Al Qaeda leader urges Muslims to use sharia to resolve disputes

PanARMENIAN.Net - Al Qaeda's leader has rejected the notion of nation states and any United Nations role in arbitrating solutions to conflict - long the pillars of international order - in a document outlining how Muslims should run their affairs, according to Reuters.

The statement by Ayman al-Zawahri, entitled "Supporting Islam" and posted by the jihadi militants' publishing arm on an Islamist website, also calls for the re-establishment of the medieval Islamic Caliphate to unite Muslims.

Zawahri urged Muslims to use sharia (Islamic law) to resolve disputes and "refuse judgment by any other principles, beliefs and laws", including the United Nations.

The world body, he said, was controlled by the five permanent members of its Security Council - big powers the United States, China, Russia, Britain and France.

Zawahri called on Muslims to work to set up a caliphate that "does not recognize nation state, national links or the borders imposed by the occupiers, but establishes a rightly guided caliphate following in the footsteps of the Prophet Mohammad.

"These are the objectives of the Document of Supporting Islam, and we call on all those who believe in them to call for them, support them and try to spread them in every way possible among the people of the nation," he said.

Zawahri also urged Muslims to work together to liberate what he called Muslim lands from occupiers, rejecting any deal that gives what he called infidels the right to control Muslim lands - an apparent reference to Egypt's 1979 peace deal with Israel.