Al-Qaeda targets Modi in new video

Indian agencies are trying to ascertain the veracity of a new al-Qaeda video that makes a mention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The video, “From France to Bangladesh: The Dust Will Never Settle Down”, shows al-Qaeda’s Indian subcontinent chief Asim Umar talking of purported attacks on Muslims.

Umar is heard saying in the nine-minute video that there is a war being waged against Muslims “through the World Bank and IMF policies, drone attacks, Charlie Hebdo’s writings, UN charter, official sermons by muftis and Narendra Modi’s utterances.”

A senior official said they are yet to ascertain the video’s veracity. In September, a video showed al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri announcing the setting up of the terror outfit’s Indian subcontinent wing.

The outfit has claimed responsibility for the murder of a blogger, Avijit Roy, in Bangladesh as well as other “blasphemers” there and in Pakistan, the SITE Intelligence Group in the United States said.

Roy, a prominent writer and pro-secularism activist, was hacked to death by two assailants on the streets of Dhaka in February.

Umar claimed that other Bangladeshi bloggers, Oyasiqur Rahman Babu, Rajib Haider and AKM Shafiul Islam, were also killed by al-Qaeda.

Bangladesh has already launched a probe into the involvement of al-Qaeda’s Indian subcontinent unit in these killings. While announcing the new group, Zawahiri had then said that the new outfit “would be good news for Muslims in Burma, Bangladesh and in the Indian states of Assam, Gujarat and J&K where they would be rescued from injustice and oppression.”

“This entity was not established today but is the fruit of a blessed effort of more than two years to gather the Mujahideen in the Indian subcontinent into a single entity,” he had said.