, those who permit the recognition of Israel and making peace with it, and those like them in Egypt, who help France against the veiled Muslim women and receive the Israeli ambassador in noble al-Azhar and hand over Wafa Qistintin for torture in the dungeons of the monasteries: all of them are traitors, and the Muslim Ummah must confront them, lest they stab it from behind while it is exposing its chest to the rockets and bullets of the enemies.

As for the second thing I wish to talk to you about, it is the dark fate towards which the traitor Musharraf is pushing Pakistan. Without a doubt, Pakistan is one of the most important of the countries targeted by this new colonialist Crusade which seeks to weaken Pakistan and fragment it into entities under the control of India, which is allied with the Americans and Jews.

And here I wish to clarify an extremely important point, which is that the anti-Islamic American/Crusader/Zionist plan has no place for the presence of Pakistan as a strong, powerful, able state in South Asia, because this plan doesn"t forgive Pakistan for separating from India in the name of Islam, and doesn"t forgive it for including the largest Islamic schools with wide influence among the Muslims of South and Central Asia, and doesn"t forgive it for the flourishing of the popular Jihadi movements in it against the Indians in Kashmir and first the Russians and then the Americans in Afghanistan, and doesn"t forgive it the favorable response of its people, scholars, students, Mujahideen and tribes to the Islamic Emirate in Afghanistan - since its founding and to this very day - and to its Amir the lion of Islam Mulla Muhammad Umar, may Allah protect him, and doesn"t forgive it its overwhelming public sympathy for the call of Shaykh Usama bin Ladin for Jihad to expel the Americans and Jews from the holy places of the Muslims and their homes.

In this context, India appears to be the best candidate to implement the Zionist/Crusader plan to humiliate Pakistan and weaken it and tear it apart.

And Bush"s recent visit to Pakistan at the beginning of March was one of the biggest pieces of evidence of that, as he gave a strong push to India"s nuclear program while handing out orders and instructions in Pakistan. And I will review with you in brief just a few of the many woes and misfortunes which Musharraf and his supporters have brought upon Pakistan.

The first of these woes is Musharraf"s combating of Islam in Pakistan. With an order from the Crusaders, he provided all the backing needed to expel the Islamic Emirate from Kabul. And he has made war on the Islamic schools, and is seeking to review the Hudood Act, in addition to inventing - with Crusader guidance - a new Qadiani creed which invites the people to an Islam without Jihad and without enjoining of good and prohibition of evil and without observation of the rules of the Shari"ah, which he calls "Enlightened Moderation."

The second of these woes is Musharraf"s threat to Pakistani national security. Musharraf was the primary backer of the ouster of the Islamic Emirate from Kabul, and was the primary reason for the establishment of a government in Kabul allied to America and India and hostile to Pakistan. And as a result of Musharraf"s betrayal, Indian intelligence has crept close to the Pakistan-Afghan border and opened its consulates in the cities adjacent to Pakistan. And the Pakistani Army, with the exit of the Taliban government from Kabul, became a double loser: first, the Pakistani Army lost the strategic depth which Afghanistan, with its highlands and mountains, can offer it in any Pakistani-Indian confrontation. And second, the Pakistani Army"s back became exposed to a regime hostile to it and allied with its enemies. And if you add to this India"s success in exploiting air bases in Tajikistan and its seeking military cooperation with the Central Asian states, you will realize the extent of the predicament which the Pakistani Army has gotten itself into.

And Musharraf is the one who placed the Pakistani nuclear program under American - and hence Jewish and Indian - supervision. Musharraf exploited America"s accusation of Abdul Qadeer Khan to impose its surveillance upon the Pakistani nuclear program.

And then is it credible that Abdul Qadeer Khan was outside the surveillance of Pakistani military intelligence? Thus, the first ones who should be brought to trial in the case of Abdul Qadeer Khan are the leaders of the Pakistani Army and intelligence. But Abdul Qadeer Khan was used as a scapegoat to please America.

And Musharraf is the one who is fanning the flames of civil war in Pakistan on behalf of America, in Waziristan and Baluchistan, in a bloody conflict whose losses have no end, and which will only rebound on Pakistan with the worst of damages.

The worst thing any army in the world could wish for is that it be assigned to defend the borders of its country at a time when it is embroiled in an internal civil war. Pakistani memory has yet to forget the catastrophe caused by the civil war in East Pakistan. And what Musharraf has done in Bajaur, Waziristan and Baluchistan, he will repeat in Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar, and indeed, any place the Americans request him to strike.

And Musharraf is the one who is seeking to change the combat doctrine of the Pakistani Army by repeating that the real danger to Pakistan is from within and not foreign: i.e., he is inciting the Pakistani Army to fight its people and brothers and turn a blind eye to the Indian threat. And if the combat doctrine of any army becomes corrupted, and its fighting turns into fighting for the sake of salary and position alone, then this army will run away from the battlefield whenever fighting breaks out.

And how is it possible for the Pakistani officer or soldier to be persuaded that he is defending Islam when he is the one who enabled the Americans to kill tens of thousands of Muslims in Afghanistan, and enabled them to oust the Islamic Emirate from Kabul? And how is it possible for the Pakistani officer or soldier to be persuaded that he is defending the sanctity of Pakistanis when his commanders order him to kill women and children in his own country? And how is it possible for the Pakistani officer or soldier to be persuaded that he is defending the honor and dignity of Pakistan when he sees his leaders order him to carry out a new slaughter every time they are visited by a high-ranking American official?

