[ABC] The atrocities committed by ISIS are so horrific that a high-profile al Qaeda member from America purportedly addressed the group directly in a new al Qaeda publication and told them that if they keep it up, Allah will not grant them paradise in the afterlife.According to an al Qaeda magazine published recently online, the late Adam Gadahn said, "My dear brothers: While no one can deny the considerable strength and prowess of the Islamic State group in military terms, at the same time, the crimes it has committed against Muslims cannot simply be overlooked or forgotten with time, because in Islam there is no statute of limitations. And if these wrongs are not brought to an end and rectified here in this world, then a severe punishment has been promised both for those who committed them as well as those who encouraged, condoned or justified them, even if from behind a computer or mobile phone thousands of miles away.
"Oppression of any kind is wrong, and [there] will be darkness for its perpetrator on the Day of Judgment. The Ummah’s [Muslim community’s] Jihad is not a video game; it is real life, with real consequences, in this world and the next," he continued.
The interview with Gadahn, in which he discusses his California childhood in an unorthodox home and his bizarre journey into al Qaeda, appears to have been conducted last fall. Most of the 80-plus page interview is dedicated to sharp criticism of ISIS.
Gadahn said, "Does anyone think [Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda figures] were calling on them to bring the wrath of the entire world down on Iraq and Syria by attacking and displacing largely powerless and defenseless minorities and slaughtering their men and enslaving their women and children?... Of course not! Frankly, all of us used to be sympathetic to varying degrees towards the Islamic State of Iraq [ISIS] -- despite its mistakes –- when it was seen as a weak and oppressed force valiantly fighting brutal tyrannies. But now that it has become clear that it has – unfortunately – adopted some of the traits, methods and tactics of those same tyrannies, it no longer holds the same place in our hearts that it did once upon a time."
Gadahn's sympathetic words are out of place compared to other parts of the interview, where he celebrated the attacks on Canadian soldiers and the Canadian Parliament, and later described his jubilant reaction to the 9/11 attacks.