DHAKA: An audio message on Bangladesh issues with a background picture of al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri and map of Bangladesh spread out on internet Saturday.

The audio message was first found in a website named ‘Jihad-logy’ and later spread out in YouTube. But, it was not confirmed who recorded the audio message.

The speech, titled, ‘Bangladesh: Massacre behind a wall of silence,’ came in a 29-minute video produced by al-Qaeda`s as-Sahab Media Foundation, and was released with and without English subtitles. It was posted on jihadi forums on January 14, 2014.

This is the second time Zawahiri has addressed the issue of Muslims in Bangladesh, the first coming in his speech for the twelfth anniversary of 9/11, which was released on September 12, 2013.

In the latest speech, Zawahiri framed the massacre of Muslims in Bangladesh as an episode in a series of attacks on the religion in the Indian subcontinent and the region in general.

Further, Zawahiri claimed that the events in Bangladesh, and Burma, as well, show the conclusion of the Arab and Western media with the political leadership of the West, India, and the ‘enemies of Islam generally,’ and demonstrate the failure of the Western concept of freedom and democracy.

al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri took the charge after the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011.

BDST: 1915 HRS, FEB 15, 2014