Al-Qaida: The struggle needs wives willing to let their men go to heaven

Al-Qaida in Afghanistan needs electrical engineers, medical doctors, Islamic scholars and, in particular, understanding wives, announced the movement's commander in a new audio message Thursday.

Mustafa Abu al-Yazeed, the self-proclaimed leader of the movement's Afghan branch, gave a 45-minute recruitment speech in a tape entitled, "They've lied, now comes the combat," that appeared on militant Islamist Web sites, and slammed Arab leaders for being traitors.

He urged scholars, doctors and electrical engineers to join the Mujahideen in their fight "because the combat needs all expertise and efforts." Abu al-Yazeed also called on the parents to allow their sons to fight.

He also went out of his way to address Muslim wives and admonished them "not to be an obstacle between your husbands and paradise, because the virtuous woman who loves her husband desires her husband to escape hell and go to heaven."

For those who do succeed in becoming martyrs, he cited the familiar Quranic verses promising a reward of over 70 virgins in paradise.

The authenticity of the audio message, which appeared with a still photograph of the bearded Abu al-Yazeed dressed in a white robe, turban and black vest, could not be independently verified, but it bore the logo of al-Sahab, al-Qaida's media wing.

The message appeared on a militant Web site that has carried messages from al-Qaida and allied groups in the past.

Abu al-Yazeed began his message by lashing out at Arab leaders for supporting the foreign forces in the Arab countries, saying that they were "more evil" for Muslims than the Crusaders and the Jews.

In late May, Abu al-Yazeed announced that he had been named the new al-Qaida leader in Afghanistan in a video message aired by the Arab satellite news channel Al-Jazeera. In his last statement, he praised Abu Laith al-Libi, a top al-Qaida strategist in Afghanistan, killed in January by a U.S. missile strike in Pakistan, and vowed to avenge his death.