DHAKA: Bangladesh Nationalsit Party (BNP) has clarified that it has no connection whatsoever with the purported audiovisual message from al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri.
 
Acting secretary general of BNP Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir conveyed the party`s stand at a press conference on Monday.
 
Mirza Fakhrul said that it’s unbelievable that al-Qaeda chief Ayman-al-Zawahiri visited Bangladesh thrice but no media or intelligence agencies got wind of it.
 
Earlier on Saturday, an audiovisual message al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri against the backdrop of a map of Bangladesh surfaced on the internet.
 
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,’ features in a 29-minute video allegedly produced by al-Qaeda`s as-Sahab Media Foundation, and was released with and without English subtitles. It was first posted on jihadi forums on January 14, 2014.

BDST: 1240  HRS, FEB 17, 2014