Article In New Issue Of Al-Qaeda Magazine Calls First Year Of Biden Presidency A 'Succession Of Setbacks' For The U.S.

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On February 19, 2022, As-Sahab, Al-Qaeda's official central media outlet, released the sixth issue of its Arabic-language magazine, Ummah Wahidah (One Ummah).[1] The 148-page magazine, which focuses on the August 2021 "manifest victory" of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (the Afghan Taliban), contains a lengthy article titled "America Burns 3: A Year of Biden's Rule and a Succession of Setbacks."

The fifth issue of the Arabic version of the magazine, which was released in April 2021, was also titled "America Burns,"[2] and this was also the title of the editorial which was published in the second issue of the English version, which was released in June 2020.[3]

The cover of Ummah Wahidah 6 depicts late Taliban leader Mullah Omar.

It should be noted that Al-Qaeda has sworn allegiance to Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada and considers him the "Commander of the Believers" with authority over all Muslims worldwide.

The article "America Burns 3: A Year of Biden's Rule and a Succession of Setbacks" spans 15 of the magazine's 148 pages and was written by Muhsin Al-Rumi, which is also the alias of the author of an article in Ummah Wahidah 1 titled "The American Economy toward the Abyss."[4]

The article casts the Biden presidency as the latest episode in the continuing decline of the U.S., focusing on the humiliating U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan as the Taliban took over the country, the polarization of the U.S. and the threat it poses to U.S. democracy, the damage the U.S. has suffered from the COVID-19 pandemic and Biden's perceived failure in handling the pandemic, and an economic crisis in the U.S. involving rising inflation. Al-Rumi criticizes Biden's handling of the above issues, while claiming that Al-Qaeda intentionally chose to target the U.S. on September 11, 2001 in order to cause prolonged economic damage to the U.S. economy.

The first page of the article "America Burns 3: A Year of Biden's Rule and a Succession of Setbacks" shows Trump addressing a crowd of supporters and Biden covering his face in dismay.

Taliban Victory in Afghanistan was a "Devastating Defeat" to the U.S.

Noting that previous articles in the "America Burns" series discussed "America's closeness to the abyss," Al-Rumi adds that "the most optimistic of us did not expect that the collapse would happen with such astonishing speed and on all levels." Discussing the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan and the U.S. withdrawal, the article states that the U.S. suffered a "devastating defeat" when Allah "granted His servants the mujahideen – and at their head the brave Afghan nation and the mujahideen of the Islamic ummah on all fronts – power over the necks of the Americans and the taghouts [literally "false deities," a term used to refer to rulers who govern by manmade law] of the Arabs and the foreigners who supported them." He continues: "Then the citadels of unbelief collapsed, and the pillars of tyranny went up [in smoke], and the Muslims – and all the oppressed on earth – rejoiced."

The article notes that "failed" President Biden promised Americans that the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan would not be like the humiliating exit from Vietnam, but "Allah willed that their flight from Afghanistan would a greater failure and more humiliating, and live on the air." It further claims that even after "the enemies fled to their lairs across the oceans," the number of U.S. casualties continued to increase as a result of "mass suicides," while not even one of the "soldiers of the Merciful One" committed suicide. Al-Rumi writes: "May Allah have mercy on the sheikh [Osama bin Laden], for Kabul has been liberated like he predicted. Soon – Allah willing – Al-Aqsa, Mecca, Medina, Delhi, and other lands of Islam will be liberated."

U.S. Democracy is Collapsing as America Grows Increasingly Divided

The next part of the article, titled "Democracy is Dying," notes that jihadi scholars and clerics defined democracy as "opposing the true shari'a and violating [the teachings] brought by the Wise Revelation [i.e. the Quran], and its consequences are losing this world and the Hereafter." The article celebrates the January 6, 2021 storming of the U.S. Capitol as a sign that American democracy is collapsing: "Praise to Allah! The strongest democracy of the world was unable to protect its democracy from part of its own people whose revolt was led by a former president, who has not accepted Biden's legitimacy until today – neither he nor his supporters – so how can it defend it [i.e. democracy] against its enemies?"

