Al-Qaida’s Ayman al-Zawahri has called Britain’s Queen Elizabeth “one of the severest enemies of Islam” in a video message after July’s deadly bombings in London, the Sunday Times of London reported.
The paper said the reference to the queen was part of a videotaped statement released in September after the July 7 suicide bombing attacks in which al-Qaida’s number two praises the bombings and denounces the queen.
The statement has prompted intelligence officers to alert Buckingham Palace that the queen had become a specific target of al-Qaida, said the paper.
The Sunday Times quoted a senior civil servant as saying Britain’s MI5 security service was aware that there were some parts of the video which had not been aired.
“They are aware of the bit of Zawahri talking about the queen and they have notified the relevant authorities,” the paper quotes a senior official as saying.
The Foreign Office and Buckingham Palace declined to comment.
In the 27-minute video, which the Sunday Times said it had obtained, Zawahri targets Queen Elizabeth as ultimately responsible for Britain’s “crusader laws” and calls her an enemy of Muslims.
The paper also said Zawahri had warned British Islamic leaders who “work for the pleasure of Elizabeth, the head of the Church of England.”
Al Jazeera satellite television had shown the video of Mohammad Sidique Khan, the suspected ringleader of the July 7 bombings who was killed in the blasts, and Zawahri in separate segments which the network described as a claim of responsibility from al-Qaida for the blasts on London’s transport system which killed 52 people.
The tape also showed Khan warning of more strikes.
