Watch Floor Brief · Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent
On September 10, al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent released a new Urdu publication arguing that America should still come first.
The document, Sab Se Pehle America!, or America First!, is built around two questions: who is the biggest enemy today, and what should be done about it? AQIS answers the first one very clearly. America.
The point is not simply that America is the enemy. AQIS is making the case for why America should remain the priority. It starts with U.S. military power and then broadens the argument to international institutions, governments, education, media, economics and popular culture. AQIS is defining America as more than a country. It is presenting America as the system behind the other enemies it believes Muslims are fighting.
The clearest explanation comes on page 11, where AQIS uses the analogy of a poisonous tree. America is the root and trunk, while political systems, institutions and governments are the branches. Cutting off the branches, it argues, accomplishes little if the root remains. That tells us how AQIS wants its audience thinking about priorities. Local governments and conflicts are parts of a larger system, with America portrayed as the power keeping it alive.
Gaza gives AQIS a current grievance around which to build this older argument. It uses Palestine to reinforce its case against the U.S. and calls on Muslims across multiple countries and regions to participate.
Page 13 may be the most revealing. AQIS places “Nine Eleven” and Tufan al-Aqsa, Hamas’s name in Urdu for its October 7 operation, inside the same broader jihadist history. AQIS does not want its audience thinking about 9/11 and October 7 as separate attacks from different organizations and eras. It is putting them into the same story. That is a connection Western governments still do not fully understand.
It also helps al-Qaeda bridge a 25-year generational gap. September 11 may be history to a young adult today. October 7 is not. Gaza is not. By connecting them, AQIS is telling a younger audience that the fight did not end in 2001.
The second half shifts from explanation to mobilization. Supporters are urged to join jihad, reach active battlefields where possible and participate even if they cannot get to one. At that point, the document is moving into incitement. The timing matters. AQIS released it the day before the 25th anniversary of 9/11. The cover shows the South Tower of the World Trade Center in flames beneath the title America First! and the publication returns to the same imagery at the end.
The publication repackages an earlier ideological argument, but AQIS chose to bring it back now. For al-Qaeda, 9/11 is not simply history. AQIS is not asking a new generation just to remember it. It is telling them what al-Qaeda wants 9/11 to mean.