The article notes that even U.S. politicians have warned that democracy is at risk, quoting Biden's statement that American democracy is "fragile." The article also cited "the spiritual father of modern Democrats in America," former President Jimmy Carter, who wrote that America "teeters on the brink of a widening abyss" and is "at genuine risk of civil conflict and losing [its] precious democracy." Al-Rumi writes: "We give Carter the tidings that the civil war has indeed begun. Trump, the Hitler of America, sounded its starting whistle on the day that he ordered his militias to attack the fortress of their democracy on Washington." The article asserts that former President Trump continues to issue threats, such as: "If these radical, vicious racist prosecutors do anything wrong or illegal, I hope we are going to have in this country the biggest protest we have ever had [...] because our country and our elections are corrupt." In addition, the article says that Biden warned at a press conference that if voting reform is not passed, the 2022 midterm elections are not "going to be legit," asking: "Who will guarantee their legitimacy if the greatest authority in the country, the president, casts doubt on their credibility?"

 
The above section of the article shows headlines reporting that voting rights groups boycotted a speech by Biden and that former President Carter warned that America is at risk of "losing our precious democracy."

Quoting figures that two thirds of Republicans who voted for Trump continue to see Biden as illegitimate and believe they have the right to take up arms to protest elections results in which their favored candidate loses, Al-Rumi writes: "So imagine with me the coming attack on Congress, when those who storm it will be armed with automatic weapons and perhaps explosives, rather than batons and American flags." The article also quotes Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who said "there's a very real risk that [America] will not" have a democracy in ten years.

Al-Rumi writes that democracy outside of the U.S. is also "not in the best state," noting that the countries participating in the December 2021 international Summit for Democracy organized by Biden include Iraq, which "sits on the throne of the most corrupt countries in the world and its real rulers are a group of armed militias"; India, which "practices genocide against more than 200 million Muslims whose only crime is that they are Muslims"; and "the pampered child of America's favorite democracies in the world, the rapacious entity, Israel, which Amnesty International recently classified as an apartheid regime."

Pointing out that the first year of Biden's presidency witnessed a "record number" of coups worldwide, in Myanmar, Mali, Tunisia, Sudan, Burkina Faso, and Guinea-Bissau, Al-Rumi sarcastically adds: "Maybe soon, Trump and his favorite general, former American National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, will succeed in their next attempted coup in America."

Al-Rumi writes that the most recent "shock and setback" suffered by democracy was "the victory of Islam and its adherents in Afghanistan over the greatest democracy in the world, America, and its allies in NATO," calling it a harbinger that democracy will "soon end and fall into oblivion like communism fell into oblivion."

In addition, Al-Rumi lashes out at some of those who "ascribe themselves to Islamic activity," such as Rached Ghannouchi of Tunisia's Islamist Ennahda Party, former Moroccan Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane of the Islamist Justice and Development Party, and Yasser Borhamy of Egypt's Salafi Al-Nour Party, who Al-Rumi says continue to insist that "unbelief-based democracy is the way to salvation," asserting: "I think that if these people could ally with Satan to defend democracy and return to the shrine of the polytheistic parliament and ministerial positions in apostate governments, they would do so." Expressing hope that "the sincere ones among Egypt's [Muslim] Brotherhood" have "gained from their bitter experiences" and realized the futility of democracy, he advises them to "exploit the victories of your brothers in Afghanistan and other frontiers of Islamic jihad."

Biden has Failed in His Efforts to Fight COVID

Moving on to discuss Biden's "Catastrophic Failure in Confronting Corona," the article describes COVID-19 as "Allah's hidden soldier" which "continues to gnaw through the exhausted body of the West in general and America specifically." The article rejoices over the damage that the Omicron variant has caused to the U.S., noting that its emergence coincided with the recent December holiday season: "The Lord willed to send this variant against them at the height of their polytheistic holidays, to lessen their depravity and corruption, so most Islamic countries where they practiced their depravity and debauchery at this time of the year in the name of Christmas tourism were closed to their animal-like flocks."

Claiming that Biden's attempts to fight COVID-19 have been a complete failure, the article notes that the number of those who have died from the disease has risen to almost double the number who died during Trump's presidency, and that the number of infected also continues to rise despite the existence of vaccines "whose quick production was due to Trump," despite Biden having made fighting COVID "the focal point of his electoral platform."