The third of these woes is Musharraf"s squandering of the issue of Kashmir and his painstaking effort to dispose of it at any cost. Musharraf is the one who strangled the Jihadi resistance against India, which led it to increase its savagery and draw up the borders.

And Musharraf is the one who made and continues to make one concession after another in the Kashmir issue, even as India hasn"t budged one step from its stance. And Musharraf is the one who seeks to deceive the Muslim Ummah in Pakistan by pretending to them that the problem with India will be resolved with confidence-building measures, in order to neutralize the effort to liberate Kashmir, which is the real problem between Pakistan and India.

And Musharraf is the one who wars against the Arab Mujahideen and their brothers from all corners of the Islamic world, who represent one of the most important weapons in the liberation of Kashmir, in the same way that they contributed before to the liberation of Afghanistan from the Russians.

And Musharraf is the one who brought American military and intelligence forces to Kashmir under the pretext of helping the victims of the earthquake. They came in under this cover and commenced to strengthen their defenses and fortifications in order to establish permanent Crusader bases on the Pakistani-Indian border.

The fourth of these woes is Musharraf"s recognition of Israel, to psychologically prepare the Pakistanis to recognize a Hindu state in Kashmir.

The fifth of these woes is his affront to Pakistani dignity and sovereignty when he gave free reign to American intelligence and investigative agencies in Pakistan, and turned Pakistan"s army and security services into hunting dogs at the service of the Crusaders.

The sixth of these woes is his corruption of political life in Pakistan. Through bribery and election fraud, Musharraf declared himself president and formed a party of bribe-takers and opportunists which he provided with a parliamentary majority, and distributed to them and the rest of his supporters the country"s treasures, which he had seized, even though he is the same one who claimed at the beginning of his rule that he came to combat fiscal corruption in Pakistan.

And the West, which claims to defend democracy, was hostile to Musharraf at the outset of his rule, but later did a U-turn in admiration of him and his treachery, and indeed, today encourages him to stay in power at any means, after he demonstrated his aptitude for killing Muslims.

Musharraf"s real problem is bribery. And Musharraf reckons that his success in procuring wealth will only be achieved by betraying Pakistan and appeasing America and throwing himself at its feet. But he forgets the other half of the reality, which is that America tosses its agents into the rubbish bin when there is no longer any need for them. And were he to look across his western borders, he would see the fate of the Shah bearing witness to that, when they ordered him to leave Iran, and then deprived him of asylum and indeed, even medical treatment, which he only found with his friend the bribe-taker Anwar Sadat.

And in keeping with Musharraf"s worship of wealth and his mad dash for bribes, he tries to persuade the Pakistani people that they must take care of their interests without paying attention to any moral or religious considerations. This is the same logic of drug dealers, white slavery gangs, spies and traitors, and the outcome of this attitude is the loss of this world and the next. Allah the Exalted says, "Satan threatens you with poverty and bids you to immorality, while Allah promises you His forgiveness and bounties, and Allah cares for all and He knows all things." Al-Baqarah 2:268

I address the Pakistani people, to call on them to stand today in the ranks of Islam against the Zionist/Crusader assault on the Islamic Ummah and on Pakistan, and I call on them to strive in earnest to topple this bribe-taking, treacherous criminal, and to back their brothers the Mujahideen in Afghanistan with everything they"ve got until they defeat the plan of the Crusaders and Zionists allied with India.

I also call the Pakistani Army"s attention to the dismal fate which awaits them in this life and the other, for the Pakistan Army has turned into forces aligned under Bush"s cross in his Crusade against Islam and Muslims, just as it has become a tool in the destruction and tearing apart of Pakistan.

Let every soldier and officer in the Pakistani Army know that Allah has threatened anyone who allies himself with the infidels against the Muslims with a painful punishment. Allah the Exalted says, "To the hypocrites give the good tidings that there is for them a grievous chastisement; those who take for friends unbelievers rather than believers: is it honor they seek among them? Nay, all honor is with Allah." Al-Nisa 4:138-139

And let every soldier and officer in the Pakistani Army know that Musharraf is throwing them into the burner of civil war in exchange for the bribes which he took from the Americans, and that he doesn"t care if 10,000 or 20,000 Pakistani troops are killed, as long as his pockets are full of bribes. And let them know that Musharraf has made preparations to flee abroad - where he has his secret accounts - upon the victory of the popular revolution.

For this reason, I call upon every officer and soldier in the Pakistani army to disobey the orders of his commanders to kill Muslims in Pakistan and Afghanistan, or otherwise he will be confronted by the Mujahideen who repelled the British and Russians before. The Truth - Exalted is He - says, "Say to those who have disbelieved, if they cease (from disbelief), their past will be forgiven. But if they return (thereto), then the examples of those (punished) before them have already preceded (as a warning). And fight them until there is no more fitnah (disbelief and polytheism) and the religion will all be for Allah alone (in the whole of the world) But if they cease (worshipping others besides Allah), then certainly, Allah is All-Seer of what they do. And if they turn away, then know that Allah is your Maula (Patron, Lord, Protector and Supporter) - (what) an excellent Maula, and (what) an Excellent Helper." Al-Anfal 8:38-39

And our final prayer is that all praise is due to Allah, Lord of the Worlds, and may Allah send prayers and peace upon our master Muhammad and his family and companions.