DUBAI - Al-Qaeda's Saudi branch posted its Sawt Al-Jihad online magazine Wednesday after a hiatus of several months, dedicating it to clashes earlier this month between militants and security men in the kingdom.
The 29th edition of the magazine, which runs to more than 40 pages, includes an editorial by Saud al-Otaibi, written before he was killed in the April 3-5 clashes and who is described by the authorities as Al-Qaeda's chief in Saudi Arabia.
In the article, Otaibi denied Saudi authorities had "eliminated jihad (holy war)" in the kingdom and urged "those who could not join the mujahedeen (warriors) in the Arabian peninsula" to make their way "to Iraq or another front for jihad".
They should "target Americans and kill the enemies of God among the crusaders and apostates in the peninsula of the Arabs or elsewhere".
Fifteen suspected Al-Qaeda militants were killed in the three-day gunbattle with Saudi security forces in the Al-Qassim region, a haven for Islamist militants some 320 kilometres (200 miles) north of Riyadh.
The dead also included Abdel Karim al-Mejati, the presumed Moroccan mastermind of the Madrid train bombings in March 2004.
The gunbattle was the bloodiest in a nearly two-year-old campaign by security forces against Islamist militants behind a spate of attacks in the oil-rich Gulf kingdom.
The violence has claimed at least 221 lives, according to an official toll.
04/27/2005 07:53 GMT