Al-Qaeda blasts Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood on Rabaa massacre anniversary

The head of al-Qaeda has blasted Egypt's banned Muslim Brotherhood, calling them "chickens" on the anniversary of the Rabaa massacre.

Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri delivered a blistering critic of the Islamic movement in a 12-minute video titled "A brief message to the victorious Muslim nation" released on Sunday by al-Qaeda's propaganda media outlet.

"The Brotherhood has developed itself in the method of a poultry farm, which breeds happy chickens that are pleased with what they are given and ignorant of the thieves and monsters around it," Zawahiri

"During the period between the overthrow of Mubarak and the arrest of Morsi, the Brotherhood failed to take any measures to get rid of state corruption and empower the new government.

"Under sharia law, Morsi was nothing but a secular ruler in a secular state. There was no difference between him and Mubarak as they both agreed to surrender to Israel and cooperate with the United States."

The al-Qaeda leader also traced the Brotherhood's errors back to its spiritual founder, Hassan al-Banna, claiming he allied with the military regime of Gamal Abdel Nasser and allowed for a non-Islamic constitution.

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The message from Osama bin Laden's successor coincided with the third anniversary of the bloody crackdown that left over 1,000 Brotherhood supporters dead after security forces opened fire to disperse two large sit-ins in Cairo.

The demonstrators had been protesting the removal of president and Brotherhood leader Mohammad Morsi on July 3, 2013 in a military coup led by current President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who was the defence minister at the time.

The United Nations has called for a full investigation into one of the world's largest killings of demonstrators in a single day in recent history.

Extremists have long been critical of the Brotherhood and other Islamists who do not adopt their methodology for "waging jihad."

In April, the Islamic State group's online magazine, Dabiq, branded the Muslim Brotherhood as "apostates" and "a devastating cancer" that "emerged, mutated, and spread, attempting to drown the entire Ummah in apostasy".

The militants also claimed that the Brotherhood had issued statements in support of Iran and preached "Islamic unity" between Shia and Sunni sects of Islam.