"An infidel is an infidel"

MEMRI has published some chilling excerpts from an Al Arabiya TV interview with an al Qaeda veteran of Iraq. The following passage in particular offers insight into the barbarous worldview of the jihadists:

Interviewer: "Did you participate in operations?"

Jawhar: "Yes."

Interviewer: "What kind of operations?"

Jawhar: "Regular things. We used to attack the Americans. We used to carry out operations against the American bases in Iraq. We also used to set ambushes and attack American posts."

[...]

Interviewer: "You say 'against the Americans,' but did you target only the Americans?"

Jawhar: "Everybody was targeted, but the Americans took precedence."

Interviewer: "Who is 'everybody'?"

Jawhar: "Whoever fights against 'there is no god but Allah.' Is there anyone who defends the Americans any better than them? The infidels are one and the same. An infidel is an infidel - whether he is a Palestinian, a Jew, or an Argentinean. The infidels are one and the same, while an American Muslim is a Muslim. So what's the problem? What, an Iraqi who is an apostate and who helps the Americans should be treated like a VIP? He is worse than the Americans."

(Emphasis added-DD)


In other words, anyone who does not accept al Qaeda's murderous, totalitarian version of Islam is an infidel who deserves death.


Jawhar claims to have been the "Emir of Training" in Haditha, in Anbar province. He does a fair amount of bragging about al Qaeda's successes and how they controlled the local area. Al Qaeda may have controlled that area once, but not anymore. Of course, that may explain why Jawhar is now giving TV interviews in Lebanon.