Mustafa Abu Yazid on As Sahab, al Qaeda’s propaganda arm.

Al Qaeda’s military commander in Afghanistan has threatened India with further attacks if the country attacks Pakistan.

“India should know that it will have to pay a heavy price if it attacks Pakistan,” Mustafa Abu Yazid said in a recently released videotape. “The Mujahideen will sunder your armies into the ground, like they did to the Russians in Afghanistan.”

In the videotape, Yazid referred to the November 2008 terror assault in Mumbai, saying the Indians suffered “humiliation” in the attack and more was in store if India decides to retaliate against Pakistan, the BBC reported.

The 62-hour terror spree in Mumbai resulted in 165 innocent people killed and hundreds more wounded. The Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based terror group allied with al Qaeda and supported by powerful elements within Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence agency and the military, carried out the attack, an Indian intelligence dossier stated. The dossier contained proof of calls made between the Mumbai terrorists and their handlers inside Pakistan as the attacks were ongoing, as well as transcripts of the handlers providing information to the terrorists and ordering them to murder the civilians. The handlers were heard cheering after the murders.

Yazid is al Qaeda’s military commander in Afghanistan and is a senior leader in the organization. He has claimed credit for the December 2007 assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto as she campaigned in Rawalpindi, as well as a suicide attack on the Danish embassy in Islamabad in June 2008.

The Pakistani military claimed Yazid was killed during a battle in the Bajaur tribal agency August 2008, but never provided confirmation. The Pakistanis repeated the claim of Yazid’s death at the end of September 2008.

Today’s BBC report that Yazid has not appeared since the report of his death last summer is incorrect. Since last summer, Yazid has appeared in at least four other al Qaeda propaganda tapes prior to the latest threat against India.

On Sept. 2, 2008, Yazid lionized Abu Gharib al Makki, a senior al Qaeda field commander from Saudi Arabia who was killed during fighting with US forces in Farah province in southwestern Afghanistan.

On Sept. 5, 2008, Yazid appeared on a videotape that praised the suicide bomber who attacked the Danish embassy in Islamabad.

On Sept. 8, 2008, Yazid appeared on al Qaeda’s propaganda tape that was released three days prior to the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. Abdulmalik Droukedel, the leader of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and Ayman al Zawahiri, al Qaeda’s second in command, also appeared on the video.

On Oct. 4, 2008, Yazid appeared on a videotape that featured Adam Gadahn, al Qaeda’s American-born spokesman. Pakistani officials also had claimed Gadahn was killed in a January 2008 airstrike that killed al Qaeda military commander Abu Laith al Libi.

On Nov. 13, 2008, al Qaeda castigated the Pakistani military for claiming Yazid was killed. “It was a cheap publicity shot on behalf of the Pakistani security forces to boast their military successes in Bajaur,” a jihadi told Adnkronos International.

Two months later, and seven months after the Pakistani military began fighting in Bajaur, Pakistan’s adviser to the prime minister on internal Pakistani security issues claimed security forces “succeeded to retake about 98 percent control” of Bajaur. But fighting is still ongoing and the Taliban have begun bombing schools in the region, as they have been doing in Swat, a district that has been under Taliban control for almost two years.

For more information on the poor reliability of Pakistani government, military, and intelligence sources’ claims regarding the death of senior al Qaeda and Taliban leaders, see Pakistan has poor track record reporting deaths of senior terrorist leaders.

Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal.

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