Al-Qaeda warns Saudi crown prince over ‘sin’

DUBAI: Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has warned Saudi Arabia’s reformist Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over his “sinful projects”, in a bulletin released Friday. “The new era of Bin Salman replaced mosques with movie theatres,” the Yemen-based jihadist group said in its Madad news bulletin, picked up by the SITE Intelligence Group.

In its statement, the group slammed April’s WWE Royal Rumble event in the Saudi coastal city of Jeddah. “(Foreign) disbelieving wrestlers exposed their privates and on most of them was the sign of the cross, in front of a mixed gathering of young Muslim men and women,” it said.

“The corruptors did not stop at that, for every night musical concerts are being announced, as well as movies and circus shows,” SITE quoted it as saying. AQAP in southern Yemen is the target of a long-running drone campaign by the United States, which regards it as the most dangerous branch of the extremist group. Yemen’s conflict has left nearly 10,000 people dead, tens of thousands wounded, and millions on the brink of famine.