New AQAP video titled “A Talk About the Events.” Source: YouTube.

A new video released on Aug. 12 by the al-Malahim Media Foundation, the media wing of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), features the terrorist organization’s chief ideologue and theologian, Ibrahim al Rubaish, commenting on a variety of current events. In the video, entitled “A Talk About the Events,” Rubaish discusses recent mujahideen victories in Iraq, the prisoner swap in which the Afghan Taliban released American soldier Bowe Bergdahl, and the latest round of fighting between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Reminding viewers of the need to stay stay abreast of current events in the Muslim world, Rubaish prefaces his discussion by emphasizing that “the brotherhood among the believers is stronger than the ties of kinship.” He explains that the Muslim nation is “as one house: its success and failure affects the entire family.”

After that introduction, Rubaish then turns to recent developments in Iraq. He congratulates the mujahideen as well as the entire Muslim community “for the victories achieved by our brothers in Iraq,” without explicitly mentioning the Islamic State by name. Rubaish notes that these military victories are a “grace from Allah” and stresses the importance of giving thanks for such blessings.

Rubaish shows a keen awareness of the fact that the dust has not yet settled on the Iraqi battlefields, however. He calls on all Muslims to pray to Allah “to make the victory completed” and to rid their community of those who wish to “turn our victory into defeat.” He beseeches the Sunni mujahideen to stop all infighting and to battle for the implementation of Islamic law as a united front.

Wrapping up his analysis of Iraqi developments, Rubaish suggests that if the Sunnis of Yemen follow the lead of their coreligionists in Iraq and act as “one hand,” they could recreate the victories of Iraq and repel the Houthi advance on Sana’a.

Rubaish’s comments on Iraq are in line with his previous pronouncements on the subject, which appear to be equivocal by design. In a video released last month called “Responsibility of the Word,” Rubaish and Harith bin Ghazi al Nadhari, another AQAP ideologue, condemned the vicious infighting between the Islamic State and its rivals in Syria without mentioning specific events or parties. Nevertheless, their messages were quickly trumpeted on Twitter at that time by rivals of the Islamic State in the al Nusrah Front while they were condemned by another AQAP ideologue supportive of the Islamic State.

Turning to the release of US soldier Bowe Bergdahl, Rubaish congratulates the Muslim community for the success of the deal which released five Taliban commanders. In his exaltation, Rubaish exclaims, “Who would have ever though that the American pride would break in front of the demands of the mujahideen!”

Rubaish next addresses the recent fighting between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, explaining that the Saudis hired Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al Sisi to tighten the siege on Gaza and close the border crossings during the Israeli operation. Rubaish continues with a long rant excoriating Muslim “traitors” who aid or facilitate Israeli operations against Hamas. At one point, he likens Israel to a chair held up by legs representing Arab traitors. “If the legs break,” he says, “or one of them, the chair would fall, Allah permitting.”

At the conclusion of his 11-minute video, Rubaish comments on the July 4 AQAP attack on the Wadia border crossing between Saudi Arabia and Yemen that spilled into the Saudi town of Sharurah. He notes that Saudi authorities did not negotiate at all for the soldiers kidnapped by AQAP during the attack who were subsequently killed. He accuses the Saudi Ministry of Interior of exploiting its soldiers to do its bidding and then deluding their families after their deaths by calling them “martyrs.”

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