Al Qaeda chief Ayman Al Zawahiri has called on Muslims to kidnap Westerners, particularly Americans, who could then be exchanged for jailed Islamist militants including a blind Egyptian cleric convicted in 1995 of conspiring to attack the United Nations and other New York landmarks.

In a wide ranging audio interview, the Al Qaeda leader expressed solidarity with the Muslim Brotherhood which is facing a violent crackdown by the army-backed government in Egypt and urged unity among rebels in their fight against Syrian President Bashar Al Assad.

“I ask Allah the Glorious to help us set free Dr. Omar Abdel Rahman and the rest of the captive Muslims, and I ask Allah to help us capture from among the Americans and the Westerners to enable us to exchange them for our captives,” said Mr Zawahiri, according to the SITE website monitoring service.

Mr Abdel Rahman is serving a life term in the United States for a 1993 attack on New York’s World Trade Center.

Mr Zawahiri also urged “jihad and overthrowing the criminal al-Assad regime” in Syria and renewed his call to end infighting among Islamist militants that increased this year, pitting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) against rival rebels including other hardline Islamists.

“The Ummah (Muslim world) must support this jihad with all that it can, and the mujahideen (Islamist militants) must unite around the word of Tawhid (unity),” said Mr Zawahiri, an Egyptian-born doctor.

* Reuters