Egyptian involved in cross-border attack on Israel portrayed as al Qaeda ‘martyr’

Martyr Banner.JPG

At The Long War Journal, David Barnett summarizes a martyrdom video (first translated by the SITE Intelligence Group) of Khalid Salah Abdul Hadi Jadullah, an Egyptian who took part in a cross-border attack that killed one Israeli on June 18, 2012. Jadullah was a member of the Mujahideen Shura Council in the Environs of Jerusalem (MSC), which dedicated the attack (launched from the Sinai Peninsula) to al Qaeda, saying that it was revenge for the death of Osama bin Laden.

The MSC’s official propaganda arm, the Ibn Taymiyyah Media Center, has released a banner advertising the video online, including on its official Facebook page. The Long War Journal has taken a screen shot of the banner, which can be seen above.

The banner portrays Jadullah as an al Qaeda martyr. In the background above Jadullah’s head on the left is Mohammed Atta, the lead hijacker in the 9/11 attacks. In the background on the right is Anwar al Awlaki, the al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) ideologue who, before he was killed in 2011, was tied to multiple plots and was a prolific al Qaeda propagandist.

A clip of Awlaki is featured in the video. “Martyrdom is like the tree,” Awlaki says. “Fruits grow on it and then, ripen, and then comes the time for reaping those fruits. This happens in specific seasons. This is how Allah’s slaves pass through stages until they reach to a stage where it is time for them to be taken as martyrs.”

In the upper right-hand corner, you can see the al Qaeda flag, which was also heavily featured in Jadullah’s video.

In the bottom right-hand corner, you can see a picture of Ahmed Ashush — the al Qaeda-linked ideologue who has been an ally of Ayman and Mohammed al Zawahiri for more than two decades. Ansar al Sharia Egypt, which is headed by Ashush, reposted the banner for Jadullah’s video on its own Facebook page.

A clip of Ashush is also shown in the video. “Islam doesn’t know common ground with ignorance, not at the beginning of the road, nor in the middle, nor its end. Islam knows only Islam. Islam knows only the pure creed. Islam knows only the full Shariah,” Ashush says, according to SITE’s translation.

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

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