Al-Zawahiri Audio-Recording on the War in Somalia

On January 5, 2006, Islamist websites posted a six-minute audio recording by Ayman Al-Zawahiri titled "Rush to the Aid of Your Brothers in Somalia," produced by Al-Qaeda's production company Al-Sahab. In it, Al-Zawahiri calls upon the Muslims to stand firm in Somalia, which he calls a new front "in the Crusader war waged by the U.S. and its allies against Islam and the Muslims."

He tells the Somalis not to be overwhelmed by America's power, since it is now weaker than in the past, and urges them to use the weapon of suicide bombers against America and its "slaves" - a weapon that, he says, has proved its effectiveness in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"The real campaign," he says, "will start with your attacks on the Ethiopian forces - [attacks] in which troops of believers will rush en masse to die for Allah, and will swallow up the Crusader Ethiopian army that is invading and occupying Muslim soil... You must [stage] ambushes and use land mines and martyrdom operations, until you devour them as lions devour their prey."

Al-Zawahiri also calls upon the "Lions of Islam" in Yemen, the Saudi Peninsula, Sudan, Morocco, and all other parts of the world to "rush to the aid of [their] Muslim brothers in Somalia with [their] lives, with money, with good advice, and with [their] expertise, and to vanquish and kill the slaves of America."