Al-Qaeda warns of “lone wolf” attacks against Israel in 2022

Al-Qaeda publishes a new video, titled Shahed (Witness) — “In light of the frantic acceleration of the traitorous regimes to normalize with the Jews“ which means (Israel) in this video.

It was published on Dec 25. 2021 and praises “lone wolf” attacks against Israelis and warns of more attacks of this kind in 2022.

The video which was published in social media accounts of Al-Qaeda, by Al-Malahem media celebrates what it calls “a storm of individual Jihad” against the “Zionist entity”.

It wants to show opposition to the normalizations of ties with Israel by several Arab countires in 2020–2021.

(Abraham Accord is the officials agreement between the UAE, Israel and US about the normalization of ties between UAE and Isreal which was signed in August 13, 2020. Several countries including Bahran, Sudan and Marroco followed the suite. Recently, Juresalem Post reported that the issue also was discussed between the US and Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country in the world.) .1

Al-Malahem is regarded as the spokesperson media of AQAP and publishes various kindes of propaganda videos of the organization.

The video is 05:54 minutes and features several attacks (lone wolf attacks) against the Israeli security forces and civilians in one month in 2021, after, as the video claims, Israel decided to raise security readiness at all crossings leading into the “occupied territories”.

It quotes Israeli officials and media that these attacks were incited and were not related to any specific organization.

Al-Qaeda and some others call theses attacks “knife uprisisng”, as most of the attackers used knives in thier attacks.

They started in October 20215 and since then have occured every year.

Khalid Batarfi, the leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula talks in this video.

Batarfi praises the attackers and urges more attacks against the Israelies.

He also urges all Palestinians to help lone wolf attackers.

He predicates that these attacks are the beggening of a global Islamic revoultion against the “occupires” and their “puppets”.

Worths mentioning that in the video, AQAP also publishes some Twitter posts supporting the attacks, but people showing support for these attacks, doesn’t mean they support Al-Qaeda or these attacks were inspired by AQ.

The video ends with a warning that these attacks will contiune in 2022.

The warning reads:

“What terror awaits the occupier in 2022”

Several attacks are featured in this video.

I personaly have not researched about lone wolf attacks in the Middle East, but will mention the attacks that are featured in this video. I can not verify the claims in this video.

First attack:

17.11.2021

Place: Old city

Attacker: Umar Abu Asb — Killed

Weapon: Knife

Target: Two Israeli forces

Second attack:

21.11.2021

Place: Jerusalem

Attacker: Shaikh Fadi Abu Shakhidm — Killed

Weapon: Carlo

Target: A number of Israeli settlers and forces — Four of them injured

Third attack:

04.12.2021

Attacker: Muhammad Abu Salima — Killed

Place: Near Amud Gate, Jerusalem

Weapon: Knife

Target: A settler and police forces

Fourth attack reaches run-over operations and targets security checkposts.

Forth attack:

Attacker: Mohammad Nadhal — Killed

06.12.2021

Run-over operations

Place: Jabbarah security check post, Jerusalem

Target: Security forces

Fifth Attack:

16.12.2021

Shooting in Nablus

Attackers: Brothers Umar and Ghaith Jaradat — Killed

Al-Qaeda undirectly acknowledges that it has not any access to the Occupied Territories.

The video is seen again as a sign of decline of Al-Qaeda and its regional branches.

The uprisins and the revolution that Al-Qaeda is talking about, was predicated by Usama Bin Laden, founding leader of the organization. But, it never happened, as Arab Spring uprisings (early 2021s) did not lead to what Al-Qaeda wanted and after that, the organizaton is on decline.

But, not to forget that according to the propaganda of the terrorist groups, not only Israel, but countires in other parts of the world also face the threat of lone wold attacks, not only by Al-Qaeda, but by ISIS too.

1- https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-689666