Al-Rumi claims that while campaigning, Biden employed "the liberal media, headed by CNN" to attack Trump's response to the virus by highlighting the total number of those who had contracted COVID-19 and the number of those who had died from the disease, but adds that since Biden has become president, CNN rarely shows such figures. The article further asserts that the media offsets negative news about Biden with negative reporting on Trump, claiming that this shows that "the failed president and his trembling camp are afraid that Trump and his riffraff will return to power in the 2022 midterm elections and the 2024 elections to complete the project of destroying America." Al-Rumi claims that Biden and his supporters will do anything to prevent Trump's return to the presidency, including "putting Trump in prison on charges of insurrection, and if that accusation does not succeed, then on charges of dereliction or on charges of destroying evidence in the White House bathroom!"

U.S. Economy Has Declined under Biden, Al-Qaeda Caused $14 Trillion in Damage to the U.S. Economy

Al-Rumi writes that although Biden promised the American people that his presidency would be "the era of the poor, the workers, and the middle class" and that he would "take from the rich to give to the poor," it has become clear after a year that those were "lying campaign promises." Al-Rumi claims that the "trillions" of dollars that Biden had printed to fight COVID and boost the economy have all gone into the pockets of the rich, while middle class and poor Americans have lost their savings, since inflation "has risen to record heights." Noting that gasoline prices have also risen during Biden's term, Al-Rumi claims that when Trump was president and gasoline prices rose, "it was enough for him to pick up the telephone for the petrol stores in the [Persian] Gulf to accede to his requests to increase production to preserve prices" but "the old man, Biden, has met with great recalcitrance from the boy rulers of the Gulf." Asserting that America's loss of prestige among the Gulf States is due to America's failure to prevent the Taliban's rise to power, Al-Rumi writes that "the victory of the mujahideen has weakened America's status, even in the eyes of its collaborators."

Returning to the topic of Biden's response to COVID-19, the article notes that repeated lockdowns have caused many small businesses to declare bankruptcy, which has helped the "giants of internet trade" to make tremendous profits, claiming this "contradicts Biden's empty slogans that he would be the president of the poor and the racial minorities, not of the rich." Al-Rumi further claims that the 2021 holiday celebrations were "the worst in American history" since millions of Americans were unable to afford holiday gifts, while those who could afford holiday presents "could not find anything to buy, as the shelves in the stores were empty" due to the Biden administration's failure to "solve the problem of imports."

The article claims that more than two thirds of Americans believe that "Biden is not capable of handling the crises from which America suffers" and cites figures that only 38% of Americans – the lowest in the course of a century – are satisfied with the current state of the country, commenting that these statistics show "the magnitude of the existential crisis which America is experiencing" and that "the prevailing feeling among this misguided nation is a sense of frustration, decline, and division."

The above section of the article shows poll results indicating that only 38% of Americans are satisfied with the state of the country.

Al-Rumi adds that "one of the indicators of the imminent collapse of the American economy and the beginning of a comprehensive global economic crisis is the mad increase of the American national debt," which has reached alarming, record heights, asserting that: "Corona has come to complete the mujahideen's work of destroying the capitalist economy in general and the American economy specifically."

Al-Rumi estimates the damage caused to the U.S. economy by the mujahideen over the past two decades as more than $14 trillion. The 9/11 "blessed raids" caused "hundreds of billions of dollars in direct losses" and "almost $3 trillion in indirect losses"; the "security war on terror" costs the U.S. government more than $250 billion annually, amounting to $5 trillion over the past two decades; the war in Iraq cost more than $4 trillion; and the war in Afghanistan cost more than $2 trillion.

Al-Rumi celebrates these losses to the U.S. economy: "O Allah, praise and thanks to You that You directed Your servants the mujahideen to this strategy of confronting the head of global unbelief and gave them success in a preemptive strike that shook its foundations." He continues: "May Allah have mercy on Sheikh Osama bin Laden and his brothers who chose the difficult path, but – by Allah's grace – it was the beneficial path toward the victories and conquests which the ummah has achieved and will achieve, which began with the conquest of Kabul and will not stop – Allah willing – until the liberation of Jerusalem and other Islamic lands are liberated."

The article ends by quoting from a letter which Osama bin Laden purportedly wrote at the time of former President Barack Obama's 2010 visit to Afghanistan, in which the Al-Qaeda leader wrote that he had prepared two groups of operatives in Afghanistan and Pakistan to target Obama or General David Petraeus during their visit. Bin Laden warned not to target then-Vice President Biden, since "Obama is the head of unbelief and his killing will cause Biden to automatically assume the presidency of America for the rest of his term […] while Biden is not at all suitable for this position, which will put America in crisis."