Asim Umar, head of al-Qaeda's India unit: All you need to know

NEW DELHI: In an alarming development, al-Qaeda has established a new branch to wage jihad in India, revive its caliphate and impose sharia in the Indian sub-continent, US media and intelligence agencies said today.

The creation of the group called "Qaedat al-Jihad in the Indian Subcontinent" was announced in a video by the groups's leader Ayman al Zawahiri and posted on As Sahab, al-Qaeda's official media outlet.

Zawahiri said the group would recognize the overarching leadership of the Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar and be led day-to-day by senior Pakistani militant Asim Umar.

The group would report to top Taliban leader Mullah Omar. The 55-minute video begins with stock footage of the late bin Laden giving a sermon, before cutting to a satellite map of southwest Asia, the Middle East, the Indian sub-continent and the Horn of Africa.

Then it cuts to a white-bearded Zawahiri, in a white turban and glasses, against the backdrop of a brown floral curtain and desk with hardback books and a tin holding ballpoint pens and prayer beads.

Umar also speaks in the video in Urdu rather than the Egyptian doctor Zawahiri's native Arabic -- along with a new group spokesman identified as Usama Mahmoud.

The Pakistani speakers are not shown in person, and their recordings appear as a voiceover accompanying a map of India, Arabic subtitles and Islamic iconography.

In it, Zawahiri singles out Assam, Gujarat and Kashmir -- states in India along with Bangladesh and Myanmar, as territories targeted by the new organization.

In the video, Zawahiri said the group was years in the making.

Al-Qaeda, which was founded by Osama bin Laden who was killed in Pakistan by US commandos in May 2011, has long claimed leadership of the jihadists fighting to restore a single caliphate.

In July 2013, al-Qaeda in another video had urged the Indian Muslims to join global jihad.