Al-Qaeda leader says to fight in Syria

An Islamic website has posted a video of Abu Yahya al-Libi, al-Qaeda's second-in-command, where he called on Libyan Islamist militants outside Syria to join the uprising against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. The US states that al-Libi was killed in a drone attack in Pakistan last week, but the website did not mention when the video was recorded. It was not clear whether the publication on Tuesday, was an attempt to show that al-Libi survived the attack. He did not refer to the American report in his video, which only showed the Hijri (Islamic calendar) year 1433. The website had said three days ago that a message by al-Libi will be published soon.  The US government described the death of al-Libi, who escaped previous attacks, as a serious blow to the group as he had played a key role in establishing links with potential recruits. Al-Libi, a cleric whose real name is Mohammed Hassan Qaed, escaped from US detention in Afghanistan in 2005, and on a previous occasion it was reported that he was killed in a US drone attack. The militant leader in the video slammed the United States and the West, saying "they do not have good intentions towards Syria".