Al-Qaeda No. 2 urged Arabs to take up arms against Assad

Abu Yahya al-Libi, killed last week by a US drone strike, had released a video calling for a violent overthrow of Syria’s president

CAIRO (AP) — Before he was killed in a U.S. drone strike last week, al-Qaeda’s second-in-command urged Arabs to take up arms to assist Syrian rebels in their uprising against President Bashar Assad.

The call came in a nearly 15-minute-long video message by Abu Yahya al-Libi. It was released Tuesday, but a jihadist website said it was produced in November. Al-Libi was killed last week in North Waziristan, Pakistan.

According to the SITE monitoring group, al-Libi called on Syrians to abandon any “illusions of peacefulness” and fight Assad and what he called US conspiracies against the revolution.

Al-Qaeda has tried to capitalize on the Arab Spring uprisings that swept the region. The Syrian revolt, which activists say has claimed more than 13,000 lives, is a popular topic on jihadist online forums.