In what follows we shed light on how Al-Qaeda perceives matters related to Christians. Are they People of the Book who need to be protected or apostates who need to be combated? Further insight into the Al-Qaeda mindset will be offered in future issues, as reported to us from informed sources.

“All the slaughters committed throughout human history combined are no match for what the Christians and the Jews have inflicted on themselves and on Muslims in the twentieth century alone. Even the people most notorious for their brutality, such as the Tartars, did not cause as much bloodshed as the Christians and the Jews did. They squandered their own funds and those of the Muslims – which in fact belong to God, on promoting blasphemy and debauchery while millions of people died of famine at alarming rates that would be beyond belief if they were to be recorded in a single book.

As for the nationalists, Baathists and Democrats, the decline in faith and the loss of life that they have wreaked on the nation were so tragic to the extent that one’s hair would stand on end. Saddam, Assad, Moubarak, Fahd and the Yemeni Socialist Party have claimed more lives than all those lost in the jihadist wars of this century. The only difference is that the former killed people for the sake of the devil whereas jihadists killed for the sake of justice and the religion of Allah. You should pay heed to the fact that if there were no jihad in a certain country, God would have inflicted upon it so great an anguish and so much blasphemy that all the alleged evils derived from jihad would have paled in comparison.

The abandonment of jihad on the part of the peace movements and their call on the nation to follow suit are among the major reasons that lead Allah to pour his wrath upon the nation, either by pitting subjects against each other or by emboldening the enemies of Allah against us or by other means such as sending killers, natural disasters such as earthquakes and the like.

If a member of the original infidels or apostates happened to fall into our hands and we found no harm in pardoning them especially if it turned out that the pardon would mend their hearts then prompt them to join and follow the believers or at least ward off the evil of their subjects, noting that no apostate can be pardoned unless he/she professes Islam, it is up to us to either spare his life or kill him if his repentance came only after we had become more powerful; I repeat, if that was clear to us and if the benefits of killing the infidels did not exceed those of pardoning them, then that could be an effective means to polarization.

The historical records documenting the Islamic movements that fought at some point against the Jews, the Christians or the infidels are full of parodies that stripped those who targeted certain tyrants or their troops or advocates of the epithet of Islam. The statement of Hassan Al-Banna – may God forgive him and forgive us – which deplored the operations carried out against enemy agents and the tyrant’s aides – some of whom had handed Palestine to the Jews – is no stranger to any of us. “They are neither brothers nor Muslims,” he berated them. Many movements that were close to bearing fruit were stamped down upon by these opinions, which derive from profound ignorance both of religion and the facts.

A further example, in the same context, is what happened in the 1990s when scholars of straw from the Islamic Jama’a in Egypt adopted, prior to the seditious conflicts within the lines and the stances of the Jama’a, religious rulings prohibiting attacks on certain groups, while the military wing was avoiding acts of violence against them for tactical political reasons. Since the earlier releases of the Jama’a as well as the fatwas of its prince Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman – may God set him free from detention – had legitimized and encouraged attacks against those groups, confusion and uncertainty later arose amongst the young Jihadists. As sedition started to gather pace, some leaderships reinforced their positions, criminalizing the targeting of groups who the jihadists had attacked in compliance with sound and authentic fatwas and evidence that authorized such attacks, thus forfeiting the bloodshed of their martyrs, and constituting one factor – among many – for the collapse in the ranks of jihadists.

Therefore, as we once warned you, jihadist brother, not to target groups based on fatwas issued by straw scholars, we should warn you as well not to be reluctant and desist from terminating those who ought to terminated for the mercy of believers and the triumph of religion, in compliance with the hearsay of the ignorant and the infidels. If, however, the targeting of certain groups was deferred in conformity with the vision of the Highest Command or the Field Commands in the regions, this would then fall within their purview depending on the jurisprudence they deem best for jihad activity. But beware of those pedants who propagate that the postponement is on the grounds that such groups may not be targeted”.