Curiouser and curiouser

Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) released a statement in which they claim credit for the murder of several Bangladeshis and Pakistanis.

Asim Umar, the Indian-born head of al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, has claimed responsibility for a string of attacks that killed several secular writers and intellectuals in Bangladesh and Pakistan, including Avijit Roy who was hacked to death on a Dhaka street in February.

“Like the companions of the Prophet who defended him with their lives,” Umar said in a statement that was released online over the weekend, “the mujahideen of al-Qaeda have despatched to hell many who blasphemed against God, and insulted the Prophet.”

In addition to Roy, Umar named slain Bangladeshi intellectual Ahmad Rajib Haidar and Rajshahi University scholar AKM Shaiful Islam as victims of al-Qaeda hit squads. His statement also claimed the killing of Karachi University Islamic Studies scholar Shakeel Auj, assassinated last year while on his way to a meeting with Iranian diplomats. Auj had been condemned by Islamist clerics in Karachi for is purportedly blasphemous views.

The statement also mentioned an Urdu blogger Aneeka Naz as a victim. Naz, an academic, was reported killed in a 2012 car traffic accident, in which her husband was injured. Naz is not known to have held contentious political views.

“From Waziristan to Charlie Hebdo, this war is one,” Umar said, “whether it is waged upon us with drones or with Charlie Hebdo’s pen, with the International Monetary Fund or World Bank’s policies, or with the satanic conspiracy of Kerry-Lugar bill, which sought to humiliate the believers, or whether it is waged with the hate-filled words of Narendra Modi, which call for Muslims to be burned live.”

What on earth is the Kerry-Lugar bill doing in this list of grievances?  The people who were most staunchly against the bill and felt "humiliated" by it was the Pakistani Army.  Why would al Qaeda care about it in the least?

As SSridhar wrote on BRF:

The reference to Kerry-Lugar bill by AQIS and claiming it to have 'humiliated the Believers' is a dead giveaway that AQIS and the Pakistani Army have coalesced.

Despite stiff competition from ISIS in Iraq, Pakistan remains the epicenter of global terrorism.