Obama. Enemy of Muslims?
Photo: AP
Zawahiri: Obama is house negro
Photo: AFP
Experts: Al-Qaeda launched propaganda campaign against Obama
Washington Post says global terror group's leaders scrambling to convince faithful that new US president and Bush are essentially the same. Expert says 'leadership of al-Qaeda very concerned about wide support Obama receiving from Arab and Muslim countries'
WASHINGTON – "The stream of verbal tirades unleashed by al-Qaeda against Barack Obama soon after the November elections in the US is part of what terrorism experts believe is a deliberate, even desperate, propaganda campaign against a president who appears to have gotten under the terror group's skin," The Washington Post reported on Sunday.
According to the American daily, the departure of George W. Bush deprived al-Qaeda of a "polarizing American leader who reliably drove recruits and donations to the terrorist group."
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Al-Qaeda's No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri referred to Obama as "a house Negro," and other terror group figures have called him a "hypocrite," a "killer" of innocents, an "enemy of Muslims," The Post reported, adding that the US president was even blamed for the Israeli military offensive in Gaza, which began and ended before he took office.
"He kills your brothers and sisters in Gaza mercilessly and without affection," The Post quoted an al-Qaeda spokesman as saying in an Internet video this month.
The newspaper quoted experts as saying that with Obama, al-Qaeda faces "an entirely new challenge: A US president who campaigned to end the Iraq war and to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and who polls show is well liked throughout the Muslim world."
On Friday, The Post reported, the new administration signaled that it intends to continue "at least one of Bush's controversial counterterrorism policies" by allowing CIA missile strikes on alleged terrorist hideouts in Pakistan's autonomous tribal region.
"But for now," the daily said, "the change in Washington appears to have rattled al-Qaeda's leaders, some of whom are scrambling to convince the faithful that Obama and Bush are essentially the same."
'Bush was perfect foil'
Paul Pillar, a former CIA counterterrorism official who lectures on national security at Georgetown University, told the newspaper that "they're highly uncertain about what they're getting in this new adversary. For al-Qaeda, as a matter of image and tone, George W. Bush had been a near-perfect foil."
According to The Post, al-Qaeda's "rhetorical swipes at Obama date to the weeks before the election, when commentators on websites affiliated with the terror group debated which of the two major presidential candidates would be better for the jihadist movement.
"While opinions differed, a consensus view supported Republican Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) as the man most likely to continue Bush administration policies and, it was hoped, drive the United States more deeply into a prolonged guerrilla war," the report said.
The report said that soon after the elections, the attacks turned "personal and insulting".
"Since then," according to The Post, "as Obama has begun moving to reverse controversial Bush administration policies, the verbal attacks have become sharper, more frequent and more clearly aimed at Muslim audiences."
The newspaper said that on Jan. 6, Zawahiri issued a message calling for a global jihad by Muslims to counter Israel's military campaign in Gaza "and then sought to frame the Israeli assault as a 'link in the chain of the crusade against Islam and Muslims,' with then-President-elect Obama at the head of the chain."
According to the post, Zawahiri added "this is Obama, whom the American machine of lies tried to portray as the rescuer who will change the policy of America."
The Post said that just days before Obama's inauguration, al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden "chimed in with a mocking prediction that the new president would founder under the weight of the military and financial burdens he would inherit."
"If he withdraws from the war, it is military defeat," The Post quoted bin Laden as saying in an audiotaped message, "and if he continues it, he drowns in economic crisis. How can it be that (Bush) passed over to him two wars, not one war, and he is unable to continue them? We are on our path to open other fronts, with permission from Allah."
'Al-Qaeda intimidated by Obama'
The newspaper reported that on Friday, a new al-Qaeda salvo attempted to "embarrass" Obama a day after he announced his plans to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay. Appearing on the videotaped message were two men who enlisted in al-Qaeda after being freed from that detention center.
"By Allah, imprisonment only increased our persistence in our principles for which we went out, did jihad for and were imprisoned for," The Post quoted Abu Sufyan al-Azdi al-Shahri, who described himself as a deputy commander for al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula as saying.
Rita Katz, founder of the Site Intelligence Group, a private company that monitors jihadist communications told The Post that the messages show "just how much al-Qaeda is intimidated by Obama."
"The leadership of al-Qaeda is very concerned about the wide support that Obama has been receiving from Arab and Muslim countries," Katz told the newspaper. "To combat this threat, al-Qaeda has embarked on a propaganda campaign against Obama, not only by linking him to the policies of the Bush administration, including the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, but also by accusing him of actions in which he had no part."
Katz continued to say that other jihadist groups appear less threatened, or perhaps more accepting of an American commander who appears more open to peaceful accommodation. According to The Post, a publication known as Al-Samoud, linked to the Taliban in Afghanistan, viewed Obama's election as a welcome sign that Americans are "very much tired from the bitter war" and do not wish to prolong a conflict "ignited by Bush's insanity and his satanic policy."
Pillar, the former CIA official told the newspaper that regardless of how Obama is viewed now by the Muslim world - savior, menace or something in between - the opinions will almost certainly change in the coming months. For Muslim countries, as for the United States, perceptions based on rhetoric and image will soon collide with reality as the policies of the new administration take form, he said.
"Inevitably Obama will make certain decisions that will be unpopular and which the propagandists will quickly castigate," Pillar said. "I expect that the honeymoon will be just as fragile and short as with the American electorate."
