Dubai/New Delhi: With al Qaeda praising the Omani co-pilot for his attempt to crash the flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv on Wednesday and calling for similar attacks, flags have been raised in India.
Air India has announced plans to resume direct flights to Israel from December and these will have to be closely monitored, officials said.
“While adequate measures are already in place, attention will have to paid to rostering on flights bound to destinations like the US and Israel,” an official said.
The al Qaeda has reportedly called for copycat attacks targeting flights carrying Americans and Israelis airliners. It has also invoked the September 11 attacks on the US.
The call appeared in the latest edition of al-Bayan, a weekly publication launched in July by supporters of al Qaeda, according to the New York Post.
“The war isn’t over yet – planes carrying Zionists, Americans and all the other infidels fighting against Islam are still hovering in the skies and can be targeted, as happened on September 11th and 30th,” the Arabic-language publication’s article threatened.
“America and the Zionists have far more enemies today than before,” it said. “Perhaps a man who does not believe in God will target them and his operation will ultimately benefit Islam,” the NYP report quoted the latest edition of al-Bayan as saying.
“The day will come when the empire of evil America will end,” the publication added.
The post was being circulated on al Qaeda-linked Telegram channels on Saturday before it was apparently taken down.
The development comes after a series of posts reportedly linked to al-Qaeda leaders appeared on the social media accounts of the Omani co-pilot Hamam al-Hammami of the flydubai Flight FZ1073.
One of the posts, according to CNN, featured clips from inside the cockpit, with footage appearing to zoom in on nearby Israeli aircraft. It then showed photographs of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the al Qaeda chief who succeeded Osama bin Laden and was killed in 2022.
The video also featured Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, who was responsible for a 2009 suicide bombing that killed nine people, including seven CIA officers and contractors. Al-Balawi was loyal to al Qaeda, the report added.
A second LinkedIn post reportedly showed an AI-generated image of Islam’s three holiest sites — Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem — connected by a continuous glowing trail, as reported by Hindustan Times.
