Dubai: A Saudi suicide bomber with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) called on fellow Saudis to wage jihad and expressed hope that the group would expand into Saudi Arabia and “expel the disbelievers from the Arabian Peninsula”, the Site monitoring service said.
It said the man, identified as Abu Hajer Al Jazrawi, had carried out a suicide bombing in August in Syria’s Raqqa, a bastion of Isil. The video was posted on an Isil internet feed late on Wednesday.
Addressing his countrymen in an apparent call for attacks not only on the ruling family and Westerners in Saudi Arabia, but also on the kingdom’s senior Muslim clergy who have denounced Isil, Al Jazrawi said: “It is time to say ‘we will expel the disbelievers from the Arabian Peninsula’. The fire begins with a small spark. That spark will ignite an explosive fire directed at the Saud family and to their rabbis and priests.”
He called on self-declared caliph Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi to lead the advance on the birthplace of Islam.
Saudi Arabia’s top clerical council, the only body in the country authorised to issue fatwas or Islamic legal opinions, declared on Wednesday that “terrorism is a heinous crime”, in the most comprehensive attack the kingdom’s conservative clergy have made so far on Islamic radicalism and Isil.
The US is seeking the help of Arab countries in combating Isil, which is accused of civilian massacres and has posted videos of the beheading of two US journalists and a British aid worker as well as Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers.
The US has been carrying out air strikes against the group in Iraq.
Riyadh has joined other Arab states in a pledge to combat militant ideology, as part of a strategy to counter Isil that has seized swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria.
Dozens of people have been sentenced to long jail terms over the past month for security offences connected to militant attacks in the kingdom over the last decade, and for attempting to join conflicts in foreign countries.
In February, King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz decreed prison terms for people giving support to extremist organisations or going overseas to fight, following concerns that young Saudis with militant groups in Syria, Iraq and Yemen may eventually target their homeland.
