GCIS INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING: Al Qaeda tape encourages Muslims to replace fallen leaders with Sharia Law

ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center

SOURCE: ABC News

02March2011 8:12amEST

GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE:  A new audio message released by a former Guantanamo Bay detainee calls for the uprisings in the Middle East to continue until Islamic states are established.

The 10-minute audio message, newly released on the web but recorded after the Tunisian government fell in January, is the first major communiqué from al Qaeda recorded after the tumult in the Middle East began, and has been seen by some analysts as the terror group's attempt to stay relevant.

The message, purportedly from Saudi national Ibrahim Sulayman al Robaysh, an al Qaeda operative released from Guantanamo in 2006, warns Tunisians that the removal of long-time president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali was laudable, but likely to result in another "tyrant" taking his place if Tunisians don't create a state based on Islamic law, or sharia.

"I am happy, like the others, that this tyrant has fallen," al Robaysh said. "But I don't think that these events will be beneficial to the plight of Muslims. For it could be that they have replaced a horrible situation with a not so bad one. Or replaced one tyrant with another." (read full report)

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