U.S.

Ex-Gitmo Prisoners Boast In New Al Qaeda Video

By Khaled Wassef

January 26, 2009 / 10:54 AM EST / CBS News

Five days after President Barack Obama signed an executive order to close the controversial Guantanamo Bay prison camp in within a year, two Saudis released from the facility in 2007 appeared in an al Qaeda propaganda video, renewing their pledge to attack Western interests and their loyalty to Osama bin Laden.

"We assure our leaders Sheikh Osama Bin Laden, may God protect him, and Dr. Ayman al Zawahiri, that we shall continue to follow the path of jihad," said Abu Sufian al Azdi Saeed al Shihri, a Saudi who was a prisoner at Guantanamo.

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"By God's will, our imprisonment has only made us more resilient and more committed to our principles that we fought jihad and were taken prisoners for," added al Shihri, who's now the deputy leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

Al Shihri also claimed in his lengthy speech that Arab governments had sent interrogators to Guantanamo to extract confessions. He addressed Muslim detainees held in U.S. prisons around the world, reassuring them that they are not forgotten, specifically mentioning the blind Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, Suleiman el Alwan and Walid al Senani.

(CBS)

Another former Guantanamo prisoner, Abu Hareth Mohammed al Oufi (at left), appears at the end of the tape. He threatens Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef Bin Abdel Aziz over the ill treatment of Islamist militants in Saudi prisons and warns against the Kingdom's rehabilitation program, which he attended alongside al Shihri upon their return from Guantanamo.

Aziz also renewed the threat against Western interests in the Arabian Peninsula and specifically in Saudi Arabia, vowing attacks. "We tell the policemen of the Saud family, the guardians of the Jews and the Crusaders, repent to God what you have been doing by guarding the gates of their embassies, their churches, their compounds, and their military and intelligence headquarters."

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The leader of al Qaeda's Arabian branch, Yemeni national Abu Bassir Bin Nasser al Weheishy, also appears on the video to stress the importance of cutting supply lines serving U.S. forces on the peninsula and on the need to attack Westerners and Western interests, "until America stops its support to the Jews."

Al Weheishy also assured Palestinians that al Qaeda was coming to their rescue. "We shall move towards our people in Gaza and Palestine, so rejoice O' people of Jerusalem, the people of the victorious pact are heading your way."

(CBS)

The fourth man appearing on the tape is the group's military chief, Abu Huraira Qassem al Rimi, who was once the link between bin Laden and al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia. Al Rimi slammed Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, for not "supporting Palestinians" with any of the rockets he claimed could reach Tel Aviv during the recent war on Gaza. "Don't our brothers in Gaza deserve that you would support them with one, two or three thousand of those rockets?"

All four men appeared sitting next to one another against an al Qaeda flag with weapons scattered around them. They appeared with their faces unmasked — a clear sign of defiance aimed at the Saudi, Yemeni and U.S. security services who had them men in their grasp for a period of time.

(Malahem)

The 19-minute video also includes footage of a large group of gunmen walking through mountain passes and undergoing training at a desert camp. The group had announced in its online magazine released last Wednesday that it had set up a camp to train militants with the aim of sending them to fight in Palestine.

The tape is entitled "From Here We Begin, In Al Aqsa We Shall Meet," and was produced by Malahem, a newly-established media wing of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.