The leader of Somali terror-group Al-Shabaab has urged Muslims in east-Africa to rise up against the ‘evil Christians’. In an online statement obtained by MailOnline, Ahmed Omar Abu-Ubeyda told them to ‘migrate to the lands of Jihad’ and seek out battlefields all over the world.
He also welcomed the people of Ethiopia, Djibouti, Uganda and the dangerously unstable Central African Republic to come to Al-Shabaab’s terror training camps.
Ubeyda was appointed the group’s leader in September 2014 after Ahmed Abdi Godane was killed in a U.S. airstrike.
The extremist has made his first public statement since becoming the terror group’s chief in the new report called ‘Eid greetings to the Muslim ummah [community]’.
He justified Al-Shabaab’s cross-border attacks on Kenya in the hate-filled document by saying they were revenge for the ‘oppression and humiliation’ Muslims are facing in his own nation.
Ubeyda continued by urging Muslims all over Africa to join other jihadists on ‘battlefields’ around the world, saying: ‘Liberate your lands from the crusader forces.’
He sickeningly described one of the group’s most bloodthirsty raids on a Kenyan university where hundreds of innocent people were gunned down as ‘blessed’.
And he congratulated the vile gunmen who carried out the attack, saying: ‘Keep up the good work and continue slaying the crusaders and purifying the Muslim lands from their filth.’
‘Indeed, the age in which the disbelievers used to perpetrate their crimes without being held to account has passed.’
To the so-called ‘oppressed Muslims’ in East Africa, Ubeyda says Al-Shabaab will help arm them, adding: ‘Our training camps are ready to receive you’.
And he advised the Muslims in Burma, who are persecuted by their own government, to be ‘patient and stand firm’.
He tells them that joining the global jihad is the only solution to ‘confronting the tyrannical systems of disbelief that have been forcefully imposed upon your necks’.
Finally he accuses the ‘enemies of Allah’ – presumably the West and coalition of African forces fighting the group – of spying on its leaders, corrupting the Muslim youth, imposing embargoes to ‘strangulate the economy of Muslims’ and ‘kindling the flames of war’ between Muslim tribes.
His appointment as the group’s leader reportedly divided Al-Shabaab because the group’s senior commanders wanted another fanatic, Mukhtar Ronow Abu-Mansoor, to lead them.
Earlier this month, sources inside al-Shabaab told MailOnline that Ubeyda was among the senior commanders who wanted to pledge allegiance to ISIS and help the terror group extend its so-called caliphate to east-Africa.
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Since it was created in 2006, the Al-Qaeda-linked group has slaughtered thousands of civilians and soldiers in Somalia and neighbouring Kenya.
In September 2013, it killed 62 and injured 120 more in an armed raid on the Westgate shopping mall in the Kenyan city, Nairobi. The group said the bloody attack was payback for the deployment of Kenyan troops in Somalia.
On April 2, the group carried out its bloodiest attack when it massacred 147 students at a Kenyan university.
Its gunmen held over 700 students hostage, freeing Muslims and executing those it suspected of being Christians.
Last year, it was thought Al-Shabaab commanded over 9,000 fighters, which included at least 50 Britons.
Among them is the ‘White Widow’ Samantha Lewthwaite who commands a terrifying army of up to 200 female jihadis who she has trained to infiltrate governments, carry out suicide attacks, MailOnline learned in May.
Astonishing reports suggest she has masterminded the murders of 400 people – including the senseless slaughter at Garissa University – since becoming a ‘key member’ of the terror group.
Another British-born extremist, Thomas Evans from Buckinghamshire, was one of 11 Al-Shabaab militants who died after attacking a military base in northern Kenya in June. He was known as the ‘White Beast’ because of his brutality.
A combination of U.S. airstrikes and major ground offensives by Somali and Kenyan forces helped drive the extremists out of 20 major towns by the start of 2015 – relegating them to rural areas.
Only last week African Union soldiers exterminated the group from one of its main bases of Bardere, a major agricultural town in Somalia’s south-west.
A Somali army official said: ‘There was no major resistance and the violent elements fled when our troops approached… They have emptied the town.’
The raid was part of a nationwide effort to weaken the group ahead of a two-day visit by U.S. President Barack Obama today.
Al-Shabaab’s decision to leave Al-Qaeda and join ISIS comes at a time when its leaders are being killed in commando and drone strikes, the group is losing territory and its money is running out as a result.
Islamic State urged the east-African terrorists to join forces with them through a propaganda video released in March – urging it to wage war on neighbouring Kenya, Ethiopia and Tanzania.
Al-Shabaab’s senior figures held a secret meeting in the Middle Juba region earlier this month.
A senior commander told MailOnline: ‘It is still an ongoing process to reach a final decision in the next weeks and months… We [the leaders] are now on same boat.
‘I do not want to comment about why [Al-Shabaab] is willing to leave and cut ties with al-Qaeda and its leader Ayman al-Zawihiri.’
‘Islamic State captured Muslim’s attention globally and regionally in terms of leading global Jihad.
‘We share many things with ISIS ideologically and we are ready to help our Muslim brothers and sisters around the globe under a united leadership with one agenda and ideology.
Ubeyda and his deputy Mahad Karate both agreed to join the rapidly-expanding Islamic State at the meeting – and urged their fanatical followers to ditch al-Qaeda too, Garowe Online reported.
In March, ISIS has taken a terrifying stranglehold on Nigeria after another terror group Boko Haram pledged allegiance to the terror group.
Source: Daily Mail
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